The pan-blue camp's collaboration with Beijing has been accelerating to the point where it's safe to say that the pan-blue camp is Beijing's cohort in Taiwan.
Beijing apparently believes that strengthening the bonds between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would amount to taking a giant stride towards "unification." What Beijing leaders may have failed to realize is that the more the KMT identifies with Beijing, the more likely it is that their unification efforts will fail.
Beijing must have overlooked the fact that Taiwan is still a democratic society and that the Taiwanese people can express their free will at the ballot box. Once Beijing commits to the pan-blue camp as its representative or close lieutenant, the Taiwanese people are thereby given the opportunities to formally reject China via China's proxy.
As a consequence, the Taiwanese people could and must treat every future election with national implications -- such as presidential elections and legislative elections -- as de-facto referendums on unification.
It should be noted that, under pressure from the US pressure, Taiwan has not yet been able to hold a formal plebiscite to allow its people to decide on Taiwan's future status.
Therefore, Beijing is unwittingly helping to build a nearly perfect platform, based on which the Taiwanese people can freely and almost clearly choose between sovereignty and unification. That's the reason why the next legislative elections and presidential election in 2008 loom with such enormous significance.
If the pan-blue camp were to win both the presidential as well as the legislative elections, "unification by stealth" would be a distinct possibility. The prospect of this alone should be enough to make these elections referendums on "unification."
Should the pan-green camp win both elections, the ramifications would not be limited to Taiwan.
For clarification, one must first examine the difference between 2008 elections and past national-office elections in light of recent developments.
Although Beijing opposed pan-green candidates in the past elections, its routine tantrums were primarily directed against the fact that any elections -- but especially presidential elections -- were being held at all. Even though Beijing may prefer pan-blue candidates, it gave no open indication of that. That all changed with the advent of the KMT-CCP coalition, which has been widely trumpeted in China.
If the pan-green camp wins an election, it will be difficult for Beijing to suppress in China the interpretations that the Taiwanese people rejected Beijing's proxy in Taiwan -- and hence formally turned down unification with China.
The interpretation that the pan-green camp's 2008 national-election victory would be tantamount to the Taiwanese people's rejection of unification would be justified, considering that such a victory would have come about only after overcoming the pro-China media's daily bombardment of propaganda.
It could be further justified on account of the pressure Beijing would try to bring to bear on those elections.
Predictions about the effect of Taiwan's rejection of unification on China's domestic stability are only speculation for now. But it's certain that the impact would be far from trivial. At a minimum, the Chinese people would have the opportunity to witness how democracy provides people with choices and, therefore, how inferior China's system is by comparison.
More importantly, Beijing leaders might finally come to the realization that neither the "stick" nor the "carrot" will help its effort to annex Taiwan. That in turn could prompt them to not only reevaluate Beijing's approach but also rethink China's future relations with Taiwan.
A pan-green camp victory in both the legislative and 2008 presidential elections could therefore be a defining moment for Taiwan's democracy.
The KMT may finally resign itself to the fact that only through "naturalization" can the KMT survive and prosper in Taiwan. The KMT may further conclude at long last that it has no choice but to change its name to the "Taiwanese Nationalist Party" or just "Nationalist Party."
Taiwan would then have a strong two-party system, and a chance to rid itself of endless confrontation and deadlock in the legislature. An enhancement of domestic stability and the nation's strength would surely follow.
The key to this optimism is that Taiwan would possess two major Taiwanese political parties, instead of one native and one Chinese party.
The Taiwanese people would have successfully weathered some of the most adverse political conditions of any young democracy. In fact, judging from the country's current political landscape, it would need all the effort the Taiwanese people could muster to pull off this feat.
However, the Taiwanese people would have emerged with much more confidence as well as a keener appreciation of democracy. That means that, once for all, the Taiwanese people would shed the image that they take democracy for granted and are unwilling to defend it.
In a way, this may be the "initiation" Taiwan is destined to undergo in order to be qualified for admission into the world's selected rank of full democracies. Taiwan -- propelled by the elections' momentum -- could then set its sights on becoming a normal, sovereign state.
Huang Jei-hsuan
California
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