The Cross Strait Times

In a landslide victory, KMT won the legislative elections in Taiwan. The victory overwhelmed even the most optimistic or pessimistic of political pundits, depending if you are green or blue. The KMT along with the pan-blue minority parties controls 75% of the seats in the legislature. In fact, three fourths majority is enough to make constitutional amendments to the R.O.C. constitution. With such a strong mandate from the people, it is clear that the people in Taiwan wants a change from the past eight years.

In the past eight years, the DPP has been involved in numerous corruption scandals, and preoccupied with symbolic battles.   It is clear that the Taiwanese people are tired of the symbolic battles, and want a party that is instead preoccupied with the country’s economy.  In the past, Taiwan was at the top of the east asian tigers, now it is  close to being at the bottom.   Reversing the slide is indeed going to be a very tough task.   With a looming global recession coming, the direct flights to mainland china will not be the panacea that everyone thinks it will be.  Direct flights must be coupled with incentives for Taiwanese businessmen to return back to Taiwan to setup their headquarters to gain the maximum benefits.
Going forward there is much to do in health care reform, agricultural reform , and education reform. Taiwan’s universal health care system is going into bankruptcy. Just last week the government had to inject 800 million NT to keep it afloat. Agriculture reform is absolutely necessary in the wake of WTO, and from the onslaught of competing farm products from mainland.  The education system needs fundamental reform by limiting the number of four year universities, improving secondary education, and most importantly improving adult education for the unemployed. 

The problems with the economy and domesitic policies coupled with global recession will be a daunting task indeed for this new legislature.   But the most fundamental issue facing Taiwan today is the relationship between ROC and the PRC.   In order for the KMT to make any progress of this nagging issue, it must win the Presidency.  The legislature really has no power in determining the foreign policy of the country.   This is why it is so important for the KMT to win the Presidential elections.   According to the ROC constitution, which is similar to the French dual-executive system, domestic policies are carried out by the Prime Minister, and the President only controls foreign policy, and the military.  

More than any other issue, the DPP wants control over the policy of cross strait relations.  They understand that this is the most important and fundamental issue facing Taiwan.   This is why both Hsieh and A-Bian have said in their campaign speeches that the economy is important but not everything is about money.   DPP’s candidate Hsieh has even made suggestions that he is willing to allow the appointment of any Prime Minister that the KMT wishes as long as he has control over the military and foreign policy.   Aircow believes it is a smart move, KMT’s weakness is in its foreign policy.  Its one-china policy is actually against the majority opinion of the people in Taiwan.  DPP continues to use that to its advantage, fomenting distrust in the people on KMT’s ability in creating a foreign policy that is in line with the majority opinion.   However, with that said Aircow also thinks that most people understand that to achieve a two-china, or a one china-one taiwan outcome, ROC must first accept the one-china policy to create dialogue with the mainland.  Basically the idea is that there will only be two-chinas if we first agree to one-china.   The problem is that the public in Taiwan is unsure if the KMT’s eventual goal is a two-china policy or not.  The KMT must do more to alleviate the mistrust that local taiwanese have with KMT and its foreign policy if Ma wants to win in 2008.    

A new year brings new hope.

The postponement of democracy in Hong Kong until 2017 is news that has rocked the Sinosphere and a disappointment to supporters of democracy. What do current trends hold for the future of Chinese democracy?

Taiwan has looked at Hong Kong as how “One Country, Two Systems” as an unsatisfactory arrangement that has not lived up to its hype. Despite the preservation of most social freedoms and unabated economic growth since 1997, democracy has been delayed, and Beijing still has the last word in the governance of the territory. The last two points make Taiwan particularly nervous, and Taiwan-based Hong Kong watchers have been particularly vigilant at calling out any PRC violations of Hong Kong’s social freedoms, which have been guaranteed to the special administrative region for 50 years.

Conversely, from the Mainland Chinese point of view, democracy on Taiwan hasn’t lived up to its hype either. Rival political parties are corrupt to the core - the KMT is now joined by the DPP in having stolen assets. Interparty competition that, in theory, sharpens the democratic process, in the short-term has led to political deadlock; while some point fingers at the Pan-Blues, the fact remains that the majority of Taiwanese voted them into the legislature (hence their majority), and are thus doing the job that the people appointed them to do. Furthermore, when the minority Pan-Greens don’t have enough votes to vote down a distasteful bill, they don’t debate endlessly or filibuster, instead, they resort to violence in the legislative hall against their Pan-Blue colleagues, making democracy in Taiwan an international mockery.

If that weren’t bad enough, the current DPP Chen administration has shown just as much desire as martial-law KMT regimes to curtail civil liberties for regime security. Their failure to do so was only due to the administration’s own lack of actual power. For example, the Chen administration has tried to curtail free speech by attempting to shut down the news station TVBS for exposing scandal after scandal in the Chen administration. Nevermind that TVBS’s own criticisms of the previous KMT regimes helped Chen into the presidential office in the first place.

Of course, Taiwan’s democracy has more merits than disadvantages. The end of the KMT-imposed martial law has led to people being able to live freer lives, and the peaceful transfer of power between political parties has upstaged any possible future uprisings or civil wars. The problem Taiwan has seems to be lack of civil society, where ethnic differences are easily exploited, legislative debates easily degenerate into fistfights, and supporters of ROC and ROT see each other as traitors instead of neighbors standing together for democracy. A civil society must form, as it surely must for Taiwan’s democracy to continue.

I have hope that such a civil society will form, and its development is inherent in the maturation of democracy. Short-term legislative deadlocks lead to long-term political competitions to gain the trust of the people and mutual cooperation to get things done. Even the global model for democracy, the United States, had its fair share of turbulence in its early years — just ask Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner. The United States in its maturity is a much more efficient, well-oiled democratic machine, even if it is still far from ideal. Likewise, a mature, civil democracy on Taiwan would be a much better inspiration for the future of China’s governance than the chaos, corruption, and lust for money and power that routinely make headlines in Taiwan.

As for Hong Kong, hopefully Beijing will rethink their strategy and see that there is no need to delay full democracy from 2012 to 2017. The PRC has many self-evident concerns about letting loose the tide of people power that comes with democracy; the Mainland is no stranger to mass protests gone ugly. Therefore, why the PRC would draw up a timetable for democracy and keep power with elite factions is understandable, but as far as a mature, stable, western-oriented place like Hong Kong, it is still paranoid.

But don’t forget: for the PRC, Hong Kong is their testing ground, their “great experiment,” for democracy. How Hong Kong develops would be a barometer for how democracy could be implemented on Mainland China. The PRC has stated time again that it plans to embrace Western-styled democracy, even if that plan is slated far, far into the future. Should democracy in Hong Kong succeed, as it surely will, we may see a peaceful transfer to democracy in Mainland China within our lifetimes.

But what does this mean for democracy in Mainland China?

A proposal: If Beijing is serious about wooing Taiwan, what about letting Hong Kong run its natural course to have democracy by 2012 and make Fujian the PRC testing ground for democracy? Fujian is the natural option: cultural and linguistic commonalities with Taiwan, not to mention geographic proximity. Encourage the growth of Fujian-based political parties, heck, even invite Taiwan’s political parties to come to Fujian to campaign, have local elections, and build democracy in Fujian. A democratic Fujian (provided that Three Links open) would blur a number of political differences and knock down barriers between Taiwan and Fujian, and by inference, Mainland China.

What will likely happen: In the short term, President Hu Jintao has promised to strengthen democracy within the Communist Party. Now the CPC, being as large as it is, has large factions within, at one extreme being the Maoist hardliners and the other extreme being those in favor of democratic socialism as practiced in Europe. Clearly, the CPC has no intention of giving up power in the immediate future for democracy to happen. What this could mean is that the factions within the CPC would act like rivalling political parties, and to vote for the faction that you support, you need to be a CPC member. Hence, a democratic process is born within the framework of a single-party. For clarity’s sake, here’s a theoretical chart.

Western-democratic equivalent / PRC equivalent
Voter enfranchisement = CPC membership
Political party = CPC faction
Party faction = faction within CPC faction

As intraparty democracy matures, the one-party framework could be removed to have the factions operate as full-fledged, separate political parties. While in my mind this scenario is not ideal, is it a method of ensuring stability and political choice as the PRC transitions towards full democracy. Ideally, I would like to see competing political parties, as I believe that be it CPC, KMT, or DPP, there is nothing inherently wrong with any of their ideologies, only in unopposed power. Any political party that has too much power and wants to remain in power can become brutal, no matter how idealistic its original intent. Any political party that used to be totalitarian can be tempered into just another, ordinary political party with competition keeping power in check. The KMT is an example of a party that has gone through all these evolutions.

The other aspect of Chinese democracy on the Mainland to keep in mind is Mainland China’s enormous population. The American House of Representatives seats 435 people to represent 300 million people. To properly apportion that to China would mean to a House of Representatives well over 1,000 people. A House that size would be unbelievably chaotic. A House any smaller would not adequately represent the billion plus people of the nation. So what would the solution be?

A proposal: A European-Union styled federation on steroids.

With Chinese provinces having populations comparable to those of European nations, it would be appropriate to federalize or even confederate powers from the central authority from Beijing to the provinces. Each province run is own affairs like a European republic that is then responsible for the people in its own province, and sending delegates to a looser, umbrella government. The federal or confederal government would then handle matters mostly relating to foreign affairs and representation, armed forces, and interprovince infrastructure. In this manner, the provincial governments can give their constituents the attention that a larger government would be less adept at, satisfying the balance between effective democracy and a large population.

Again, a new year brings new perspectives and thoughts on the future of Chinese democracy, and the continuing hope that someday, whenever that may be, that all of China can be democratic, stable, and content, just as Sun Yat-sen wanted it to be.