Some called it a bombshell, but it was only the bursting of a bubble. President Chen Shui-bian (
The pan-blue dominated legislature, in typical hypocritical fashion, cries that Chen does not have the best interests of the people in mind. That same pan-blue legislature has just cut the annual budget of the council to a mere US$32. This was more than just a slap in the face of the council, it confirmed that even the pan-blues consider the council useless. And for them to complain now that the council has ceased to function only insults the people of Taiwan.
The issue of the council revolves around democracy and misinterpretations of the nature of independence. Taiwan enjoys democracy and, therefore, independence. To unify with a country of its choice is certainly one of its options. Another option is that it remain free and independent. When a political party insists that unification is the only option, as the KMT and other pan-blue parties do (at least, most of the time), it denies Taiwan its democracy.
While the pan-blues are trying to hijack Taiwan for their ends, the goal of the council, ironically, was to establish a democratic, free and equitably prosperous China. This is a noble goal for China, of which the KMT are waishengren on Taiwan, but it rests on a false premise stated in the guidelines, that "Unification ... is the common wish of Chinese people at home and abroad." The Taiwanese people were never consulted or even given a vote in the formulation of this premise.
There is much more besides to illustrate why the guidelines should be scrapped. The terms of the process for unification stated in the guidelines have been continually violated by the People's Republic of China (PRC).
A few examples will serve to illustrate this point. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait should "establish a mutually benign relationship by not endangering each other's security and stability." "Democracy and the rule of law" should be present in both the PRC and the Republic of China. "Both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait should work together and assist each other in taking part in international organizations and activities."
With more than 700 missiles pointed at Taiwan, a total lack of democracy in the PRC, and the PRC's continued efforts to keep Taiwan from participating in the World Health Organization, ASEAN, the UN, etc, there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that the council is a one-sided dream fostered by the KMT. It is a dream that is totally disassociated from the reality of life on either side of the Taiwan Strait and which serves only to fog over the reality of how the KMT reluctantly relinquished its martial law and one-party state.
Despite all this, KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
As for its symbolic meaning, Ma is clearly stating: "You were duped, learn to enjoy it."
Jerome Keating is a Taiwan-based writer.
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
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