The people of Taiwan should be proud of their success in consolidating democracy over recent decades. Taiwan enjoys a vibrant civil society, a flourishing media, individual liberties, and an independent judiciary that is capable of serving as a check on abuses of power. Taiwan voters have ushered in three peaceful transfers of power between major political parties in the past two decades. Nowadays, even as democracies in other parts of the world are bending under the weight of populist and nationalist surges, Taiwan steadily serves as a democratic beacon for the region and the world.
At the same time, Taiwan faces a unique challenge to its democratic form of governance from mainland China. Beijing uses a range of tools to influence attitudes in Taiwan. These include squeezing Taiwan’s international space through diplomatic isolation, coopting Taiwan’s companies and its best talents through incentives to relocate to the mainland, exercising military power along Taiwan’s periphery, and penetrating Taiwan’s political system with monetary, cyber, and media tools. The mainland is united in its efforts to pull Taiwan closer to the mainland, with the ultimate aim of peaceful integration.
In the face of Beijing’s persistent efforts, Taiwan’s main political parties remain divided on how to respond. There are strong disagreements over questions such as: whether the mainland poses more of an economic opportunity or security threat; whether closer economic integration with the mainland would put Taiwan on a slippery slope toward becoming subsumed politically by the mainland; whether Taiwan needs to go through the mainland to reach the outside world, or whether it should bypass the mainland and open its doors to other partners; and how much priority to place on defense spending. The divides between the Blue and Green camps over cross-Strait questions run deep, have been engrained over decades of debates, and are unlikely to be bridged in the remaining months leading up to the 2020 elections.
As presidential aspirants approach the 2020 election, they will face a choice. They can seek to play on divisions over cross-Strait issues to seek partisan advantage. Or, they can choose instead to concentrate on domestic challenges that most directly touch the lives of their voters, while also uniting in opposition to external interference in Taiwan’s electoral processes. The record of recent elections shows that stoking partisan passions over cross-Strait issues can have a powerful mobilizing effect.
As politically opportunistic as it might be for politicians to seek to play on cross-Strait issues to rally support, it also could come at a cost to Taiwan’s long-term public good. Stirring up public sentiment on cross-Strait relations will not unite the people of Taiwan behind a common approach, no matter how charismatic the politician. Such attempts could, however, crowd out much needed public debates around key domestic challenges, such as how best to increase youth employment, craft a sustainable energy policy, expand access to affordable housing, reduce inequality, and improve Taiwan’s ability to attract foreign investment, innovation, and expertise.
The durability of Taiwan’s democratic model ultimately will depend upon its ability to deliver results that matter to the people of Taiwan. That is why my Brookings Institution colleague Richard Bush and I recently wrote a report encouraging Taiwan’s leaders to exercise pragmatism, including by working to build a centrist consensus between both major political parties (and other parties if possible) on the need to make the political system more effective in addressing the internal challenges Taiwan faces. Moving in this direction would revitalize public confidence in the ability of Taiwan’s democratic system to deliver on the demands and expectations of its people.
If Taiwan’s political leaders are able to find a way to set down their swords for the next year from attacking each other over cross-Strait issues, and instead work in a constructive spirit to focus political debate around how best to deliver outcomes that strengthen Taiwan’s society and economy, they would bolster Taiwan’s ability to preserve the status quo. Sustaining the status quo is an outcome that is overwhelmingly supported by Taiwan’s voters.
If, on the other hand, Taiwan’s political leaders succumb to sowing divisions over cross-Strait issues, including through attempts to use referenda to gin up support for status quo-altering initiatives, they may enjoy short-term political gain, but will do so at the risk of sapping Taiwan’s long-term strength and stability.
The biggest beneficiary of a divided Taiwan is the mainland. The mainland benefits from polarization and political stagnation in Taiwan. A more fractured political system that is less able to meet the needs of its people makes for an easier target for Beijing to pull in its preferred direction.
President Tsai (蔡英文) has focused the world’s attention on Taiwan’s democracy, including by describing it as the first line of defense for the free world. Now she and other leaders in Taiwan have an opportunity to set an example for the democratic world of putting the long-term interests of society ahead of the short-term interests of an election. I hope they make the most of it.
Ryan Hass is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, where he holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies.
China badly misread Japan. It sought to intimidate Tokyo into silence on Taiwan. Instead, it has achieved the opposite by hardening Japanese resolve. By trying to bludgeon a major power like Japan into accepting its “red lines” — above all on Taiwan — China laid bare the raw coercive logic of compellence now driving its foreign policy toward Asian states. From the Taiwan Strait and the East and South China Seas to the Himalayan frontier, Beijing has increasingly relied on economic warfare, diplomatic intimidation and military pressure to bend neighbors to its will. Confident in its growing power, China appeared to believe
Taiwan-India relations appear to have been put on the back burner this year, including on Taiwan’s side. Geopolitical pressures have compelled both countries to recalibrate their priorities, even as their core security challenges remain unchanged. However, what is striking is the visible decline in the attention India once received from Taiwan. The absence of the annual Diwali celebrations for the Indian community and the lack of a commemoration marking the 30-year anniversary of the representative offices, the India Taipei Association and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center, speak volumes and raise serious questions about whether Taiwan still has a coherent India
Recent media reports have again warned that traditional Chinese medicine pharmacies are disappearing and might vanish altogether within the next 15 years. Yet viewed through the broader lens of social and economic change, the rise and fall — or transformation — of industries is rarely the result of a single factor, nor is it inherently negative. Taiwan itself offers a clear parallel. Once renowned globally for manufacturing, it is now best known for its high-tech industries. Along the way, some businesses successfully transformed, while others disappeared. These shifts, painful as they might be for those directly affected, have not necessarily harmed society
Legislators of the opposition parties, consisting of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), on Friday moved to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德). They accused Lai of undermining the nation’s constitutional order and democracy. For anyone who has been paying attention to the actions of the KMT and the TPP in the legislature since they gained a combined majority in February last year, pushing through constitutionally dubious legislation, defunding the Control Yuan and ensuring that the Constitutional Court is unable to operate properly, such an accusation borders the absurd. That they are basing this
RSS