OPINION:
Yen Chen-shen of Taiwan’s National Chengchi University has the best take on his country’s Jan. 17 election: “A Taiwan identity won.”
For only the second time since direct elections for president began in 1992, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won, with 56 percent of the vote for its candidate, Tsai Ing-wen, a former law professor. The Nationalist (KMT) candidate got only 31 percent. And for the first time ever, the DPP will have a majority in the legislature.
The issues involved in the campaign included Taiwan’s sluggish economy and the popular perception that trade with the mainland mostly benefits the nation’s business elite. But the election turned on Taiwan’s relations with its neighbor. Many Taiwanese believe the outgoing KMT president, Ma Ying-jeou, was more interested in placating Beijing than defending Taiwan’s interests.
Simmering discontent came to a boil a few days before the vote, when a 16-year-old pop singer (dressed in black and with a deep bow) was forced to apologize to the Mandarins for waving Taiwan’s flag in a video. The incident was seen as a national humiliation. While all the candidates denounced it, public outrage seemed to spur the DPP vote.
Just as all of Israel’s elections ultimately turn on national security, cross-strait relations drive Taiwan’s politics. The ironically named and easily agitated People’s Republic of China insists that Taiwan (which was ruled by the mainland for only five of the past 100 years, and never by the Communists) is a breakaway province that must be brought back to the fold by force, if necessary. It insists that a formal declaration of Taiwan’s independence would constitute an act of war.
Ms. Tsai says she will “work toward maintaining the status quo for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait in order to bring the greatest benefits and well-being to the Taiwanese people.” But she adds, significantly, that “interaction must be based on dignity and reciprocity.” This means, “Our democratic system, national identity and international space must be fully respected.”
Even though her party is formally committed to an independent Taiwan, Ms. Tsai won’t push it. But she also won’t kowtow to a fossilized regime that speaks only for those in power.
Since the end of martial law in 1987, the Taiwanese have forged a unique identity. They are proudly part of Chinese history and culture, but with their own destiny. In the course of 5,000 years, Taiwan is the only Chinese society to choose its leaders.
Mainland Chinese can only dream of this. In China, the cast has changed, but the script is ever the same. This regime is the ideological heir to the one that sent tanks rolling over demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. In the 26 years since, the Communists have never expressed remorse. To the contrary, they claim they saved the country from chaos.
That’s why they find Taiwan’s democracy so baffling and intimidating. (Post-election, the Communist-controlled media seems to be saying: “We were getting on so well with the Nationalists. Why did the people have to go and spoil it?”) Campaigns, the competition of ideas and popular sovereignty are so messy. But it’s that messiness that marks the difference between a people’s republic and a republic where the people rule in fact, not just in name.
What China’s rulers don’t understand they fear, and what they fear they frequently try to crush. It now has 1,200 medium-range missiles aimed at Taiwan. Although they could hit certain U.S. bases in the Pacific, everyone knows that their purpose is intimidation. Beijing augments that arsenal annually. It’s a unsubtle reminder of what will happen if Taipei ever goes too far.
There’s also the possibility that, at a some point, the party and its enforcer — the People’s Liberation Army — will get tired of waiting for reunification to happen gradually, as the countries’ economies become increasingly entwined. A 2013 report by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense predicts that China will have the military capacity to mount a cross-strait attack by 2020.
If that happens, Taiwan will need all the friends it can find in the West. Fortunately for the Taiwanese, 2020 will be well after President Obama leaves office.
• Don Feder, a former columnist for the Boston Herald, is a freelance writer.
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