Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) proposal to maintain the “status quo” in cross-strait ties has been criticized from those within both the pan-blue and pan-green camps.
Critics have said maintaining the “status quo” has been the long-term policy of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), but it is now being adopted by Tsai. The pan-blue camp said Tsai pirated the KMT’s idea, and the pro-independence camp is critical of her as well, because they say she is advocating the KMT’s manifesto. In fact, there are different interpretations of what maintaining the “status quo” means depending on the time and the context.
When Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) were president, the KMT’s rhetoric went from reclaiming China and unifying China based on Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) Three Principles of the People to the “three noes” policy of “no contact, no compromise and no negotiation” with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
When the KMT ruled Taiwan as a colonial foreign power, the dangwai (黨外, outside the party) movement demanded democratization, and some in the movement even proposed the overthrow of the Republic of China (ROC), for it was synonymous with the KMT.
At that time, the legislative and executive powers were in the hands of the National Assembly — elected in China in 1947 — and the president, whose tenure lasted for life. It was an authoritarian regime and it used the excuse that the “communist bandits” were about to invade Taiwan to reject democratization.
To maintain the “status quo” as championed by the KMT then means to maintain the KMT’s status as an authoritarian regime. Taiwanese who opposed it endeavored to change that “status quo” by campaigning for democracy and even the overthrow of the ROC.
Following the caretaker government of former president Yen Chia-kan (嚴家淦) the presidency was passed on to Chiang Ching-kuo, who intended to pass on the presidency to his son, but failed to do so because of the scandal caused by the 1984 murder of Taiwanese journalist Henry Liu (劉宜良) in California, which marked the end of the Chiang family’s authoritarian rule.
As a result, then-vice president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) became the president, which gave him the opportunity to initiate the democratization of Taiwan.
The democratization process ended the “status quo” that the authoritarian regime was trying to maintain. Because a government formed or dominated by Taiwanese was unacceptable to the KMT, it promptly changed its stance from anti-communist to pro-communist, abandoning Chiang Ching-kuo’s “three noes” policy and beginning to move toward unification.
Especially after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) came to power, Taiwan’s economy has become dependent on China, thereby pushing Taiwan closer and closer to the KMT’s objective of unification with China. However, pro-independence supporters opposed unification with China, and that is why the policy to maintain the “status quo” was proposed.
The pro-independence faction wants to maintain the “status quo” while the Ma administration follows the same policy, but the difference is that Ma’s version of the “status quo” means that Taiwan and China are “one country, two areas,” while the pro-independence faction’s definition of the “status quo” is in accordance with the Resolution on Taiwan’s Future, according to which Taiwan is a sovereign state although it is not juridically a regular country.
It is clear that the “status quo” carries different meanings to the two groups that claim to maintain it.
Chen Mao-hsiung is an adjunct professor at National Sun Yat-sen University.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
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