Democracy on the march
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) rapid tilt toward China threatens to redraw the strategic map in the western Pacific and could destabilize the entire region.
In practice, Ma is simultaneously subjugating foreign relations to Beijing and disarming Taiwan.
By following such a policy, Ma strives to effectively render moot Beijing’s favorite cliche of a willingness to sacrifice decades of economic growth in exchange for annexing Taiwan, apparently pleasing Beijing to no end. Meanwhile, Ma turns a blind eye to Washington, Tokyo and the mounting unease of Taiwanese.
What Ma is accomplishing has all the trimmings of a false peace.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ying-wen’s (蔡英文) new initiative to seek strategic common ground between Taiwan and China, while strengthening the Taipei-Washington strategic partnership, might offer the best hope of being the real McCoy. If the DPP presidential candidate were to unseat Ma, her administration would usher in a new era of regional stability.
Tsai’s approach, seemingly contradictory at first glance, is entirely logical considering that China’s continuous economic rise in decades to come depends on tranquility across the Taiwan Strait — therein lies the greatest strategic interest shared by both sides.
Without minimizing Beijing’s hostile stance toward Taiwan, including China’s “Anti-Secession” Law and missiles pointed at Taiwan, Tsai and the DPP aim to construct a long-term bridge between the two sides.
Tsai first exposed the fallacy of the so-called “1992 consensus” and started to advocate a “Taiwan consensus,” thereby forcing Beijing to a crossroads. Beijing must decide whether to distance itself from a trust-deprived Ma lest China risk being grouped with Ma as the target of Taiwanese’s growing ire.
Beijing’s awakening to this reality — that its days of exploiting Ma’s China-leaning sentiment might be numbered and that perhaps toning down its support for Ma might be prudent — still would not necessarily translate into Beijing’s willingness to work with Tsai and the DPP unless compelled by self interest.
Seeing how feeble Ma’s single-minded approach to cross-strait relations are and how much damage that strategy has brought to Taiwan’s sovereignty and economic strength, Tsai and the DPP intend to build a national consensus regarding principles on which Taipei will base its engagement with Beijing in any bilateral discussions.
This ground-up approach should enable Tsai to inoculate her prospective administration against Beijing or Washington-imposed constraints, such as “No new Constitution” or “No new national name.” After all, no democratically elected government can shackle voters’ collective wishes and impede their will. As such, Tsai would avoid both Ma’s authoritarian opaqueness and former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) much-maligned outbursts.
The main spirit of Tsai’s design — democracy — makes her cross-strait policy consistent and immune to the individual penchant of the person at the helm of the nation if Tsai and the DPP could institutionalize both the formation and the application of a “Taiwan consensus.”
Greatly dampened as a result would be Beijing’s appetite as well as efficacy for meddling in Taiwan’s presidential elections.
As a consequence, the nation’s top leadership could voice outrage against China’s authoritarian issues such as human rights violations without undue concern about Beijing’s reprisal.
Democracy’s defensive potential, as many in the West have long hoped, might finally be unleashed in Taiwan’s seemingly unending struggle with China.
HUANG JEI-HSUAN
Los Angeles, California
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