This first of two commentaries on the Taiwan situation I have written recently. This one appeared in Asia Times.
Taiwan is about to elect its
fourth president since the first open election in 1996. With less than 100 days
before Election Day, the chairman of Kuomintang (KMT), Eric Chu, is calling for
extraordinary party congress for the purpose of making the rumor swirling
around Taiwan’s political circles come true. Namely, he will replace KMT’s duly
nominated presidential candidate, Hung Hsiu-chu, with himself.
At the regular nominating
party convention in July, Hung was the only one to declare her candidacy for
the presidency. By then, Tsai Ing-wen, the candidate for the opposition party,
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), had become such an overwhelming favorite to
win in a cakewalk that none of the KMT stalwarts were willing to run against her.
Hung’s credentials were less
than stellar compared to her more seasoned colleagues in the KMT camp but she
was willing and her straight talking, no nonsense style woke up some of the
comatose rank and file. Her one China, one interpretation and pro-unification position
certainly caught the attention of the Chinese diaspora in America, at least the
part of the community that have always regarded Taiwan as part of China.
Unfortunately for Hung, her
one China message was not what the Taiwan populace wanted to hear. Starting
from a low base to begin with, the gap in the polls between Hung and Tsai
widened. The KMT elders became alarmed. They were resigned to losing the
presidency but now Hung presented a real danger of having a toxic coattail on
those running for the legislature on the same ticket.
Previously even when the KMT
lost the office of the president, they maintained a controlling grip on the
legislative body. They now face the real prospect of losing both. Thus the call
for the unprecedented extraordinary party congress on October 17 is to change
jockey in the middle of the race. The KMT leaders do not foresee victory in the
presidential election but they hope to salvage seats in the Legislative Yuan.
When Ma Ying-jeou won the
presidency in 2008, the office returned to KMT control and the people in Taiwan
along with leaders in Beijing and Washington expelled a collective breath of
relief. His record was untainted by corruption, he promised economic reform and
regular dialogue with Beijing and he won by a landslide against his DPP
opponent. He was a popular and welcomed change from the two corrupt regimes
that preceded him. So what happened? How have the KMT fallen so far?
To truly understand the devolution
of the KMT to the current sorry state, we need to review its history since Taiwan
reverted to the Nationalist government after WWII. In the early 1970’s Chiang
Ching-kuo became the strongman of Taiwan gradually assuming increasing power
from his father, Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist leader that lost the mainland
to the Chinese Communist Party.
CCK’s position became
official when he was elected President of the Republic of China by the rubber
stamp legislature in 1978. He introduced measures to stimulate Taiwan’s economy
and he also began political reform by allowing the formation of an opposition
party, the DPP, and he picked Lee Teng-hui to be his second in command.
Lee was selected because he was
not a follower of Chiang Kai-shek’s retreat from the mainland but a native born
Taiwanese. CCK wanted to broadened government participation to include more
native Taiwanese.
A member of CCK’s inner
circle told me that LTH was considered a safe choice. A PhD agriculture
economist by training, he was respectful bordering on being obsequious in the
presence of his superiors and demonstrated all the attributes of a reliable and
pliable official loyal to the KMT.
No one knew at the time about
his having twice joined the Chinese Communist Party shortly after the end of
the WWII. And it was much later that the people of Taiwan became aware that LTH
was given an elite education and groomed for being part of a puppet
administration by the Japanese government during their occupation of Taiwan.
CCK died suddenly in 1988 and
Lee became the President of Taiwan. Gradually his true colors began to show, as
his background became known. He skillfully formed “rotating” alliances with
members of the old guards to gang up on others and remove them from power, one
by one.
Lee began to publicly refer
Japan as Taiwan’s true motherland and that Taiwan has never been part of China
but was a sovereign state. He skillfully ratcheted up the tension across the straits.
In 1996 as Taiwan was about to stage the first popular election for the
president, Beijing made a foolish mistake of firing missiles over Taiwan’s
airspace. The threat did not intimidate the people of Taiwan but gave Lee the
margin necessary to become the first elected president of Taiwan.
In 2000, Lee was termed out
and Taiwan people prepared to vote for the next president. Lee cleverly split
the KMT majority into two camps headed by James Soong and Lien Chan, both were
one time Lee’s lieutenant in his administration. Thus, Lee made it possible for
Chen Shui-bian of the DPP to win the election with just over 39% of the vote.
Once out of the office, Lee
openly identified himself as Iwasato Masao and confessed that Japanese was his
first language. He formed a splinter party called Taiwan Solidarity Union to
promote Taiwan independence. He was accused of shipping illicit funds out of
Taiwan but escaped conviction on charges associated with the “black gold”
scandal.
He was promptly drummed out
of the KMT but Lee succeeded in getting a pro-independence candidate elected
president. That candidate, Chen Shui-bian, ran on a platform of clean
government and strong economy. He turned out to be more corrupt than his
predecessor and had no clue as to how Taiwan can get out of its economic
stagnation.
During Chen Shui-bian’s eight
years in the presidential palace, everything was for sale for a price, if not
directly into his pockets, it went to offshore bank accounts handled by his wife.
After he left the government and tried for corruption, he even had the gall to
negotiate with the presiding judge in court. He offered to repatriate millions
of dollars from offshore accounts in exchange for dismissal of charges against
him.
Chen answered his critics on
his mismanagement of Taiwan’s economy by blaming everybody but his
administration. During this period about one million of Taiwan’s best and
brightest have taken up residence on the mainland, built factories and made
their fortunes in China. Those remaining in Taiwan faced unemployment and
dimmed career prospects and Chen channeled their frustration into antagonism
against the mainland.
By the 2008 election, Chen
Shui-bian had totally destroyed the credibility of DPP. Ma Ying-jeou ran as the
KMT candidate and won by a landslide margin of 17%. He immediately began a
dialogue with Beijing on economic cooperation and two-way tourism. He was to
sign 23 agreements with the PRC and by 2010 Taiwan’s economy grew by more than
10%.
Under Chen, Taiwan tried to
develop tourism. Even Chen recognized that tourism would stimulate the economy
but he refused to look across the strait for tourists from the mainland. Ma did
the obvious and opened Taiwan to Chinese tourists. China has become the world’s
biggest source of outbound tourists and biggest per person spender and is by
far the largest source of tourists to visit Taiwan representing approximately
10 billion dollar infusion to Taiwan’s economy.
Despite economic integration
and closer cooperation, the feelings of the Taiwan people grew no closer to
China but drifted farther apart under the seven years under Ma’s
administration. I have not seen any analysis to explain this counter-intuitive
trend but I have my own conclusions.
The twenty years under the
control of Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian did a lot to poison the minds
against China. Not often mentioned but they were abetted by the under covered
Japanese living among them. After WWII about 300,000 Japanese were stranded in
Taiwan and choose to remain. They adopted Chinese surnames and assimilated.
They have multiplied and now number about 2 million out of Taiwan’s total
population of 23 million. Certain portion of this group is likely supporter and
agitator of Lee’s notion that Japan is the motherland.
Ma being a mainlander felt neither
comfortable nor confident enough to exercise his leadership and explain to the
people of Taiwan how their future is tied to China. Rather he was intimidated
by the anti-mainland sentiments and backed away from taking any active role in
explaining much less promoting the historical, cultural and traditional bond
between Taiwan and China.
To make matters worse, in
midst of his second term, Ma accused Wang Jin-pyng of corruption and then
backed off and left the charges suspended in ether. Wang presides over the
Legislative Yuan and is the leader of another major faction of the KMT. The
acrimony between the two has further weakened an already divided KMT. Consequently,
Ma’s leadership has floundered so badly that he had to resign his post as the
chairman of KMT and to personify a true lame duck for the remainder of his term
as Taiwan’s president.
In the meantime, not having
any worthy challengers, Tsai Ing-wen was emboldened to take a jaunt to Tokyo
and meet various leaders of the LDP. She and Japan’s Prime Minister Abe are old
friends and they were seen entering and leaving the same Tokyo hotel around
lunchtime. They both publicly denied that a clandestine meeting took place.
The U.S. and U.K. educated
Tsai entered politics when she was appointed by Chen to head the Mainland
Affairs Council, a position that gave her high visibility though she showed a
total lack of enthusiasm for developing closer ties across the Taiwan Straits
with the mainland.
Tsai ran for the mayor of New
Taipei City (the area outside of old Taipei) in 2010 and lost the election to
Eric Chu, the current chairman of KMT. She headed the DPP ticket against Ma’s
re-election bid in 2012 and again lost.
Now thanks in part to the
self-destruction of KMT, Tsai has emerged as the overwhelming frontrunner and poised
to take control of Taiwan with a majority in the Legislative Yuan as well. Earlier
this year, her mentor, Chen Shui-bian, was released from prison on medical
parole on the grounds that he had become mentally unbalanced. I would not be
surprised if he recovers from his psychologically disturbed state soon after
DPP resumes control of Taiwan.
These ominous developments
bode badly for peace and stability. For the next four years, Taiwan will once
again become the conundrum for Beijing and Tsai can be expected to raise the
stakes of the Great tug-of-war Game between China, Japan and the U.S.
