Posted on: Sunday, December 19, 2004
THE RISING EAST
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By Richard Halloran
Prudence suggests that not too much be read into the surprisingly inconclusive results of Taiwan's legislative election because, fundamentally, little has changed, and the confrontation with China will persist in jeopardizing the security of East Asia.
After the balloting Dec. 11, President Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party and its allies ended up with only one more seat, 101, than they had before in the 225-seat Legislature. The National Party, better known as the Kuomintang or KMT, and its partners ended up with 113 seats, one less than before. Independents held the rest. The outcome was a surprise to President Chen, the island's political pundits and much of the foreign press, all of whom had predicted that the DPP coalition would gain enough seats to have a majority. When that didn't happen, Chen resigned as chairman of his party to take ritual responsibility for its failure.
Much speculation had focused on Taiwan's conflict with China across the 120-mile strait between them that is summed up in the phrase "cross-strait relations." Conventional wisdom said the attitude of the voters on that issue would determine their choices. Wally Santana • Associated Press Consequently, the split government means Chen will continue to run into obstacles in his plans to revise the constitution, use the name Taiwan instead of Republic of China, reorganize the government, and make other moves intended to keep Taiwan separate from China and nudge it toward independence.
The president, who has run into acute political adversity before, may trim his sails but is not likely to change course. Chen and his predecessor, President Lee Teng-hui, have molded a strong sense of Taiwanese identity even if the narrowest majority think the status quo ought to be preserved for now. The restrained initial response from Beijing suggests that the communist government was caught by surprise and is uncertain as to what the outcome meant. Even so, China's official news agency, Xinhua, contended that the vote demonstrated "the unpopularity of the leader's obstinate separatist stance." "The voters were alarmed by Chen's rash lurch toward independence, especially his plan to change the name of Taiwan's overseas representative offices," Xinhua argued. Those offices are quasi-embassies in nations, including the United States, that lack formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
In light of that stance, there's not much hope that Beijing will soften its policies toward Taiwan. The Beijing authorities apparently believe their hard line helped to bring about Taiwan's election results, and therefore, they should stick to it and move on with their military buildup.
Washington was cool toward the election results after having cautioned Chen that he was going too far too fast and might provoke a military attack from China. Despite those cautions, many senior officials in the Bush administration are reported to favor a Taiwan separated from China and possibly independent. U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, asked to comment on the Taiwan election, told reporters: "They had a successful election. That's a good thing. We're glad to see it. What they decide to do within their political system now on some of these issues is going to be decided in Taiwan."
U.S. military officials have been delivering two messages to Taiwan and China. Noting that an $18 billion arms purchase from the United States has been held up by the KMT in Taiwan's Legislature, U.S. officers have told the Taiwanese they must do more to help themselves if they expect America to come to their rescue in the event of a Chinese attack.
On the other side, U.S. officials have repeatedly warned the Chinese not to miscalculate. They have told Chinese military leaders that U.S. military forces will respond if China mounts an unprovoked attack on Taiwan — and with sufficient power to prevail in the ensuing hostilities.
In domestic politics, the DPP evidently failed to adopt tactics suited to Taiwan's electoral system. In addition, the KMT, which had dominated Taiwan's politics for decades, has far more money in its coffers than does the DPP, a comparative newcomer.
And, as in most democratic nations, citizens voted their pocketbooks. Chen evidently had not fulfilled his economic promises to the voters, and he paid for it at the polls.
Richard Halloran, a Honolulu-based journalist and former New York Times Asia correspondent, wrote this article for The Advertiser.
As the dust has cleared, however, reasons for the outcome have begun to emerge — and they seem to have more to do with Taiwan's internal politics than with cross-strait relations. The adage that, in a democracy, "all politics is local" seems to have been proven once again.
Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian announces his resignation as the Democratic Progressive Party chairman on Tuesday in Taipei. Chen took the blame for his party's anemic showing, a move that might help him be more flexible with China and ease gridlock in parliament.
