President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) overseas trip has once again thrown the media spotlight on Taiwan's diplomacy. Unfortunately, the Taiwanese media coverage has contained a systematic error -- the characterization of all of Taiwan's diplomatic allies as "dictatorial," "undemocratic" or "politically underdeveloped," and the accompanying implication that they somehow reflect badly on "Taiwan's democracy." By contrast, the international media, famous for its use of routine epithets to describe the world, steers clear of this generalization. Instead, it employs the labels "small and poor," which are mathematically objective: compared to Taiwan, none of its allies are richer or larger in population (according to this logic, by the way, Taiwan itself cannot be considered a "small country").
It must be pointed out that Taiwan's own democracy, even after the amazing events of the past decade, is still immature, a work in progress. But for the sake of this argument, let us use Taiwan as the standard: are its allies, relatively speaking, more democratic than Taiwan, or less? I think it would shock most Taiwanese to know that the answer is that most of the allies, despite their relative poverty, can compare very favorably in political development.
The report Freedom in the World of the American media think tank Freedom House can be used as an indicator at least of the international perception of the state of various countries' democracies. In the latest report (using 1999 data), out of a scale from 1 (best) to 7 (worst), Taiwan is given a rating of 2 -- thus, basically democratic. However, no fewer than 13 of Taiwan's allies are ranked equally or even more highly, and a further 6 are ranked from 2.5 to 3, only one level behind. Anecdotally, we can verify these figures. Costa Rica, for example, is -- as Chen rightly pointed out -- a highly respected democracy. Its constitution has been functioning properly since 1949, and it has won praise from all quarters for abolishing its army to spend more resources on social welfare. Its former president, Oscar Arias, even won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to broker peace among the other countries of the region. How does anyone in Taiwan have the gall to tar such a country with a brush of anti-democracy?
And there are plenty of others, such as the small Eastern Caribbean countries who, with the brief embarrassment in Grenada in the early 1980s, have maintained quite well the parliamentary systems and rule of law bequeathed to them by the British. And then there is Senegal, long considered a leader among African countries in democracy, and which has just this year made the same leap that Taiwan has made -- electing its first ever opposition president.
While Taiwan likes to make a big noise about how it is part of the "third wave" of democracy, it has mysteriously failed to notice how many of its allies also participated in this worldwide phenomenon. In the past decade or so, dictatorships in places such as El Salvador and Guatemala have taken large steps toward democracy, as has Malawi after the fall of president-for-life Kamuzu Banda. Although it is certainly a coincidence, it is nonetheless extremely fortuitous for Taiwan that, just as it gained some democratic credentials of its own, many of its allies have also been moving in the same direction.
Indeed, according to the most generous estimate, just over 100 of 188 UN members are democracies. Thus, the US and other leading democracies can claim that some 55 percent of their diplomatic partners are democratic. For China, taking away Taiwan's allies, the proportion drops to 50%. But for Taiwan, it is 68%. This is certainly big enough a difference to justify Taiwan' pride.
So why can't Taiwan's media (or, for that matter, the general public) get it right? Part of the problem is the historical legacy of the KMT government. Under the Chiangs, relations with nasty, brutish, right-wing regimes were not only tolerated, but actively sought out ("birds of a feather ...."). One of the most glaring examples was the handling of South Africa, where the ROC staunchly supported the white apartheid regime to the bitter end, many years after all its other former backers in the West had started keeping their distance. This gross political misjudgment still causes a bad taste in the mouths of many Africans.
Of course, there are still some embarrassments left over from the KMT. The Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, despite his having managed to get an election to ratify his rule, is an internationally notorious figure, especially for his role in instigating the horrible civil war in hitherto peaceful Sierra Leone. Until he is succeeded by someone more palatable, Taiwan would do well to avoid extensive public contact with Liberia.
The case of South Africa also points up the second root cause of Taiwan's misperception: racism. It is sadly true that too many Taiwanese people firmly believe that anyone who is dark-skinned must be somehow backward and uncivilized -- we might give them handouts out of pity, but it would be too much to ask for them to have such a wonderful democracy as we have here in Taiwan!
Unlike in many countries, where the media plays a role in promoting progressive attitudes, the Taiwanese media, more often than not, simply reinforces mainstream stereotypes across the whole range of social issues, and racism is unfortunately no exception.
The third factor is that, up to the present, the government has utterly failed to make its case audibly. It is curious that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has done nothing to counter the public perception of Taiwan's allies. This should be a top foreign policy priority for the new government, to lay out the facts -- which of our allies are already democratic, which are making progress, and which are lagging behind. In fact, the mininstry should consider producing an regular "democracy report" on the allies, as the US State Department does for human rights. The results would certainly surprise most of Taiwan's citizens.
Bo Tedards is a Taipei-based political commentator.
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