There is a saying that has long circulated in circles like Washington that "Chinese are too busy making money to worry about democracy."
Author James Mann, however, contends in his book The China Fantasy that this is a fallacy and just a convenient sound bite for foreign businesspeople and politicians who wish to ignore the authoritarian nature of China's current regime while taking advantage of its cheap labor.
The frequent demonstrations seen in Hong Kong opposing Beijing's heavy-handed rule and the lack of democratic progress since its handover to China lend credence to Mann's theory. Just last Sunday, about 20,000 Hong Kongers took to the streets in the latest protest calling for universal suffrage in the territory. The protesters were upset at Beijing's announcement last month that they might be able to elect their leader by 2017. Hong Kongers had been pushing for the right to elect their government by 2012.
It is a safe bet that given the chance, millions of people in China would also help prove Mann right.
Contrast this with events here last Saturday, when Taiwanese voted for a new legislature. The outcome saw the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) gain a two-thirds majority in the legislature, giving the party's presidential candidate, Ma Ying-jeou (
The KMT backs increasing cross-strait economic ties, arguing that more business with China will help solve what they term "Taiwan's economic malaise."
But despite promises from Ma that he will not talk unification if elected president, the increased business and cultural contact that would occur under a Beijing-friendly KMT government and the sacrifices of sovereignty the KMT will have to make to achieve this will make future expressions of Taiwan's current independent status even more difficult and the drift toward some kind of unification agreement all the more unavoidable.
This could eventually pose a threat to the full democratic rights Taiwanese now enjoy.
Increasing cross-strait business ties and investment will only give China more control over Taiwan's prosperity and will likely result in more wealthy and influential Taiwanese tying their colors to Beijing's mast. People like former United Microelectronics Corp chairman Robert Tsao (
When Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, tried to institutionalize democratic ideals in the territory ahead of its return to China, some of his most vociferous opponents were the billionaire business barons who considered democracy an unnecessary and unwanted obstacle to their continued wealth accumulation.
Mann points out that a similar phenomenon could occur in China's ruling and newly wealthy middle class. This could prevent the move toward democracy in China that US officials seem convinced increased trade relations will eventually bring.
Taking this into account, Taiwanese could also one day find themselves in the same situation as Hong Kongers, where tycoons who hold influence in Taipei and have a vested interest in China continue to oppose democracy.
Of course, Taiwan's already established democratic system would be difficult for China to dismantle, but with Beijing's relentless arms build-up showing no sign of slowing and its burgeoning economic might bringing other powerful countries to heel, 20 years from now Taiwan may be in no position to resist.
How ironic it would be if Taiwan, the first and only true democracy in an ethnic Chinese country, were to buck the global trend and give its hard-won freedom away.
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