The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has just completed its annual national party conference. In the wake of this year’s conference, all attention has focused on the proposal to freeze the party’s Taiwan independence clause.
It is quite apparent why today, more than 20 years after the party congress originally passed the clause, it has once more become the center of attention. It is all part of a performance devised by Beijing, encouraged by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and played along with by several individuals within the DPP.
As far as 23 million Taiwanese are concerned, this entire issue has been trumped up. It is a false issue that has nothing to do with how to improve ordinary people’s circumstances. It is born simply of pressure on politicians to make sure they are elected into power again.
The clause, from 1991, owing to its inclusion in the Resolution on Taiwan’s Future the DPP passed in 1999, is a historical document.
It is certainly not the same thing as saying that Article 1 of the current version of the KMT’s Party Charter, where it talks of the party’s mission to “realize a free, democratic Republic of China where every citizen prospers,” for example, constitutes a modern day “unification clause.”
And on this subject, the “unification” spoken of in this charter is qualified in Article 2 as being to “practice democratic constitutional government” and “oppose communism,” as part of “abid[ing] by the teachings of late National President, the late Director-General, and the late Chairman Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國).”
Today’s KMT, in its cavorting with the Chinese communists, is doing precious little abiding by anything in Article 2. With its autocratic ways, this government has repeatedly ridden roughshod over Taiwan’s democratic constitutional government and, as such, has totally turned its back on its party charter undertakings.
Why is it that nobody is questioning the “unification clause” or calling the KMT out on it, while the DPP’s “independence clause” is being subjected to a public flogging? This is why the whole thing has an air of falseness about it.
Of course, the reason this fabricated issue has been given the legs it has is China’s persuasive control over discourse, which in turn comes from three causes.
First, China simply has more political and economic resources than Taiwan does, and so when it wants to interfere in Taiwan’s internal affairs, it has that bit more clout.
Second, the KMT is obsessed with clinging to power, and would rather join forces with China — which seeks to annex Taiwan — than to regard its domestic rivals as anything other than “enemies in its midst.”
There is little argument about these two. However, there is a third cause, and that is that the DPP itself is either reluctant to engage in battle or is unsure of how to go about it, and has therefore lost its ability to dominate the debate.
It is, then, besieged on all sides. To this regard, it has two main alternatives: first, to work toward improving its relationship with China to hold off the KMT, and second, to spoil for the fight. Which path it chooses, or if it elects to do both, depends on the deliberations of the party leaders, and in the manner in which they respond to the circumstances.
In today’s Taiwan, with its thriving civil society, it is no longer the case that political debate remains the preserve of traditional political parties.
There is at least a degree of consensus in Taiwan that, as far as the experience of ordinary people is concerned, the six years over which President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has presided have proven to be a resounding failure.
Unfortunately, the KMT, which has a legislative majority, lacks the internal mechanism to turn this situation around, and simply allows Ma, in his dual role of national president and party chairman, the latitude to do as he pleases, and the wherewithal to play the autocrat.
The government does not want to address the inherently flawed and increasingly foundering system of constitutional government, preferring to join forces with the Chinese communists in freezing out the pro-independence movement as a distraction to its prevarication. It is important not only to be able to see the fallacy of all this, but also to understand where the real issue lies.
In four months’ time, Taiwan will vote in the all-inclusive local elections, a mid-term election that comes only once every two years and in which the entire civil society has the chance to use the valuable vote to send a message to the powers-that-be, politicians that tend to become aloof and deaf to the electorate after the votes have been cast. It is the electorate’s chance to tell these politicians whether it approves of what they are doing, or whether it is unhappy. It is, in other words, without doubt our best shot, our most realistic and valuable opportunity, to save our own country.
Looked at from the perspective that these elections do give the electorate a degree of power, the upcoming mayoral and county commissioner elections should also be considered in terms of how the KMT-led local governments are bolstering the central government’s foundations, allowing it to carry on in total disregard of the public will, and their collusion in preventing any change in the current political standoff in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
Having seen just how many councilors have been nominated to stand for election despite having been held up on corruption charges, or have been swaggering around campaigning for others, the smart voter will have the courage to vote for change, to put an end to this sustained and pernicious conspiring between central and local government, to enforce a transition of power and see if others can do a better job.
The two-party system is a mechanism the Taiwanese have at their disposal, a democratic instrument that can be employed come election time to introduce some balance into the system, and a way of sorting out the false and ridiculous issues from what really matters.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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