President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal last Wednesday that immediately after he was elected president in 2000, China hoped that the opposition parties could be successful in their demands that he be recalled, but that such hopes were not supported by the public.
After Chen won re-election in 2004, China continued to hope that the opposition parties would be able to alter the election outcome -- but again, in vain. Now, China has launched a "soft decapitation strike" by joining hands with Taiwan's opposition parties to vilify the Taiwanese government and president. Chen added that China had had to wait from 2000 to 2004, and now it would have to wait until 2008.
The common goal of Beijing and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is to cooperate in the hope that the KMT will regain its hold on power in the 2008 presidential election.
No matter how many goodwill gestures Chen has offered since the transfer of power in 2000, China has remained unwilling to enter into negotiations with Taiwan.
As such, the chief cause of cross-strait tension has been China's resistance to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP); therefore, China is the troublemaker, not Taiwan.
Many people are confused over why China refuses to have contact with Chen and tries to castrate his government while flirting with the KMT.
Recently, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the KMT held a joint economic and trade forum in Beijing, which was in fact part of the "united-front" strategy to promote unification through commerce.
The pan-blue camp's behavior is just as bad. On the domestic front, it incessantly blocks the government's administrative proposals, national infrastructure projects and the arms procurement package.
Instead of safeguarding national security and public interests, the KMT openly colludes with China and its officials are eager to pay tribute to it.
Thus, Chen described this common goal between China and the KMT as "joining hands in the hope that the KMT will regain power in 2008." Chen's argument is a reasonable conclusion.
In fact, the transfer of power in 2000 marked a political milestone in Taiwan's development toward localization, democratization and normal statehood. The fact that a local party took power shows that mainstream public opinion supports the development of Taiwanese consciousness.
Over the six years since that transition, the government has made progress toward the goals of changing the national title and creating a new constitution.
Although progress has not been completely satisfactory, since Taiwan is still labeled the "Republic of China," Taiwan's historical development has started to move toward realizing these goals.
Of concern, though, is that this local Taiwanese political party has come under fire of late, with the pan-blue camp teaming up with certain newspapers and so-called media "personalities" to trump up accusations and subject the government to mass public interrogations reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution.
These accusations hang on a thread of truth padded out with untruths: Their basis may well be undeniable, but a whole wealth of lies has been constructed on top of all this, and after these have all been manipulated to death, they are about as grounded in reality as the fantastical stories of Scheherazade.
The pan-blue flag-bearers go about all this with total disregard for the importance of evidence and total lack of faith in the judicial system, choosing instead to place themselves in the roles of prosecutor and judge.
They slander and attack their political opponents without mercy. Together with the help of certain elements in the media, and with the daily scandals exposed by TV and radio personalities, they present Taiwan as a place which, in a short space of time, has become riddled with corruption; a place where the skies are full of black clouds.
As a result the DPP's public approval rating has sunk to an all-time low, and their prospects of winning a third term in the 2008 presidential elections are looking pretty gloomy.
If the DPP doesn't play its cards right now, it might see power wrested away in 2008, with the pro-China political powers regaining their hold on the reins of government.
Despite this, there seems to be a distinct lack of awareness of this crisis among the party's leaders, who all seem to be following their own individual political agendas.
Although there might not be a need for confrontation among them per se, it is undeniable that the inability of the presidential office, the government, the party and the legislative caucus to communicate and cooperate is hindering their ability to govern effectively.
Another matter of concern is that despite their wealth of political talent and the political resources they hold, a black cloud seems to have cast itself over the year-end mayoral election in Taipei and Kaohsiung.
In Taipei in particular, the DPP might come a cropper over their indecision on who to field as their candidate. If this situation continues, it could lead to a nightmare situation in which the local political party founders.
We therefore call on the DPP leadership to forget about their own interests and short-term advantages, and set their sights instead on ensuring the survival of the local Taiwanese government. They have to fulfil their duties to the best of their abilities and work in concert.
Only if the individuals shine in performing their duties will this government have a future. It is said that when a big tree falls, all the monkeys scatter.
The political life of an individual politician matters little: The real disaster for the Taiwanese people will be the fall of a localized government.
Translated by Lin Ya-ti and Paul Cooper
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