Wed, Sep 30, 2015 page8

• Cross-strait ties should be run by the public

  • By Ho Hsin-chuan 何信全
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  With Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) US visit over, Taiwan needs to be concerned about whether he sought any promises from Washington on exerting pressure on Taiwanese political leaders on cross-strait issues.

  Beijing has repeatedly pulled strings with its allies whenever there was a presidential election in Taiwan. This behavior suggests China is limited to the political experience of its own system in its relations with Taiwan. If it wants to deal with a post-democratization Taiwan, the only way it can improve cross-strait relations is for it to change its mindset.

  During the Martial Law period under former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), the president’s decision on how cross-strait relations were to be defined was final.

  However, after the nation democratized, the rules of the game changed: The country must now be run according to constitutional and democratic processes. Irrespective of who is president, the way cross-strait relations are to be defined is a government-level issue: Not just the business of the president, but also of the legislature and the public, where the public should have the last say. Both the president and the legislature have to obey the decisions of the public via the mechanism of constitutional government.

  Under China’s authoritarian system, whatever the president says, goes. If the leadership were to apply this approach in Taiwan, it would naturally place its expectations on assurances from Taiwan’s political leaders.

  However, in contrast with China’s authoritarian system — in which decisions are made top-down — decisionmaking in a democracy is bottom-up, so Beijing is missing the point by placing its hopes in assurances from Taiwan’s political leadership regarding cross-strait relations. Threatening to change the “status quo” in cross-strait exchanges will serve only to increase the distance between Beijing and Taiwanese, and ultimately achieve the opposite of what it wants to achieve.

  China has suffered at the hands of imperialism and Taiwan has long been on the wrong side of colonialism. China should be able to sympathize with Taiwan in its current predicament. Indeed, from ancient times China has had something that reverberates with modern ideas of democracy: wangdao (王道, “benevolent rule” or the “kingly way”). Imperialism is about forcing people into submission; it is badao (霸道, the “way of the hegemon”). The kingly way is persuading people through virtue to follow you. In today’s language, this would be acting according to the public will.

  If China can change its domestic politics, move toward democracy, and promote goodwill and friendly exchanges between Taiwan and China, it might initiate an authentic resurgence of the Chinese-speaking world, with the mindset of the kingly way, of benevolent rule. If it tries to intimidate Taiwan with the way of the hegemon, then it would be little different from the imperialists that it itself suffered from for so long, and it would turn Taiwanese against it. This would not be any good for favorable development of cross-strait relations.

  Cross-strait issues should be decided by the public and whether a politician accepts this practice should be a crucial factor in assessing them.

  In the long term, irrespective of how cross-strait relations develop, China should think long and hard about whether it wants to deal with an amenable Taiwan or a hostile one. To that end, a good start would be to remove the missiles pointed at Taiwan as a show of goodwill. One would think that it would have an impact on public opinion.

  Ho Hsin-chuan is a professor in National Chengchi University’s philosophy department.

  Translated by Paul Cooper
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