Taiwan's presidential election is an internal affair of the Taiwanese people that needs no comments from outsiders.
But Jiang Zemin (
That is why he can't help jumping into Taiwan's election.
In 1996, he made his election bid with missiles. This year, he has opted for a less militaristic tactic by releasing a white paper.
Missiles failed to scare the electorate and the candidates in 1996, as all of Taiwan reverberated with the victory of "votes against missiles."
But this time, the policy paper has scared the three major candidates and brought them to their knees.
There was nothing refreshing about the white paper. It is merely an official articulation of Jiang's anti-Lee Teng-hui (
Jiang's Lee-bashing was a warning to Taiwan's presidential candidates that they should abandon the path Taiwan has walked under Lee and succumb to Jiang's "one China" path so that he can accomplish his imperialistic ambition of unification.
Jiang has long been chasing after this dream and hit many a brick wall on this chase.
Key to his failure is the fact that Taiwan is a free, democratic country. Jiang simply cannot understand that the Taiwanese have no reason to forgo their independent sovereignty and accept communist China's authoritarian, militaristic rule of terror. He believes he can realize his imperialist ambitions by just pulling out a nail called "Lee Teng-hui."
Among Taiwan's five presidential candidates, three have already swallowed Jiang's despotic "one country, two systems" model, or the idea of an interim agreement under a "one China" framework. Jiang's gestures inevitably flattered them, prompting them to make self-aggrandizing remarks and ridicule those who refuse to dance to the "one China" tune as "lacking the capacity for political judgment."
It is interesting to note that KMT candidate Lien Chan's (
Lien's camp also took pains to point out that the DPP's Chen Shui-bian (
The white paper indeed admitted that Lee has fundamentally changed Taiwan's status during his 12 years in the president's seat.
In other words, after the democratization process during those 12 years, Taiwan has left behind its martial-law era status: a military base for the KMT's counterattack against communist China.
Many times, Lee has spoken out on Taiwan's behalf: "Taiwan is Taiwan; we are an independent sovereign state."
"Taiwan stands outside of Beijing. It is an independent state just like the UK and France."
Jiang's "one China" policy, designed to manipulate the "new Taiwan area leader" of his choice, negates Taiwan's status of independent sovereignty.
It was no surprise that even US President Bill Clinton, who is usually soft on China, has been prompted by the white paper to say that he hoped any change to Taiwan's status will have the consensus of the Taiwanese people.
It is a bizarre scene: the international community opposing China's threats against Taiwan while most of Taiwan's presidential candidates are using Jiang's "anti-independence" threat to lay siege on a candidate who advocates maintaining Taiwan's current status as an independent sovereignty.
Ruan Ming is a visiting professor at Tamkang University and a former special assistant to Chinese Communist Party Secretary-General Hu Yaobang.
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