Taiwan Politics and Leadership
Conference
The People’s Liberation Army and Chinese Society in Transition
National Defense University
Institute for National Strategic Studies
Ft. Leslie J. McNair,
Washington, D.C.
October 30-31, 2001
One of the reasons that the United States is so committed to the defense of Taiwan, both as a matter of policy as well as law, is that Taiwan is truly the most dynamic and vibrant democracy in Asia. Surely, the United States has extensive economic interests in Taiwan (whither we export 50% more in U.S. goods annually than we do to the People’s Republic of China); and there are compelling strategic interests in denying to another major Eurasian power control of the sea and air lines of communication in the Western Pacific upon which Taiwan sits astride. But the true American interest in Taiwan is to maintain the survival and success of Taiwan’s democracy, which is one of the true accomplishments of America’s post-war presence in Asia.
To understand the success of Taiwan’s democracy, one must grasp the nature of the dynamic political environment wherein it thrives. Half of that dynamism is generated by four troubled decades of history from 1945 to 1988 during which deep inter-ethnic antipathy festered, and during which the ethnic Taiwanese majority became increasingly insistent on self-determination and, indeed, independence.[1] The fact that several top leaders of Taiwan’s political opposition up to 1986 were accomplished lawyers[2] trained to take advantage of constitutional processes, gave the opposition movement a tradition of working within the electoral system and Taiwan’s legislative structures. Another factor livening up Taiwan’s politics emerged as formerly-blacklisted Taiwan Independence advocates overseas were permitted to return to Taiwan and enter politics[3]. Steeped in American, Canadian and European traditions of healthy partisan, but highly confrontational political campaigning, these returning exiles brought to Taiwan’s electioneering a edginess never before seen in Taiwan, or in China for that matter. Throughout the long period of political repression in Taiwan (from 1945 to 1992), “Taiwan Independence” was the main rallying cry of the non-Kuomintang underground opposition. And Taiwan independence was premised on the demand that Taiwan’s ethnic majority, the non-Mainlanders, should determine the future of their country[4].
The other half of the reason Taiwan’s democracy is so dynamic is because its electoral system – especially in the parliament (Legislative Yuan) – is so complex. A good case can be made that the electoral structure is conducive to competition among at least five separate political parties, and that it rewards strong party organizations (as opposed to independent candidates).
Another constitutional quirk of Taiwan’s electoral system is that the presidency and the legislature are elected in different years and have different terms – a situation that both of the major political parties hope to resolve in the coming years.
As a result, the vibrancy and dynamism of Taiwan’s democracy produced a minority president in March 2000, who had to struggle with a legislature that was dominated by the majority opposition. And the result of that has been gridlock in policy, guerrilla warfare in government, and growing bitterness among the various ethnic groups that gravitate to one political party or the others.
The Dirty Little Secret
Before getting into the complexities of Taiwan’s electoral system, one must first be let in on a dirty little secret of Taiwan politics: Taiwan politics is ethnic politics.
The major cleavages in Taiwan's political culture fall along ethnic lines, that is, mainlanders, Hokklo Lang Taiwanese[5], Hakka Taiwanese, and to a smaller extent, Malayo-Polynesian Aborigine.
It was this reality that made the March 18, 2000, Presidential Election a turning point in Taiwan's political history. It was a classic "realignment" election which changed the entire complexion of Taiwan's political dynamics. This ethnic dynamic – which the Taiwanese call "Shengji Jingjie" or the "Provincial Complex" – will most likely be strengthened in the upcoming electoral fight for control of Taiwan's Legislative Yuan which takes place December 1.[6]
For a rough idea of how this ethnic dynamic plays out in elections, let’s look at an electoral map of the March 2000 Presidential Election.
The Green areas are predominantly ethnic Hokklo Taiwanese – and they voted solidly for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chen Shui-bian. The red areas have large Hakka and mainlander populations and they voted for mainlander independent presidential candidate James Chu-yu Soong.[7]
In the 1996 Presidential election, the Kuomintang (“Nationalist” or “KMT”) party nominee former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui won over 54% of the vote against four opponents, and yet just four years later, despite an economy that was booming and a President who was still overwhelmingly popular, the KMT presidential candidate only managed to get 23% of the vote – a 31% drop from 1996.
In the 2000 election, former Taipei mayor Chen Shui-bian was the nominee of the pro-Independence “Democratic Progressive Party” (DPP) candidate, and he got nearly 40% of the vote – 19 percentage points above what the DPP man in 1996, Peng Ming-min, got.
And in 2000, independent presidential candidate James Chu-yu Soong got 36% of the vote, 11 percentage points more than the combined vote in 1996 for the two mainlander-leaning candidates, Lin Yang-kang[8] and Chen Lu-an the ascetic and devoutly Buddhist mainlander who preached peace with mainland China – and served as defense minister. He is the son of the late Chen Cheng, Chiang Kai-shek's vice president.
In 1996, Taiwan's incumbent president, the determined Lee Teng-hui, who had bemoaned the "Tragedy of being Taiwanese," and called his own Kuomintang (KMT) party "an Alien Regime" (Wailai Zhengquan) garnered most of the ethnic Taiwanese vote[9]. And together with the DPP's Peng Ming-min, the pro-Independence advocate (in fact, the father of the Taiwan Independence Movement) they claimed over 75% of the vote in Taiwan.
The mainlander vote, about 15% of the electorate, which went to Lin Yang-kang and Chen Lu-an in 1996, went to James Soong in the March 2000 balloting. Soong also had strong support among the non-Mainlanders in Taiwan, giving him an additional 21% of the vote.
James Soong, with a 1974 doctorate in political science from Georgetown University, was probably Taiwan's most astute politician – and a keen reader of opinion polls. Moreover, he knew how politics works in Taiwan – especially ethnic politics. Soong was a former Government Information Office chief, and later became secretary general of the Kuomintang. He was reputed to have been the architect of Lee Teng-hui’s consolidation of power in the three years after the death of Chiang Ching-kuo.[10] In 1994, when he ran for Taiwan provincial governor, his spoken Taiwanese was said to be so bad that President Lee Teng-hui told him to keep his mouth shut, and Lee himself campaigned on the stump with Soong smiling at his side. Soong won the gubernatorial election with nearly 56% of the vote.[11] And spent the next four years lavishing provincial money on Hakka districts throughout Taiwan in a highly successful effort to ingratiate himself to the Hakka voters... and, by the way, to Taiwan's Aborigines. Not only that, Soong learned to speak Minnan without an accent, and by the end of his term could carry on a conversation in the Hakka dialect. That's how smart he is, or maybe just determined.
In the March 2000 Presidential Election, Soong handily carried virtually all of Taiwan's Hakka districts, and Hakka's count for about 15-20% of the vote. The same goes for the Aborigine vote – all to Soong, except for pockets in Taitung to Lien Chan.
Simply put, Hokklo are the Taiwanese whose forebears came from China's Fujian province in the century before last, and 18,000 of whose forebears were arrested and executed by Chiang Kai-shek's mainlander soldiers in the aftermath of the February 28, 1947 rebellion.[12] 18,000 young Taiwanese men of the intelligentsia, Japanese-educated, many fought for the emperor in the War, their families owned land, were merchants, and they rebelled against an unbelievably corrupt nationalist Chinese occupation of Taiwan from October 1945- February 1947.
Who are The Hakka? The same clannish and fiercely independent "Guest People" who migrated from the wars in North China during the Song Dynasty and were discriminated against in imperial China's coastal Guangdong and Fujian. In the 18th and 19th centuries, they migrated again to Taiwan, where, again, their funny clothes and funny language made them objects of derision in the eyes of the majority Hokklo. The Hokklo pushed them off into the poorer, hilly land where they were fated to become even more clannish and poor, and generally came to look to the Japanese and later the Kuomintang (KMT) government to settle their disputes with Taiwanese.
And the aborigines? Now numbering not quite a million, they are the Malayo-Polynesian aboriginal peoples whom the vast migration of incoming Hokklo from the 17th-19th Centuries pushed off the flatlands of Taiwan and into the mountains (well, actually the flatlanders were all killed off, and the mountain peoples are pretty much all that's left.) Again, the Aborigines also looked to the Japanese and the KMT for protection against the Taiwanese.
The Mainlanders – they were the remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's defeated army and the legendary two million boat people who fled China in 1949-50 after the Communist Victory. But the February 28 rebellion began before these hordes actually arrived. In 1947, an incident sparked when ragtag Nationalist customs troops beat up an old woman selling contraband cigarettes at the Taipei train station. Local boys accosted the hated outlanders, beat them to a pulp – well, killed them, and unleashed pent-up hatred against the mainlanders. For several days, marauding Taiwanese gangs hunted down every mainlander they could find. Chiang Kai-shek dispatched three divisions of garrison troops to Taiwan, put down the rebellion, and arrested or executed not just the trouble-makers, but also the intellectual elites that could potentially cause trouble in the future.
While the 1947 executions touched most Hokklo Taiwanese families, the Kuomintang’s 1949 Land Reform program had the additional economic effect of confiscating larger Hokklo landholdings and transferring it to poorer farmers, of whom the Hakka were arguably the biggest winners.[13]
So, it's not difficult to understand the ethnic rivalry and cleavages that color Taiwan's politics these days. But this, too, is simplistic. There are other issues, cross-Strait relations, Taiwan independence, but these are a by-product of the ethnic identity issue. Among urban voters, even more important are economic policies, environmental concerns, corruption, corruption again, and let's see – oh, did I mention corruption?
There is no question, the preeminent political icon in Taiwan is former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui. He towers above everyone else, literally (he’s over six feet tall) as well as figuratively. Lee's tepid support for his own chosen candidate – Vice President Lien Chan, is believed to be the cause of Lien's ignominious distant-third place showing in the March 2000 elections.[14]
Lee's visible happiness at Chen Shui-bian's victory, his emergence this last June on the stage with President Chen to inaugurate the new "Northern Association",[15] a not-so-thinly veiled advocate of Taiwan independence, and the ensuing uproar in the press about Lee's strategy to "split the KMT" and form a new party to support President Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). By August, the former President had presided over the assembly of the “Taiwan Solidarity Union”, which subsequently registered as a formal political party. [16] After an agonizing two months, the KMT disciplinary commission voted, on September 21, to revoke Lee’s membership in the party.
The KMT had hoped to sidestep this move which they worried would only crystallize the KMT’s image among ethnic Taiwanese as a mainlander-dominated organization.[17] But in the end, Lee’s incessant haranguing of the KMT as the source of Taiwan’s political gridlock, and his attacks on the party for abandoning his “Taiwan First” political agenda proved more than the mainlander elders of the party could take. The KMT’s top Hakka, Vice Chairman Wu Po-hsiung, also lined up with the mainlanders against Lee, giving further evidence of the Hakka-Mainlander alliance that is the backbone of KMT support. [18]
The other leader is James Soong.
It is now ancient history, but it was then-President Lee who managed to get James Soong – a Mainlander – elected Taiwan provincial governor in 1994 in the Island’s first popular election for governor. At the time, Soong was seen as Lee's acolyte. But by 1996, seeing that Soong was positioning himself for a run for the presidency, Lee took steps to emasculate him – figuratively, of course – by engineering the constitutional abolition of the Taiwan provincial government. Lee wanted to "Taiwanize" or “Localize” (ben tu hua) Taiwan's political culture and rid it once and for all of its mainlander domination. This was a move that alarmed the old-guard mainlander factions in the KMT, and already in 1993, a sizeable chunk of the mainlanders bolted the party to establish the China New Party (CNP) dedicated to the proposition that Taiwan was part of China.
The move to abolish the Taiwan provincial government not only yanked the old rug out from under mainlander upstart James Soong, but was seen in mainlander circles as the thin-end of the wedge for making Taiwan an independent state without even a fig-leaf of a connection to China.
Soong's exit from the political stage in late 1998 was not a pretty scene. Soong resigned, and plotted his revenge. Soon after, Lee warned Soong in public not to "think only of himself" – it was a calculated insult. And Lee froze Soong out of the contention for the KMT presidential nomination in 2000. Soong. Not surprisingly, Soong and like-minded mainlanders formed an independent presidential campaign which split the Kuomintang (KMT). President Lee himself probably was happy to see the Mainlanders go. The move would leave the KMT in his hands.
However, he hadn't reckoned on Soong's popularity with the Hakka's and the Aborigines – upon whom he had been lavishing public funds for four years. In the end – Soong was able to call in enough IOU's to attract away virtually the entire mainlander vote from the KMT's Lien Chan in the election, as well as most of the Hakkas, Aborigines. He also attracted a good chunk of "Good-government" voters in Taiwan's urban north.
Soong won 36% of the vote, and after the election quickly formed his own political party, the People First Party (PFP) made up of disaffected mainlanders in the Legislative Yuan (LY), a number of top Hakka personalities and a handful of prominent Taiwanese politicians who had suffered personal insults (some intentional some not) arising from President Lee Teng-hui's imperious manner. A year and a half later, as the smoke clears from the March 2000 presidential election, Soong remains the only real political leader in the PFP.
Unfortunately for the PFP, however, Soong seems to be all there is of the party. Pundits in Taipei say “The PFP has no money, it has no candidates, it has no policies, all it has is Soong.” Earlier, the PFP had hoped to be a refuge for ethnic Taiwanese and Hakkas from the Kuomintang who were fed up with KMT corruption, and who were not likely to get re-nominated for Legislative seats as KMT polls showed the party’s share of the electorate shrinking. In the end, it was Lee’s “Taiwan Solidarity Union” that attracted the KMT castaways – and this, apparently, was the TSU’s ulterior strategy all along. As one analyst in Taipei explained to me, the primary purpose of the TSU was to ensure that the PFP did not get any plausible legislative candidates, not that the TSU actually thought these candidates would win under the TSU banner.
The tactic worked. A much ballyhooed KMT-PFP alliance that supposedly would pull together the so-called “Pan Blue Army” of KMT and its splinter parties, seems finally to have collapsed. Last week, Soong, himself bemoaned the inability of the KMT to deal forthrightly with his party. Soong is desperate to claw votes away from the mainlander-heavy Taipei city, where on October 24, he slammed President Chen and former president Lee for “fomenting ethnic divisions”. Still, Soong is wary of alienating his ethnic-Taiwanese constituency, and the next day he campaigned for PFP legislators in Eastern Taiwan by slamming President Chen and former President Lee, not for “ethnic divisions”, but rather for “neglecting” the economic development of Eastern Taiwan.
This leaves Lien and the Kuomintang. Last March, when all the votes were counted. Chen Shui-bian carried the ethnic Hokklo areas down-island (about 40% of the vote), while Soong got the Mainlanders, the Hakka and the Aborigines (about 36%). Lien was left with the ethnic-Taiwanese votes controlled by the KMT party machine – in the end, it was only 23%.
Ironically, when Lien lost so badly – the mainlanders, who hadn't supported Lien in the first place – rioted for two days in Taipei demanding President Lee resign as the Party's Chairman and turn the reins over to Lien Chan. Even the popular KMT mayor of Taipei, mainlander Ma Ying-jeou joined the chorus calling for Lee's ouster – a move that did not endear Ma to Taiwanese. But it was a move that did make him the darling of the Mainlanders.
After several days, Lee finally resigned, leaving the shattered KMT – and its US$3 billion war chest – in the hands of Lien Chan. In Lee's wake was left a KMT with a mostly Taiwanese rank-and-file, but a leader who was, and remains, desperate to bring back the schismatic mainlanders. Now, however, KMT chairman Lien Chan is surrounded by pretenders to the throne. The obvious successor, when Lien finally stumbles, is ethnic Taiwanese Vincent Siew, 60, former premier, and a decent, smiling hand-shaking politician.
Siew will be challenged by the attractive, razor-sharp and self-confident Mayor Ma of Taipei, 50 years old, a former justice minister with a good reputation. But Ma was also the Brutus who thrust the unkindest cut of all into Lee Teng-hui last year. Aside from these two, there are no other potential leaders in the KMT hierarchy.
Finally, there's the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). When I think of the DPP, I am reminded of Will Rogers, who said "I don't belong to any organized political party, I'm a democrat." The same observation can be made about Taiwan's DPP – or perhaps they're over organized, into at least five major factions, and a myriad smaller caucuses, forums, and mutual-admiration societies. Two of the DPP's three living former chairmen have already bolted the party, one wants to form an alliance with the PFP, and the other wants to reunify with the mainland – he's a Hakka, of course[19].
So the DPP has plenty of leaders – too many – their problem is finding followers.
Seriously, though, the DPP's clear leader is, of course, President Chen Shui-bian. Unfortunately, being Taiwan's president isn't all it's cracked up to be if you're not the leader of the majority party in the legislature. And President Chen's been dogged by a particularly vicious legislature.
Fortunately, for him, Taiwan's public appears disgusted with the Legislature. In fact, former President Lee was quoted again last week – as he has for the past four months -- as blaming ALL of Taiwan's political woes – and economic ones for that matter – on the Legislature, and, in case anyone missed the point, Lee specified that he was talking about the OPPOSITION parties. And in case any one missed even that point, Lee went on record as “wanting to cry after seeing what’s happened to twelve-years’ work” as chairman of the KMT. President Lee spent the past two months actively campaigning for TSU candidates who are likely to help Chen form a "stable majority".
Clearly, the KMT has been stung by this. Lien Chan continuously charges that Lee and Chen Shui-bian have “played the ethnic card”, and pundits acknowledge that Lee’s ouster from the KMT has hurt the party among the Hokklo Taiwanese electorate. Although KMT Organization Chief Chao Shou-po insisted last week that “those who left the party under Lee’s chairmanship are now returning to the fold”, those returnees are mainlanders who voted for James Soong. Their return to the KMT takes votes from Soong’s PFP. On the other hand, DPP Secretary General Wu Hai-jen said last week that “the result of the KMT’s ‘criticize Lee Campaign’ has been a hemorrage of support in Southern Taiwan.”
Coupled with a renewed attack on the KMT’s ill-gotten US$3 billion warchest, and the widely broadcast television clip of Chinese foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan interrupting and insulting Taiwan Economics Minister Lin Hsin-yi at the APEC leaders’ conference on October 19, the KMT’s ouster of Lee – and the increasingly pro-Mainland complexion of the KMT -- has eclipsed Taiwan’s current economic depression as the dominant concern of the ethnic majority Hokklo in the upcoming election.
So, there's every indication that the DPP will emerge as the biggest party in the December elections. And one can be sure that President Lee will twist every arm he can get hold of to ensure that his co-factionalists – the so-called “Lee Wing” of the KMT – cooperate.
And
Finally, Taiwan's Legislative Electoral System[20]
The electoral structure for Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan makes legislative
elections a unique test of organization and precision electioneering. Although
each electoral district elects several legislators, voters cast only a single
vote for one candidate in a system called “Single Vote, Multi-Seat” balloting.
This system, therefore, requires that parties nominate just the right number of
candidates for the party slate in each district and then mobilize their voters
with the aim of very precisely distributing the votes among each of the
candidates.
Small political parties and
independents with strong personal networks can still compete in this
environment, but for a major party, the system means that tactical mistakes
could cost it just enough votes spread too thinly causing it to lose potential
seats to give their opposition much-prized control of the legislature. Still,
upsets are unlikely because minority parties are unwilling to risk losing their
few seats by nominating enough candidates to obtain an overall majority.
Under Taiwan's complex legislative electoral system, 176 of 225 seats in the
Legislative Yuan (LY) are directly elected by the voters. Each voter casts a
single vote for only one candidate. Each of Taiwan's 31 electoral districts
elects several representatives to the LY with the exception of four small
constituencies that have only one legislator. This means candidates compete not
only against candidates from the opposition parties but also against others
from their own party. Complicating this system further, in election districts
that elect four or more legislators, one of every four elected must be a woman,
even if a male candidate receives more votes. After the quota of reserved
female seats is filled by the top female vote-getters, female candidates
compete head-to-head with their male counterparts.
The remaining 49 seats in the Legislative Yuan are allocated to political
parties that receive at least five percent of the popular vote. These parties
divide the seats on the basis of the percentage of valid votes they receive.
For example, if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) wins 30 percent of the
popular vote it gets 30 percent of the appointed seats. Eight of these 49
appointed seats are seen as representing the overseas Chinese community while
the rest are considered at-large representatives.
Numbers are everything
To succeed in a Taiwan legislative election, each party must have a clear
understanding before the election of approximately how many votes it will
receive in each electoral district. This understanding helps determine how many
candidates the party will run in that district. For example, if the Kuomintang
(KMT) determines that in a four-seat district of 160,000 voters, 80,000 will
support the KMT, it is likely that it will choose to run only two candidates.
If it runs three, it risks spreading its votes too thinly among its three
candidates and risk losing all four seats. Conversely, if the KMT runs only one
candidate in this district, that candidate might well win with 80,000 votes,
but the party would give away another seat it could have won easily. In order
to maximize the number of seats, therefore, parties must closely examine each
constituency and nominate candidates with extreme precision.
Gaining this understanding, however, is no small feat. During Taiwan's martial
law era, the KMT used local police and identification card records to identify
party members and others inclined to support KMT candidates in local elections.
While this is no longer done, many mechanisms for voter mobilization used by
the KMT remain in place today. The rosters of farmers' and fishermen's and
irrigation associations tell parties (mainly the KMT) where potential blocks of
like-minded voters reside. Township, village and even neighborhood leaders also
help the party organizations identify voters. Parties also employ political
surveys to help them measure support in each area. Ultimately, a party's
ability to predict the level of its support will go a long way toward ensuring
it runs just the right number of candidates.
Mobilizing and distributing votes
Knowing how many votes you may have in a given district and how many candidates
to run is only half the battle. Because most districts elect several
legislators, parties must not only run the right number of candidates, but must
maximize distribution of the expected vote among all their candidates.
Successful vote distribution depends in large part on a party's ability to
communicate with and mobilize voters. Local party leaders and party middlemen,
therefore, must communicate to their voters for which of the party candidates
they should vote. In rural areas, leaders of local political factions or social
institutions like farmers associations rally their members around specific
candidates making this job easier. In urban areas, however, mobilization and
distribution of votes is becoming increasingly difficult because these
organizations are less influential and voters are increasingly influenced by
less manageable forces like the media.
Candidates also engage their own personal networks to help manage votes in
certain areas. In fact, Taiwan's electoral system and personality-driven
politics also makes it possible for independent candidates with strong personal
connections to win a seat. In Taoyuan
county's twelve-seat district, for example, a candidate only needs a little
more than eight percent of the vote to win a seat. This not only increases the
competition for the major parties, but has also allowed local faction leaders
and even gangsters with deep pockets and strong networks to get elected.
Under Taiwan's Legislative Yuan election system, upsets are highly unlikely.
Minority political parties will usually be unwilling to risk losing their few
seats by nominating enough candidates to obtain an overall majority. A party's
nomination decisions are usually guided by past experience with voters and
therefore, it will add and subtract candidates on the basis of slight shifts in
support or improved capacity to mobilize.
However, in this respect December's Legislative Yuan election may prove to be one of the most unusually dynamic in recent memory. The growth of the DPP and the emergence of the People First Party (PFP) since the last LY election have begun to undercut the KMT's historical organizational advantages, forcing it to try to reduce the number of candidates it runs. If the KMT can't accurately measure shifts in support toward the PFP and DPP and cut its candidate roster accordingly, it may run too many candidates and pay the price of split votes and even more lost seats in December. Similarly, the DPP and PFP will have to be willing to gamble to take advantage of any cuts made by the KMT.
What this means is that every political party spends most of its effort trying to gauge just exactly what the support is for each of its candidates at the time of the nominations, which this year came as early as March and April, although the horse-trading continues to this day. The parties therefore rely in exhaustive polling, street canvassing, and in the final weeks, giving the party faithful very exact instructions on whom to vote for.
The polling has already started, and my understanding is that the DPP is confident it will get 80 seats in the elections – down from the 90 seats they predicted over five months ago, but still enough to make the DPP the largest party in the Legislative Yuan. The People First Party (PFP) believes it will get at least 30, down from the 50+ seats it predicted last June, and this leaves the KMT with 80 to 85 seats – down from the 169 seats it has now, but still placed to keep the KMT neck-and-neck with the DPP. Smaller parties like the pro-China “China New Party” could be left with only two or three seats, and no at-large legislators, while polling suggests the pro-Independence “Taiwan Solidarity Union” may get at least five seats, but possibly as many as ten – most of which they may get by taking votes from the DPP. Independents will get the balance.
The important conclusion from all this is that ethnic identity – and consequently, national identity – is a permanent feature of Taiwan's political landscape.
Because National Identity is at the core of the cross-Strait tensions, I would conclude that Taiwan's political process will not permit an accommodation of China's demands that Taiwan become subordinate to Beijing. So, unless China changes – there's no near- to mid-term prospect of any cross-Strait rapprochement.
But the other side of the coin is that the political dynamics are such that the majority ethnic Hokklo-Taiwanese inclination toward an outright declaration of independence will be restrained by the uneasiness of the minority Hakka, mainlander and Aborigines.
Finally, Although we might have justifiable concerns about the judgement of Taiwan's leadership, on the whole they are well educated, intelligent, resourceful and very responsive to their electorate. Which is more than can be said for China's leadership.
[1] Taiwan’s public opinion has shown a steady warming to independence since 1994 when generally about 10% of respondents in public opinion polls were “pro independence” and 25% were “pro unification.” At the height of Taiwan’s 2000 Presidential election campaign, pro-independence respondents were over 28% of samples, but pro-independence has leveled off at about 17% since then, with pro unification sentiment running at 16 - 24%. – See Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council tabulations at http://www.mac.gov.tw/english/POS/p9007e.htm. On November 4, 2001, a survey by Taiwan cable news network ETTV and Business Weekly magazine showed “about 24 percent of 1,070 people interviewed were in favour of independence from China, while 14 percent would like to unite with the mainland” and 49 percent favored the status quo, See Reuters news agency report from Taipei, “Taiwan survey says 49 pct favour China status quo” filed 02:33 11‑04‑01.
[2] Chen Shui-bian and Frank Chang-ting Hsieh, now respectively Taiwan’s President and Mayor of Kaohsiung, who were the primary defense attorneys in the Martial Law Trial of the ‘Kaohsiung Eight’ defendants. Also leading lights in the opposition movement then were Chang Chun-hsiung, now Taiwan’s Premier, and then-imprisoned Lu Hsiu-lien, now Taiwan’s vice president.
[3] These include former U.S. citizen Dr. Mark Tang-shan Chen, former president of the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations, now magistrate of Tainan County; George Tsan-hung Chang, former chairman of the World United Formosans for Independence, now mayor of Tainan city; U.S. citizen Wang Hsing-nan, arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 for the attempted assassination of Taiwan’s Vice President Hsien Tung-min, now member of the Legislative Yuan; former DPP Chairman Peng Ming-min, former chairman of the graduate school of political science at National Taiwan University, was jailed on sedition charges in the 1964, was paroled and in 1970 escaped by fishing boat to Japan, Canada then the US, where he taught international law until his return in November 1992; among other prominent Taiwanese opposition politicians with U.S. training are DPP legislator Parris Chang and Presidential Aide Hsiao Mei-chin.
[4] Alan M. Wachman discusses the independence issue in several chapters of his “Taiwan, National Identify and Democratization” M.E. Sharpe, 1995, including pp 79-87. Victor H.Li engages 15 Taiwanese and mainlanders in a discussion of Taiwan Independence in his “Future of Taiwan, A Difference of Opinion”, M.E. Sharpe 1980, pp. 47-64. Shelly Rigger, however, points out advocates of Taiwan Independence split from the Democratic Progressive Party in 1997 in frustration over the DPP’s growing embrace of the idea that Taiwan is already independent. See “Politics in Taiwan, Voting for Democracy,” Routledge, 1999, p. 160.
[5] “Fu Lao Ren” in Mandarin or “Fujianese”, who themselves can be further subdivided into those whose ancestors came from the Fujian cities of Quanzhou and Zhangzhou. A rivalry between the Hokklo from Quanzhou and those from Zhangzhou persists to this day. See also John Robert Shepherd “Statecraft and Political Economic on the Taiwan Frontier 1600-1800” , Stanford University Press, 1993, which describes in detail the local rivalries between Hakka, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou Chinese during the eighteenth century rebellions against the Qing dynasty.
[6] A poll conducted by Sun Yat-sen University in December 2000 showed that 57.8% of Taiwan elementary school pupils identified themselves as “Taiwanese only” , while 23.7% said they were both Chinese and Taiwanese”. Only 6.4% of the children said they were “Chinese Only.” “Zhongshan Daxue Diaocha Xianshi: Qi Cheng Xuetong Ji Ju Zhengdang Pian Hao”, (Sun Yatsen University Poll shows 70% of school pupils have partisan leanings) December 10, 2000, China Times
[7] You'll also note that there are no blue areas which might denote a win by the ruling party candidate. He was then-vice president Lien Chan. Lien, the half-Taiwanese/Half-mainlander Kuomintang (KMT) party candidate, came in a distant third in virtually every voting district, a phenomenon that underscores the ethnic frictions in Taiwan.
[8] Lin is, in fact a Taiwanese, but that year threw his lot in with the mainlanders. Lin received 14.9% of the vote in 1996, while Che Lu-an received 10%. DPP Candidate Peng Ming-min received 21.1%
[9] Siba Ryotaro, “Lee Teng‑hui's Candid Talk With Shiba”, in Zili Zhoubao (Independence Post Weekly) May 13, 1994 p 4, Interview with Li Teng‑hui in Taipei, date of interview not given.
[10] See Zhou Yuguan, Li Denghui de Yi Qian Tian [Lee Teng-hui’s First Thousand Days 1988 -1992], Maitian Publishing, Taipei, 1993, pp 145-7, 165, 180-2. In the power struggle between the KMT mainland faction and the emerging Taiwanese “Mainstream Faction” (Zhuliu Pai), Soong proved to be a stalwart Lee Teng-hui supporter, and worked tirelessly to engineer Lee’s election as KMT Chairman.
[11] This anecdote comes from private conversations with sources in Taiwan. I have not been able to track down a published citation.
[12] The most comprehensive description of the February 28, 1947 incident is found in George H. Kerr, “Formosa Betrayed”, Houghton Mifflin, 1965, pp 254-330
[13] See John F. Copper, “Taiwan, Nation State of Province?”, Westview, 1990, pp 37-41, and Tun-jen Cheng and Stephan Haggard “Political Change in Taiwan”, Lynne Reinner Publishers 1992, pp 190-194 for a discussion of the similarity in Hakka and Mainlander voting patterns vis a vis Min-Nan (Hokklo) preferences.
[14] John Tkacik “How A-bian Won”, China On Line, March 26, 2000 at http://www. chinaonline.com/feature s/eyeontaiwan/ eyeontaiwan/ cs-protected/c0032652.asp
[15] Lin Mei-chun “Chen-Lee alliance steals the limelight”, The Taipei Times internet edition, ; see also Xia Zhen, He Rongxing and Yin Naiqing “Beishe Chengli, Li Bian tongtai Chuji, Lien Song Didiao Huiying” (North Association established, Lee and Chen launch attack on stage together, Lien and Soong play it down), China Times, June 17, 2001
[16] Liu Tiancai “Li Zhengtuan Zhengming ‘Taiwan Tuanjie Lianmeng’” (Lee Teng-hui Political Group rectifies its name as ‘Taiwan Solidarity Union’), China Times , July 25, 2001; Bu Mingwei “Taiwan Tuanjie Lianmeng Cheng Jun” (Taiwan Solidarity Union moves its troops) Commercial Times, July 25, 2001.
[17] In several campaign stump speeches for TSU candidates in November, 2001, Lee complained bitterly that a vote for the Kuomintang would “let a flock of alien rulers once again plunge Taiwan back into dictatorship.” (fouze jiu hui rang yipi wailai zhengquan tongzhi, rang Taiwan zaidu hui dao ducai.” See “Li Denghui: Rentong bi Tongyi Geng Zhongyao” (Lee Teng-hui: “Recognition is more important than unification”) China Times November 19, 2001. In a separate stump speech in Hualien, Lee said he knew how the legislative elections would turn out, but he couldn’t discuss it – however, he said that if “the election turns out good or bad, it will affect Taiwan’s stability for the nest twenty or thirty years, and if it’s bad ‘even I will kill myself’, this election is that important.” See “Li Denghui Da Yuyan Zhengju Jiang Bian” (Lee Tneghui makes a bold prediction, the political scene will change) China Times, November 18, 2001.
[18] “Guomindang Zhongchanghui Beicha Li Denghui An, Wu Boxiong: Hao Zhong hao san” (KMT Central Standing Committee will review Lee Teng-hui Case, Wu Po-hsiung says ‘we met as friends, let’s part as friends), China Times September 27, 2001.
[19] Hsu Hsin-liang ran against Chen Shui-bian for the presidency when he failed to gain the DPP presidential nomination for himself in the 2000 election.
[20] I am indebted to the American Institute in Taiwan for this analysis.