With the conclusion of the 16th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), an outline of the new leadership following the peaceful but undemocratic succession process has now emerged.
While Hu Jintao (
Even if Jiang relinquishes his post as state president in March, his power and influence will linger for the near future. Jiang preserves his supremacy by retaining his chairmanship of the Central Military Commission (CMC), packing the new politburo, its standing committee and the CMC with his own people, and by succeeding in having his theory of the "Three Represents" enshrined in the CCP charter.
China's new leaders, meanwhile, are younger, better educated and less encumbered by ideological concerns than their predecessors.
Some Western Sinologists hope that the new leaders will steer China towards a free market economy and eventually even political liberalization. But none of this fourth generation of leaders has personal exposure to Western democracy despite having lived and studied abroad.
The "Taiwan problem" will have been settled well before China evolves into a democracy, assuming it ever does. For the next two years or so, China can be expected to continue its current strategy toward Taiwan.
While the People's Liberation Army (PLA) will actively work to improve its capacity to coerce Taiwan into submission, Beijing will adopt a seemingly friendlier posture and seduce pro-unification elements among Taiwanese businessmen and KMT and PFP politicians to act as its agents in pressuring Taipei to implement direct links, promote cultural and economic integration, and accede to Beijing's "one China" principle.
By 2005, the threat of PLA action against Taiwan could become real. China has proclaimed it will not wait indefinitely for unification.
Once China is more fully integrated into the WTO, millions of newly unemployed farmers and workers will be added to the pool of the 100 million people roaming the cities searching for work. The resultant social instability could well lead Beijing to attack Taiwan as a means of diverting the people's attention and relieving discontent.
The present make-up of the Politburo Standing Committee may presage a power struggle between Zeng Qinghong (
Taipei needs to present a clear vision of a free Taiwan to its own citizens as well as the international community. One element of such a vision must be the discarding of the foolhardy policy of active opening in favor of a Taiwan First policy.
Direct links, for example, will certainly facilitate cultural and economic integration with China. Such links will make it harder for Taiwan to defend its sovereignty and democracy, even though some businessmen will benefit.
The government must also be more proactive in bolstering Taiwan's national security and military readiness. A civil defense infrastructure should be built and citizens made aware of the growing military threat from China.
When the Taiwanese people are psychologically prepared to fight for Taiwan's freedom, Taiwan will be less vulnerable to China's united front tactics and military action, and the prospects for peace between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait will be enhanced commensurately.
Li Thian-hok is a freelance commentator based in Pennsylvania.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
RSS