Taiwanese are kindhearted and want to get on well with their neighbors, so when they talk about politics, they avoid mentioning ethnic communities for fear of damaging “communal harmony.” It is great that they are so broadminded. Still, the divide between support for independence and unification is a special characteristic of Taiwan, and these two points of view closely correlate with certain communities.
Without taking this into account, it is difficult to understand the full situation.
US foreign affairs officials have always taken ethnic differences into account when observing Taiwan’s political scene. Even when then-US president Richard Nixon was preparing the 1972 Shanghai Declaration with China, some advisers let him know that Taiwanese could not say what they really thought and that they did not all think of themselves as Chinese or accept that Taiwan was a part of China.
Of course, this is not to say that there are no unification supporters among ethnic Taiwanese or independence advocates among the descendants of Mainlanders, but as far as politicians are concerned, most Mainlander politicians in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) support unification.
Even if they trick people into voting for them by avoiding any mention of unification, in their hearts they still identify with China, not Taiwan.
This attitude of muddling through, fooling people and picking up votes wherever they can twists the character of mainlander politicians.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is a prime example. He tricked his way into the presidency by picking former premier Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), a native Taiwanese, as his running mate. Then, stealing the words of US China expert Kenneth Lieberthal, he raised the slogan of “no unification, no independence and no use of force,” and repeatedly referred to the non-existent “1992 consensus.”
Ma is the archetypal honest-looking conman.
“No unification and no independence” is self-contradictory nonsense. A sovereign state can agree to “merge” with another, but that is not called “unification.”
Ma thinks his reputation is on the mend. Last week, just as election campaign was heating up, he scared the wits out of KMT mayoral candidates by suddenly going out on a limb and declaring that, rather than “no unification,” he is really in favor of “not ruling out unification.”
Ma never dared say such a thing when he was running for office, but now that he is an “ordinary citizen,” he wants to decide the fate of the younger generation.
What can he hope to achieve by this? Could it be that he sees little chance of avoiding punishment for his involvement in the KMT’s sale of three media companies, so he is setting the scene for accusing the state of “political persecution?”
Or maybe he really thinks that, with the KMT doing well in the polls, he can get people to interpret this as meaning that voters accept the prospect of being annexed by China?
The ethnic aspect of politics in Taiwan can only be resolved through time and votes. The KMT is not quite dead yet.
Despite having twice been taught a lesson by voters in the presidential elections, the KMT is still opposing reforms, damaging the nation’s relations with the US and Japan, and feeding off Taiwan, while shouting about “one China.”
China blatantly wants to save the KMT, but Taiwanese voters must not let this poisonous snake that threatens Taiwan’s democracy and sovereignty come back to life.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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