President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has often said that rapprochement with Beijing would, over time, have a salutary effect on the political situation in China, a theory predicated on the assumption that democracy can be transferred by osmosis.
Although this strategy is worth considering, it also imposes responsibilities on the actor seeking to change the other party. Among them is the need to use carrots and sticks in equal measure.
It is one thing for countries to look the other way when all they seek are lucrative deals with China. Reprehensible as this may be, a narrow, self--interest-first approach to China dovetails perfectly with Beijing’s loathing for foreign meddling in its domestic affairs. In most cases, both parties are perfectly happy to operate under this arrangement.
For some years now, academics and government officials have claimed that market capitalism would force China to democratize, even if this only occurred over time.
However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Chinese Communist Party has managed to embrace capitalism while keeping its hand firmly on the levers of power. What this means, therefore, is that democratizing requires a more sustained and multifaceted approach.
The Ma administration’s strategy could be just that, as it presumes to be in a position to “improve” China. In other words, while other governments can easily separate business from politics, Ma’s strategy of engagement calls, in theory, for a more refined approach.
However, Taipei has so far failed to comment on Beijing’s poor human rights record, with engagement continuing apace even when China broke the tacit rules that underpin Ma’s strategy.
This year alone, Chinese goons have beaten up rights activists and Beijing has ignored the mistreatment of foreign reporters by hooligans, been caught up in a high-profile espionage case against Taiwan and continued to undermine freedom of the press around the world.
While dissidents waste away in jail and national security secrets are smuggled into Chinese hands, senior Chinese officials — some of whom are documented human rights abusers against Falun Gong members, among others — are wined and dined by Ma’s officials as they seed Taiwan with Chinese money to win over “hearts and minds.”
It is hard to take claims by Ma’s circle that it has the rights of Taiwanese and Chinese at heart seriously when the likes of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) buddies up with provincial repressors-in-chief like Liaoning Governor Chen Zhenggao (陳政高). To be fair, it is equally difficult to swallow the rhetoric of local Democratic Progressive Party politicians who, while claiming to defend Taiwanese democracy against Chinese rapacity, are also rolling out the red carpet for envoys such as Beijing’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), who will visit later this week.
Trade and investment alone will not bring about political liberalization in China. Such a goal will only be achieved by a refusal to compromise on core values. Otherwise, engagement will transform democracies, which by their very nature are malleable, while autocratic China becomes stronger.
For distant countries with few cultural ties to China (and whose territory is not claimed by Beijing), the cost of transformation may appear marginal. However, for Taiwan, human rights and liberty are pieces in a zero-sum game against an opponent that refuses to give even one inch. Compromising, therefore, holds dire consequences for the future of Taiwan as a free society.
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,
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