The Cross Strait Times

Considering that former President Chen publicly admitted to wrongdoing and therefore resigned from the DPP, why is he being held without an indictment?  The indictment should have been issued months ago, easily!  Could you even imagine if Ma had been arrested during his mayoral slush fund investigation — and before an indictment?

Chen’s arrest has shown Taiwan’s embarrasing lack of habeas corpus.  Even if the majority of people on the street agree that the ex-president is guilty of doing something wrong and approve of him being locked up, it should be done through the proper channels.  Since the proper channels weren’t followed, the legitimacy of this arrest is being called into question.  Great job at discrediting yourself, judiciary.

Photo credit: China Post

On Tuesday, the anti-corruption unit detained former President Chen Shui-bian over the “state affairs funds” and a money-laundering case involving the former first family. President Chen had been a loud voice against the ARATS-SEF meeting last week and yesterday was led away in handcuffs. He had even announced another bid on the ROC presidency for 2012.

He insisted that he was being jailed for political reasons, for being the “top prisoner of war of the ruling KMT and the Communist Party of China,” despite the fact that he had publicly apologized for breaking the law months before.

Since the end of Chen’s second presidential term, he and his family have been investigated on suspicions of embezzlement, bribery and money laundering during his presidency. Each of the crimes Chen is accused of has a minimum penalty of five years behind bars.

Now, what of Chen Shui-bian’s legacy? As he is being held for questioning and likely to be found guilty of some kind of corruption, I will say something that most Blue supporters would probably never acknowledge: Chen Shui-bian is a hero.

Before 2000, Taiwan was under one-party rule. Any party, no matter how well-intentioned its founding principles, when given too much power becomes corrupt and controlling, doing whatever it can to keep its grip on power. With the ascension of Chen and the DPP to the presidency, the KMT had to adapt and become more accountable to the people to survive as a party. Granted, the KMT’s accountablity is still not ideal (neither is the DPP’s, which cost them the 2008 election), but that should improve with future generations.

Furthermore, the Chen administration’s pushing of the envelope towards independence may have invigorated his base, but also divided Taiwan’s society and alienated a number of people. After he left office, the backlash of his policies brought the majority of Taiwan’s people back to the status quo.

Yes, the pendulum has swung back. It may swing further into Blue and may swing back to Green in the future, but the trend indicates that the pendulum will eventually settle in the center. It is a credit to Chen for getting that pendulum moving in the first place, which had been stuck on the Blue side for so long. Chen, as divisive a man as he is, has calibrated the political ying and yang of Taiwan.

Sure, politics are still volatile and far from ideal, but you can’t deny that Chen’s 8 year stint in the presidency made Taiwan a mature and more resilient democracy. For that, regardless of the charges of corruption against him, Chen should be remembered as a hero.

ARATS chairman Chen Yunlin is scheduled to arrive in Taipei today to discuss the future of Beijing-Taipei relations. As the PRC becomes a larger player on the world stage, truthfully, it was time that Taiwan dealt with Beijing in *some* way other than stonewalling before we got left behind. The idea that this meeting would be used to “sell-out” Taiwan is ridiculous. Ma himself does not have the power to do so. Furthermore, the Blues have never sold off any territory to Beijing; it has been the Greens (plus now-known-to-be-Green Lee Tenghui) who have “sold out” the piece of ROC territory known as Diaoyutai (Senkakus/Pinnacle Islands) to Japan without any discussion whatsoever.

Discussion — what’s happening now on both sides of the strait — is *always* a better choice than doing nothing, because starting discussion opens up opportunities to maneuver your opponent to your side that would never happen if you never sat down to talk in the first place.

While I respect differences in opinion on how the future of cross-strait relations, it is appalling that activists are encouraging throwing eggs at Chen Yunlin for a money reward (NT$1,000 for the head, $200 for the rest of him). How can a party that calls itself “democratic” and “progressive” not distance itself from those who aim to silence those who don’t agree with them and resort to such ugly tactics? Do they know the social and political costs of their non-peaceful protests? But perhaps I am expecting too much from a party that always throws the first punch in the legislature, making Taiwanese democracy a laughingstock in the eyes of the rest of the world.

With Ma saying that Taiwan and Mainland China are part of a “Great ROC” has drawn fire from the Green camps, saying that it does not reflect the ROC’s actual jurisdiction and demotes Taiwan’s status.  Let’s look at this argument again.  From a historical perspective, having two governments claiming the same territory as one country is not unprecedented.  There has only ever been “One Korea” and “One Germany,” each with two governments claiming the entirety of their nation.  No national map of either Korean republic only shows the land under their jurisdiction, they claim it ALL.  With such precedents, for the ROC not to do the same would irrational!  Furthermore, as I explained in my earlier post, Why the Republic of China?, maintaining ROC bolsters our sovereignty; saying that we are only what the PRC claims to be a province of theirs is what demotes us.

However, after this point is where Ma and I differ.  I say we should push for an acceptance of ROC on the international scene with PRC, much like how North and South Korea coexist as “One Korea”, and how East and West Germany used to coexist as “One Germany.”  Of course, currently, the PRC doesn’t want any of this, but the chances that they’d rather deal with a Republic of Taiwan instead of a Republic of China are much, much less.  Knowing the PRC’s current stance, I can understand Ma’s current rationale of bringing the other side of the strait so that negotiations can *start* and hopefully lead both sides to a win-win situation — but mutual non-recognition has to be carefully calculated and can carry great risk.  Of course, the hope is that mutual non-recognition will give way to actual mutual non-denial, but how that progresses, we can only wait and see.

Once more, on October 10th we celebrate the birth of the Republic of China.

You may ask, why the Republic of China instead of the Republic of Taiwan? After all, Taiwan is the more commonly accepted name for the ROC government these days. But our official name as the ROC must not be forgotten for the meaning that it carries. Of course, there are the obvious reason for why we should keep our official name: the name Republic of China is our heritage. It was the Republic of China that fortified Taiwan against Communist takeover, the banner of which so many have sacrificed, so that we may enjoy the life that we have today.

But there is also another reason: a government that calls itself the Republic of China is one that dares to be equal to the Communists’ People’s Republic of China. Notice that Beijing calls the ROC government Taiwan and never acknowledges the ROC government as the ROC. The PRC cannot admit the co-existence of the PRC and ROC, but the PRC already has a place for Taiwan in its atlas: as a province of the PRC.

To abandon the name Republic of China for the name Taiwan is to concede that the ROC government is NOT equal or as sovereign as the PRC government. The PRC wants us to use the name Taiwan so that we admit that we are subservient to the PRC. If we only use the name of what the PRC considers a province, then the PRC will continue to treat us as a province. Needless to say, being treated as a province runs counter to our right to be a national government! However, I cannot agree with President Ma’s current proposal of treating Beijing as an illegitimate government. No one else treats Beijing as illegitimate, and it does not make sense for us to do so just because they treat us as illegitimate. We must treat each other as equals, we must keep the door open for a possible Korean or German solution.*

Today is National Day of the Republic of China. So let us rally around the ROC name and the ROC flag and say to the Beijing that our Republic of China is just as legitimate and just as sovereign a government as theirs, and we must treat each other as equals.

*One may argue that the PRC would never agree to recognizing the ROC or a Korean/German solution, but to say so would mean that the PRC would also never agree to an independent Taiwan, making the argument inherently flawed.