The global Chinese community is abuzz about an unusual event: A Tiananmen rebel exiled in Taiwan, renowned for his courage, charisma and extraordinary personal narrative, has declared his candidacy for a seat as an independent in the island democracy’s parliament called the Legislative Yuan.
There is a reason for such passionate responses to the seemingly mundane event, for the candidate is none other than Wuer Kaixi, the biggest celebrity to emerge from the momentous 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy movement that was brutally repressed by the Chinese communist government.
On his Facebook page, Mr. Wuer’s profile aptly describes him and his colorful, unusual background as a “Chinese dissident, an ethnic Uighur, democracy activist, one of the Tiananmen student movement leaders, now lives in exile in Taiwan.”
Yet, if you call him and his life “colorful,” he would protest vociferously because his primary motive to enter the parliamentary race is to get rid of “color politics” in Taiwan, which he sees as the biggest obstacle holding back the island’s boisterous democracy.
“Michael Jackson had a song I liked very much,” he told Inside China, “It’s called ’Black or White,’ which has my favorite words, ’I’m not going to spend my life being a color.’”
“Almost everyone in today’s Taiwan society has an identifying color, being blue or green,” Mr. Wuer said. The two largest political parties are the ruling KMT party, popularly known as “the Blue,” and the main opposition, the Democratic and Progressive Party (DPP), or “the Green.”
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“The colors in Taiwan are not on our skins, but are indelibly attached to our political identifications — we talk, think, vote, either willingly or passively, solely based upon the Blue/Green color line,” Mr. Wuer noted.
He bemoans the polarization which has turned Taiwanese politics into a highly partisan battleground where opposing “colors” attack and demonize each other with little tolerance or mercy.
But it would be a mistake to regard Mr. Wuer as a pessimist about Taiwan’s democracy. On the contrary, he is so passionately in love with Taiwan’s democracy that he views it as the ultimate fulfillment of his lifetime pursuit of political reform and revolution.
“Having lived here for these many years, I have realized that Taiwan’s democracy has become a model for the world, with fewer inadequacies that come with an open society than many established Western democracies,” he said proudly. “Just thinking of this excites me greatly.”
Disappointed by the Blue and the Green, Mr. Wuer saw hope in Taiwan’s vox populi; recent polls revealed that more than two-thirds of Taiwanese voters want a “Third Force” other than the Blue and Green as a political option.
That popular sentiment was revealed resoundingly by the landslide election victories of candidates representing the “Third Force,” including an unknown, resolutely “nonpartisan” independent surgeon named Ko Wen-je who was elected the mayor of the capital city of Taipei in a landslide victory over all the establishment candidates.
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Mr. Wuer emerged as the most charismatic leader of the Tiananmen movement a quarter-century ago. He was among the top “criminals” pursued by the Chinese government, which forced him into overseas exile, first settling in France, then the United States where he met a Taiwanese woman student at an English enhancement class in Berkeley, California. They dated for three years before they got married and moved to her native Taiwan in 1996. A father of two teenagers born and raised in Taiwan, Mr. Wuer has formally launched his bid for a parliamentary seat as an independent representing the central Taiwanese city of Taichung.
Unlike the idealist rebel in Tiananmen Square, he is realistic about politics in a true democracy.
“Taiwan’s democracy is a lighthouse that can indicate direction and hope for the non-democratic China,” he said, “it will eventually convince the Chinese people on the mainland that democracy can and will arrive in China, too.”
“But I am not campaigning to seek a seat in the parliament to make communist China a democracy tomorrow, because all politics are local and I am campaigning on local issues here in Taichung and Taiwan,” he said.
And his campaign promises certainly reflect that focus. Eyeing China’s successful international campaign to isolate Taiwan diplomatically, he vows to make Taichung a world-class conference center for global NGOs to showcase Taiwan’s democracy. He promises to work on lowering the voting age to include more youth in Taiwan’s politics. And he has portrayed himself as a diehard feminist recognizing the power of Taiwan’s women voters, who are among the world’s most active and educated.
“Taiwan is my adopted country, my second motherland,” he said. “In Tiananmen in 1989, at age 21, I might not have known what democracy really was, but I knew acutely what the lack of democracy was. Living in Taiwan today, I know acutely what democracy truly is. And I very much want to be part of it.”
• Miles Yu’s column appears Fridays. He can be reached at mmilesyu@gmail.com and @Yu_miles.
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