Independence is the great non-issue of the elections

The term "weasel word" comes from Shakespeare's play As You Like It, in which the courtier Jacques says, "I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs." In the US, a book has even been published discussing this kind of language (Weasel Words: The Art of Saying What You Don't Mean). Used in an election campaign, it means obfuscation and hiding behind foggy rhetoric. If someone says, "The ROC on Taiwan is an independent sovereign state," and then says "Oppose Taiwan independence!" then his words would seem as hollow as an egg sucked empty by a weasel.

In this example, the speaker first accepts that the ROC on Taiwan is an independent sovereign state, which is to say that the ROC and communist China are mutually non-subordinate. But the speaker also opposes Taiwan independence. Isn't this a contradiction? Does the speaker want Taiwan to change the status quo and make Taiwan subordinate to another state? Or does he want Taiwan to maintain the sovereignty it currently enjoys?

This is characteristic of much the rhetoric that is being bandied about in the current election, so it is important to look at the misconceptions on which it is based.

The Taiwan independence movement arose in opposition to the KMT regime, who were using Taiwan as a military base for "reconquering the mainland." The target of the movement was the KMT, not the communist party. The call for "Taiwan independence" was in fact a demand that the KMT give up its dream of "reconquering the mainland" and become a Taiwan-centered, localized, democratic government. Therefore, in Taiwan's history, independence and pro-democracy movements share the same objectives and membership. This is as true of the old tangwai (黨外, outside the party) movement as for the DPP today. The mission to "terminate the alien regime" and to "end the White Terror" was accomplished after Taiwan lifted martial law, ended the general mobilization against communist rebellion, eased restrictions on the press and political parties, and held direct parliamentary and presidential elections.

Today, Taiwan is no longer ruled by an "alien regime." Opposition parties, including the DPP and the New Party, can legitimately win power through elections. Taiwan's 22 million people do not want to be ruled by a foreign regime, nor do they want to rule other states. Since Taiwan has already realized independence, there is no longer a "Taiwan independence" issue. Calls for independence are therefore little more than empty words used to confuse the issue in political debate.

The "unification-independence" debate that still forms an important stand in political debate in Taiwan is in fact two completely separate issues.

The first is whether or not to change the country's name. This is different from the "independence" issue. An "independence" movement is when the ruled try to break free from the hands of an external ruler (Tibet and Quebec, for example); changing a county name is purely a formal issue.

It is true that the names "Republic of China" and "People's Republic of China" sound similar and are often confused. But Clinton's "one China policy" does not mean he is too obtuse to tell the difference between the two. Rather, he is pretending obtuseness for fear of "provoking" Jiang Zemin (江澤民). Now that people everywhere know that China and Taiwan stand on two different sides of the Taiwan Strait, there is no practical significance in changing the country's name. Clinton will certainly not recognize such a change and may even call Taiwan a "troublemaker."