Wed, Mar 24, 2004 page8

• Oh, Gareth, the true crisis is yours

  • By Martin Williams 馬騰
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  International Crisis Group (ICG) president and former Aus-tralian foreign minister Gareth Evans was once in the running for a Nobel Peace Prize. He didn't win it, but it is clear that if he had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Without Justice Prize, he would have stormed home.

  Such is the sad conclusion one reaches after reading his pitch in the International Herald Tribune promoting a "Greater Chinese Union" as a solution to ease tensions between China and Taiwan ("A `Greater Chinese Union' with Taiwan?", March 13-14, page 6). Based on a report by the ICG entitled Taiwan Strait IV: How an Ultimate Political Settlement Might Look, Evans' brief article implies that he and his organization retain no fundamental interest in safeguarding Taiwanese democracy so long as regional "stability" is threatened.

  Now, for those unfamiliar with Evans' record, this may come as a surprise. He has been praised for his work in helping stabilize Cambodia, and he was the brains behind the Australian Labor Party's foreign policy during its record term in government between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s.

  Yet those of us who watched him hobnob with some of Asia's most obnoxious, if erudite, tyrants while giving short shrift to festering problems in their countries -- think Indonesia, Suharto, Kopassus and East Timor, for example -- will recognize in the grand old man of Labor Party diplomacy a long-standing Australian tendency to ignore the plight of the little people outside its borders and, while tied to British or US apron strings, punch above one's weight in the service of an obliquely defined "bigger picture."

  It is an embarrassing Australian tradition that was briefly belied by successful intervention in East Timor, but then most recently revived with contemptuous treatment of the same dirt-poor East Timorese over oil contracts, disingenuous adventurism in Iraq and conservative Prime Minister John Howard's unending series of obsequious deferrals to US President George W. Bush.

  As citizens of a fledgling democracy, Taiwanese might expect to receive sympathy from Australians. It is my opinion that ordinary Australians who come to Taiwan today and see what is here and how things are run would be impressed and supportive, even moved -- especially in contrast to the looming social catastrophe that China offers.

  But democracy activists who think that the opinions of influential Australians are of any use whatsoever will despair at Evans' premise in dealing with cross-strait relations: "Neither side is going to achieve its most prefer-red solution."

  Well, why not, one might ask?

  The Chinese will not achieve its "most-preferred solution" because to attempt to do so would unleash a terrible conflict that would seriously harm Chinese credibility in the international community, rile Japan and other neighbors, not to mention the US, and, most importantly, kill and maim thousands if not tens or hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese people (though one suspects that the latter is hardly a deterrent for the Chinese -- it's part of their history to massacre by the million in the name of politics, the very same history that Evans would have Taiwan seek comfort from).

  But even if the Chinese succeeded in bringing the upstart population of Taiwan back to the fold, it is not difficult to see the cycle of hundreds of years of Taiwanese history swinging back to the bloodshed, reprisals, destruction of dissidents and carpetbagging that occurred every time a new colonial power set up shop on the island.

  And why won't Taiwan achieve its "most-preferred solution?"

  Evans dares not address this critical question in meaningful detail. He does not even concede that a groundswell of public sentiment in Taiwan might even attempt to bring this about -- as many have been and are trying to do, right now.

  To be candid, though, it must be said that there is no consensus among Taiwanese at this time on what to do or how to go about deciding on their future. The re-election of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) by a narrow margin and the subsequent attempt by his challenger, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), to discredit not only the result but the very agencies, the very state itself, that would preside over a recount suggest that there are real divisions which remain vulnerable to exploitation -- both by China and pro-China figureheads in Taiwan such as Lien -- and which may not be easily healed in the near future.

  These divisions are a fact of political life here, even if the behavior of Lien has been so calculatingly destructive and contemptuous of due process that moderate supporters may be repelled.

  But any hint of the complexity of local opinion is absent in the ICG report because the authors are only interested in the policy semantics of politicians -- the kind of people with whom the ICG membership prefer to associate -- and not the real-life opinions, concerns and inconsistencies of the people politicians represent.

  Seemingly deprived of access to grass-roots sentiment, the ICG might be forgiven for concentrating on the stultifying rituals of cross-strait rhetoric indulged in by the Taiwanese and Chinese governments. But in promoting this report, Evans makes it all too clear that he rejects the unconditional right of Taiwanese people to advance their democracy. Instead, he is prepared to see Taiwanese people sacrifice whatever amount of autonomy is necessary to stop China from threatening to launch an invasion.

  Evans is no Neville Chamberlain, appeasing a brutish aggressor in the hope that it will sit down and behave, because he is not naive. He is perfectly aware of the bestiality that China is capable of on the basis of the experiences of the 20th century alone.

  But he stands condemned here for giving solace to China with the claim that de jure independence for Taiwan is a "non-starter," which, whichever way you look at it, is another way of insisting that Taiwan eventually compromise its de facto independence.

  Evans would never, ever dare say such a thing about Australia were it faced with threats from an unusually aggressive Britain. In fact, he supported an Australian republic.

  So what is his excuse for discounting Taiwanese aspirations to the precious political culture that made him what he is? Cultural relativism? "Asian Values"? Trade interests? Cynicism about the meaning of democracy? Is it because he is poorly informed about Taiwanese people, culture, literature, art, languages, history and politics? Or is it simply because he has never loved a Taiwanese, slept with a Taiwanese, made Taiwanese friends or listened to concerns that they or their children might be run through by Chinese soldiers well-versed in the art of dispatching civilians?

  Civilized people live here, as it happens. Evans would do well to consider, as a citizen of another colony-made-good, that Taiwan's written history is twice as long as Australia's, that a good proportion of its people are descended from or otherwise embrace Austronesian cultures unconnected to China (compared to the pitiful and chronic agony endured by Australia's Aborigines, Taiwan has lately become a model of indigenous-settler relations) and that Taipei, for example, is a far, far safer city to live in than any metropolis Australia has to offer, or China for that matter.

  But what does Evans have to say on solving the matter at hand?

  "The core of the idea," he says, "is to draw upon Chinese history and culture -- including a centuries-old tradition of indirect imperial governance -- and an elastic interpretation of what it means to be Chinese."

  How extraordinary it is for a person of Evans' credentials and political alignment to fall back on a supposedly monolith history and culture of Asia -- and imperial, by his own admission -- to justify the termination of a democratic nation's sovereignty. Hark! Is that the sound of Edward Said spinning in his grave?

  As any half-literate Sinologist will confirm, Chinese history and culture are not things that can be backed into a corner and used to justify the perpetuation of tyranny. Many essential Chinese philosophers and writers despised tyranny, even if subsequent tyrants would appropriate their cultural prestige and enslave people with it. Confucius (孔子) is an ancient example. Lu Xun (魯迅) was the past century's pre-eminent victim of the same phenomenon.

  There's plenty of Chinese history and culture, no question. Just which bit you need to interpret a 21st-century political dispute is easily found. The problem for Evans is that it takes an equally short amount of time to locate a scathing and eloquent rebuttal from that same tradition. More importantly, Evans must justify why it is that we are compelled to search through the annals of Chinese history to find a solution to an international dispute.

  Evans' report seems to concede that a "solution" to this dispute remains 15 years away at best. Now, Taiwan has proved pragmatic and patient -- out of necessity. But will the Chinese wait that long?

  Maybe not, but presumably they won't scuttle their moment of Olympic self-congratulation in four years. In this vein, Evans proposes ping-pong diplomacy for a new millennium in the form of shared Olympic baseball in 2008.

  No, he is serious.

  And who, pray, will be responsible for engineering the common "Chinese identity" which Evans seems to think Taiwanese people could do with more of? Latter-day communists? The KMT old guard? Who else but these reprobates would be qualified for the job?

  Particularly in the aftermath of this election, in which the KMT old guard, personified by Lien, urged party agitators to "become ferocious" (兇起來) in an attempt to subvert the rule of law, the very thought of it leaves one nauseous -- and indignant.

  The threat Taiwan faces is not decreased but exacerbated by organizations like the ICG, which, with all of their resources and lobbying power, advocate "solutions" which corrode the reputation of Taiwanese democracy. They also corrode democracy in general, a quite fragile thing, easily taken for granted, and thus fail to stand by the very political principles which educated and nourished them.

  How tragic and infuriating it is to witness Evans and others talking about Taiwanese so pompously and patronizingly, as if they were so many minor, expendable chess pieces, and as if their aspirations for democracy and freedom from the hideousness of China's rule were beyond their station.

  If the ICG continues to privilege the agenda of dictators and refuses to take seriously the opinions of the majority of Taiwanese who joyously, peacefully and without animosity or grisly nationalistic sentiment elected their new government, then the only crisis its members need urgently consider is that of their own conscience.

  Martin Williams is an editor at the Taipei Times.
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