The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) annual forums with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have obviously reached an impasse, prompting former KMT secretary-general Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) — in a report on party reform after holding 21 forums with the party’s grassroots supporters and local cadres nationwide over the past month — to propose the abolition of the exchanges.
Initiated by then-KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and then-Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) during Lien’s 2005 “ice-breaking” visit to Beijing, the forum has been held since 2006, with the KMT touting it as a party-to-party communication platform that assists the development of cross-strait ties. At the end of each forum, consensuses were reached on topics relating to agricultural affairs, trade and cultural and educational exchanges, “providing a reference to formulating policies for both governments.”
However, it became apparent that the real purpose of the forums — billed as cultural and economic in nature — was to promote China’s goal of unification when then-KMT chairman and head of the KMT delegation to last year’s forum Eric Chu (朱立倫) said that both sides of the Taiwan Strait “belong to one China.”
It is clear that the forum operates in an opaque manner and works against the democratic process. Not only was a KMT official who was not part of the national government discussing matters of fundamental national importance with China without the mandate of the Taiwanese public, but Taiwan’s democracy has been further eroded by the KMT and China attempting to make decisions on cross-strait relations and developments via a party-to-party mechanism that excludes the Taiwanese electorate.
Over the past 10 years the forum has demonstrated to Taiwanese that it is not simply a meeting between two political parties but an opportunity for high-ranking KMT officials to fawn over Beijing officials who are attempting to determine Taiwan’s cross-strait policies and dictate cross-strait developments.
It often follows a similar pattern: Issues brought up during the KMT-CCP forum and shortly after prompt Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) to draw up and sign agreements.
In other words, the forum has seemingly become a sharp point that China uses to prod President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.
While Ma has said that everything decided at the forums must be approved by the government and agreed to by the SEF and ARATS, the then-KMT-dominated legislature often appeared to blindly endorse any agreements by the two agencies.
In short, the government’s authority seems to have been usurped, with the forums setting the agenda for cross-strait development.
The Ma administration’s submissive attitude toward China has caused public discontent, and the electorate made their displeasure felt in January’s elections by handing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) a landslide victory.
After the KMT became a “true opposition” party — by losing the presidency and a majority in the legislature — the forum is likely to no longer play the role of setting the cross-strait agenda.
Now that the KMT’s grassroots and local cadres have recognized the public’s anger and called for the abolition of these opaque forums, the top echelon of the KMT must have the wisdom to acquiesce.
A few weeks ago in Kaohsiung, tech mogul turned political pundit Robert Tsao (曹興誠) joined Western Washington University professor Chen Shih-fen (陳時奮) for a public forum in support of Taiwan’s recall campaign. Kaohsiung, already the most Taiwanese independence-minded city in Taiwan, was not in need of a recall. So Chen took a different approach: He made the case that unification with China would be too expensive to work. The argument was unusual. Most of the time, we hear that Taiwan should remain free out of respect for democracy and self-determination, but cost? That is not part of the usual script, and
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