As if to echo Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英), who blurted out that his reason for opposing electoral reform is his disinclination to have politics dominated by the poor, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Greater Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) said Taiwan’s “excessive democracy and freedom” would hurt the nation’s development. Yang cited the opposition’s occupation of the legislative podium and activists hurling shoes at the president without going to jail.
Yang is not the first — and will probably not be the last — Taiwanese politician to have described the nation’s democracy as “overly democratic,” or its society as “overly free.” Supporting this view is the widely held, but misinformed, belief that Taiwan’s democracy was “given” to the public by the last “benevolent” authoritarian ruler, rather than earned through bloodshed and struggle. If it were given, then it could be taken back when it becomes “too much.”
It is also not surprising to see some Taiwanese so in sync with this demeaning rhetoric against what Beijing calls “Western democracy,” considering how Chinese-styled economic development, which boosts growth at the expense of transparency, legitimacy and democratic procedures — and exploits marginalized groups in the process — has been hyped as an effective model around the globe.
Witnessing China’s GDP growth, rising skyscrapers and potential as an emerging market, Taiwan is not short of remarks similar to Yang’s that attribute the nation’s stagnant economy to “excessive democracy.”
However, those who denounce the excess have never clarified the standard against which democracy or freedom can be said to be “too much.” They would find that what is flawed in this democracy is not overachievement, but a lack of the sound rule of law, of a better-informed electorate and of greater government transparency. In other words, it is an unfledged, rather than overdeveloped, liberal democracy.
Yet Taiwan is not just one of the many nations enticed by the Chinese model. Rather, Taiwan has struggled to maintain its independence without much help from the international community while intensively engaging with a giant neighbor that ardently seeks “reunification.”
Just as its economic policies “let some people get rich first,” Beijing’s strategy for integrating Taiwan has been the same, letting some of the political elite become business partners and have interests in the warped, “black-box” system of cross-strait relations.
Taiwanese corporations are smart enough to build political ties in Taiwan for their businesses in China.
Former vice president Lien Chan’s (連戰) family, for example, has substantial investments in China, with at least three of his children’s businesses — exposed due to their alleged malpractice — accidentally unveiling the interconnected web among businesses and political elites on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Ting Hsin International Corp (頂新), the target of consumers’ ire in the latest food scandal, is another epitome of crony capitalism.
Not only had it made political contacts — for instance by offering elites the chance to participate in the pre-market book-building of its Taiwan depositary receipts — its representatives met with a Chinese official, a Taiwanese official and a KMT executive over the sale of Taiwanese agricultural products in China, local media reports said.
Undocumented meetings between Taiwanese and Chinese officials also thrived under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration and the Sunflower movement was the culmination — not the beginning — of people’s angst and contempt over such dealings.
While Leung is trying to block institutionalizing the public’s voice in punishing these kinds of dealings, such as voting them out, Taiwan, as an independent nation, fortunately has the requisite democratic system to do so, at least for now.
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