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Editorial: Moving past `agreeing to disagree'

So KMT politicians have been telling Beijing officials that they should not deal with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) but wait until the KMT returns to power in 2004.

As Ralph Cossa, head of the think tank Pacific Forum CSIS said last week, this contained both good and bad news for Taiwan. The good news is that since the Chinese communists expect a more amenable regime than Chen's to take office in 2004, they need feel themselves in no hurry to take robust action to force concessions.

The bad news is twofold. First, obviously if the KMT does return to power in 2004 Beijing will expect some serious movement in its standoff with Taiwan. But unless the mood in Taiwan changes greatly it is hard to see what movement there can be. KMT Chairman Lien Chan's (連戰) confederation idea is already further than most Taiwanese want to go, while being not nearly far enough for China.

It might be that the new leaders who will take control in Beijing after next year's 16th party congress, might be more amenable to the confederation idea, but at the moment nobody knows. The silver lining in this particular cloud is that this, of course, stands the KMT argument on its head -- there seems little point in Chen trying to make headway with this leadership when it is going to change so soon and be finding its feet for a while after that.

In this sense China's reluctance to deal with Chen probably has more to do with its own palace intrigues than the preposterously self-serving advice given by junketing KMT members. In the current edgy climate in Beijing there simply is no room for policy innovation.

By far the greater worry about what KMT members are up to in China -- and Lien can note that we do not say that this is official party policy or that they have been tasked by the party leadership to behave in this way -- is simply that, in attempting to curry favor in Beijing for the sake of some perceived political advantage at home, Taiwan's position is weakened at a time when it can least afford it.

Cossa seems puzzled that Taiwan's political parties could work together on the economy -- which will probably be booming again by 2004, much to the KMT's chagrin -- but could not achieve any consensus on national security such that this was not compromised in their dealings with Beijing.

It is regrettable that a consensus on national security cannot be hashed out. But it is also inevitable. After all, what nation's security is supposed to be protected? If you think it is the de facto "Republic of Taiwan" then you will see a particular threat -- a forced takeover -- from a particular enemy -- China. If you see the nation as China, currently and regrettably split into two feuding political entities though it may be, then your perception of who constitutes a threat to that nation's security -- by irresponsibly advocating "splittist" regionalism -- is going to be very different.

Given these two fundamentally different and mutually exclusive views of what Taiwan is and what the real threats to it may be, it should be no surprise that a consensus on national security proves so elusive. No wonder former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) says parties "not focused on Taiwan" must be "eliminated." There is no way to bridge the gap between these contending ideologies. One of them has to be so soundly defeated that, whatever self-interested politicians whisper in others' ears, there will never be any doubt as to where the people of Taiwan stand.

In the past, commentators have read far too much about the influence of cross-strait affairs into Taiwan's legislative election results. Just for once let us hope that the election does center around China and that the result is overwhelmingly decisive.
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