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The 2008 Presidential Election inTaiwan:
Politics and Strategic Issues
Cal Clark, AuburnUniversity
Prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Chinese Studies, University of Richmond, October 5-7, 2007.
The March 2008 presidential election in Taiwan promises to be highly competitive and polarizing. Ever since President Chen Shui-bian’s narrow victory in the 2000 presidential,the political balance in the country has been quite even with Chen’s Pan-Green coalition of his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) controlling the executive, while the Pan-Blue coalition of the former ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and the People’s First Party (PFP) retained a reduced but still narrow majority in the Legislative Yuan. The result was a polarized gridlock with little compromise and large amounts of antagonism between the two political blocs. This increasingly bitter standoff was exacerbated, moreover, by the centrality of the inter-linked issues of national identity and security policy toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in structuringthe political divide in Taiwan.
Indeed, there now appears to be a three-way dispute over Taiwan’s sovereignty. China argues that Taiwan is an integral part of the PRC and, therefore, has no sovereignty. There appears to be a fairly strong consensus in Taiwan that it is a separate country with its own inalienable sovereignty. However, while both the “Greens” and the “Blues” reject the “Red” claim of PRC sovereignty over Taiwan, they often differ sharply on Taiwan’s sovereignty; and both accuse the other, with some justification, of undermining Taiwan’s ability to resist China’s unrelenting attack on its sovereignty. The Greens argue that they “stand up for Taiwan” and need to promote Taiwan’s sovereignty claims aggressively in international affairs (e.g., by pushing campaigns to gain admission to the UN and WHO) in order to resist China’s attempts to downgrade Taiwan’s international status. They also chastise the Blues for allegedly advocating ultimate Unification with China, thereby strengthening the PRC’s sovereignty claims over Taiwan. In total contrast, the Blues argue that the Greens’ alleged pursuit of Taiwan Independence is reckless and needlessly provokes Beijing, while their own attempts to work with the Chinese leadership will promote peace and stability in cross-Strait relations, thereby making Taiwan more secure from the Chinese threat.
Especially given the serious threat that the PRC poses, this extreme polarization on the central security issue facing Taiwan could well be dangerous. Consequently, the question of how the 2008 presidential elections will impact the intersection of politics and security policy could well be vital for Taiwan’s future in both domestic and foreign policy. So far, the portents are somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, both major parties nominated moderate pragmatists (Frank Hsieh of the DPP and Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT) who would be expected to try to de-escalate tensions in both cross-Strait relations and domestic politics. On the other, the perceived efficacy by both the Blue and the Green camps of appealing to their “base constituencies”[1] (e.g., outgoing President Chen Shui-bian’s plan to hold a referendum of whether the country should try to be admitted to the United Nations under the name Taiwan) promises a campaign that will be “nasty, brutish, and long.”
This paper, hence, considers politics and strategic issues in the Taiwanese 2008 presidential elections. The first section provides a brief overview of Taiwan’s contested sovereignty situation;the second describes how the current extreme polarization on national identity and national security evolved; the third discusses how the run-up to the campaign promoted polarization; and the fourth considers what the implications these political dynamics will have for next year’s presidential race. Unfortunately, even though it is far too soon to predict doom and gloom, the odds appear quite long that the upcoming elections will help to transcend the country’s polarized political gridlock or reduce cross-Strait tensions appreciably.
POLARIZATION IN TAIWAN OVER
SOVEREIGNTY AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
The controversy over Taiwan’s sovereignty is rooted in two distinct problems about the founding of the Taiwanese state after World War II. The first and most widely recognized is the somewhat ambiguous ending in 1949 of the Civil War on the Chinese Mainland between the victorious Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Mao Zedong and the previous ruling Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT) under Chiang Kai-shek. When the CCP won the war, Chiang and the KMT evacuated to Taiwan, retaining control over that island, as well as some smaller ones in the Taiwan Strait, such as the Pescadores, Quemoy, and Matsu. While it initially seemed that it would be only a matter of time before the Communists could conquer these islands, the outbreak of the Korean War dramatically changed the situation as the United States extended its containment policy to Asia and brought Taiwan under its strategic umbrella, despite continued strained relations between Chiang and the Truman administration. For example, the U.S. Seventh Fleet was interposed between Taiwan and China which effectively ended the threat of a Communist invasion. In the diplomatic realm, the U.S. strongly supported Chiang’s claim to represent the sole legitimate government of all China by, for example, retaining China’s membership in the United Nations (including a permanent seat on the Security Council) for Chiang’s Republic of China (ROC). This created, therefore, what Ralph Clough has called the “unfinished civil war” over diplomatic status between Beijing and Taipei.[2]
Second, questions about Taiwan’s sovereignty are also deeply tied to the island’s own historical development. Although the first people in Taiwan were aborigines, the island has primarily been settled by Han Chinese, primarily from FujianProvince. The initial Chinese settlement occurred in the late sixteenth century as the result of growing commerce along the Chinese coast. Short-lived Dutch and Spanish colonies were established during the first half of the seventeenth century, but control by China was re-established during the latter half of that century. Taiwan remained a fairly isolated and undeveloped part of the Chinese empire until the late nineteenth century when Beijing decided to promote rapid development in the face of imperialist threats. However, Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895 when China lost the Sino-Japanese War and remained one until after World War II.[3]
Taiwan’s incorporation into the ROC after the defeat of Japan was far from felicitous and soon turned tragic. Chiang’s government primarily saw Taiwan as a source of resources for pursuing its civil war against the CCP and imposed a corrupt, brutal, and exploitative rule. When the ROC government evacuated to Taiwan in 1949, furthermore,the top levels of the governmentwere dominated by Mainlanders (i.e., the 15% of the population who came from the Mainland with Chiang Kai-shek); and the KMT imposed a repressive regime under the martial law that was justified by the continuing civil war with the Communists on the Mainland. This createda bitter legacy of what came to be called the “white terror,” most especially the tragedy of the February 28, 1947, or 2-2-8 Incident, in which a limited popular uprising brought a massive retaliation that resulted in an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 deaths, mostly by execution.
The ROC’s claim to be the government of all China exacerbated this situation. In the political realm, this claim was used to prevent change in “national” political institutions which, along with martial law restrictions, perpetuated KMT rule. Moreover, education, language, and cultural policy emphasized the importance of China and the very secondary nature of Taiwan. Consequently, the KMT was seen by many Islanders (i.e., the huge majority of long-time residents) as treating the Taiwanese (who are also almost entirely Han Chinese) as “second class citizens” in their own land, creating another set of questions about Taiwan’s sovereignty concerning the legitimacy of the government and the national identity of Taiwan’s citizens that could only bubble to the surface after democratization ended restrictions on freedom of speech.[4]
Throughout the postwar era, the sovereignty and statehood of Taiwan have remained under strong challenge from the People’s Republic of China. The nature of this rivalry changed dramatically over time, however. For the first two decades, China appeared to be a “divided nation” like Germany and Korea with two rival governments each supported by one of the competing camps in the Cold War. In 1971, China gained the support needed to replace Taiwan in the United Nations.[5] Subsequently, while both governments claimed to be the sole legitimate government of all China (including Taiwan), China used its much greater international support to isolate Taiwan diplomatically, although Japan and the United States worked out a model in which they recognized Beijing officially while maintaining parallel quasi-official relations with Taipei.[6] During the 1990s, this rivalry was transformed once again. Taiwan became more adept at using “pragmatic diplomacy” to upgrade its more informal standing in the international community.[7] In addition, Taipei gave up its claim to exercise sovereignty over the Mainland, but Beijing intensified its pressures against “Taiwan Independence.”
In particular, cross-Strait relationserupted in the summer of 1995 following a trip by Lee Teng-hui to his alma mater, Cornell University, that he had pressured the United States to allow to make up for the failure of Taiwan’s UN campaign. China reacted unexpectedly and extremely strongly to Lee’s visit, arguing that this represented a major change in American policy supporting Lee’s alleged effort to turn “creeping officiality” into Taiwan Independence. Consequently, China went ballistic (almost literally) during 1995-96 with a series of war games and missile tests close to Taiwan that were clearly aimed at intimidating voters in the December legislative and March presidential elections. The crisis quickly de-escalated after Lee handily won re-election, but China kept the military pressure on with a continuing long-term build up of short-range missiles across the Strait from Taiwan.[8] Indeed, as sketched in Table 1, the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995-96 was just the first in a series of confrontations between China and Taiwan that were initiated by first one side and then the other.
The next eruption in cross-Strait relations came from the Taiwan side in July 1999 when Lee put forth a theory that Taipei and Beijing were connected by “special state-to-state relations.” While he soon denied that he was asserting Taiwan
Table 1
Challenge and Counter-challenge Across the Taiwan Strait
Date / Event1995-96 / China’s “missile diplomacy” in response to Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui’s visit to CornellUniversity
1999 / Lee Teng-hui’s concept of “special state-to-state relations”
2000 / Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji threatens Taiwan voters against electing a pro-independence candidate; after election PRC demands Taiwan accept “one China” principle
2002 / President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan warns that Taiwan “will go its own way” and states that there is “one country on each side of the Strait”
2003-04 / Chen Shui-bian’s presidential campaign appeals strongly to Taiwanese nationalism: holding a referendum; plan for a new Constitution; and February 28th hand-in-hand rally
2005 / PRC’s Anti-Secession Law
2006 / Chen Shui-bian orders the National Unification Council and the National Unification Guidelines to “cease to function”
2007 / Chen Shui-bian proposes holding a referendum on whether to seek admission to the United Nations under the name Taiwan simultaneously with the 2008 presidential election
Independence, the PRC responded very strongly to what it claimed to be Taiwan’s first direct and explicit challenge to the sovereignty of “One China.” The United States reacted with considerable alarm as well. Initially, U.S. efforts (and ire) were directed toward Taipei which was seen as potentially challenging China without giving America any forewarning. When the PRC began to make implicit threats about minor military retaliation, U.S. policy turned toward explicit militarydeterrence aimed at Beijing. This crisis faded by the fall, but the March 2000 presidential election in Taiwan soon turned up the heat again. The election involved a neck-in-neck race among three major candidates, one of whom (Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party) was seen as pro-Independence in Beijing and by many elsewhere as well. Given the close race, China again tried to intimidate Taiwan’s voters with several threats in the month leading up to the election, culminating in Premier Zhu Rongji’s finger-jabbing threat that Taiwan might not get another chance if it elected a pro-Independence candidate.[9]
THE DYNAMICS OF POLARIZATION
Taiwan, therefore, faces a major threat to its sovereignty and statehood from the PRC. This threat, unfortunately, is exacerbated by the domestic dynamics of Taiwan’s politics which have prevented the country from developing a unified and coherent strategy for responding to Beijing during this decade. The internal debate over Taiwan’s sovereignty and statehood has passed through a very distinct cycle. Early in the country’s democratic transition, the Kuomintang and the opposition appeared quite divided about Taiwan’s sovereignty and national identity. Over the course of the 1990s, though, the two major forces in Taiwanese politics moved toward each other on this key issue. However, the seeming consensus that emerged proved short-lived and was destroyed by the highly polarized political conflicts that erupted after the election of the DPP‘s Chen Shui-bian as President in 2000.
During the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang from the late 1940s through about 1990, the KMT and the national government were dominated by the 15% minority of “Mainlanders” who had come to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek, creating substantial resentment among the majority of Taiwan’s residents. The opposition, which was formalized with the formation of the Democratic Progressive Party or DPP in 1986, therefore, appealed both to democratic norms and to the right of the majority of Taiwanese to exercise political sovereignty. While the DPP was primarily concerned with domestic politics, it did include a plank supporting Taiwan Independence in its party charter in 1991. Over the 1990s, though, many DPP leaders moderated their support for Taiwan Independence both because it appeared to be a loser at the polls and because the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995-96 demonstrated that China would never permit Taiwan to declare de jureIndependence. Thus, some (but certainly far from all) in the DPP took the position that Taiwan was already an independent nation, thus making a declaration of Independence unnecessary.[10]
For its part, as noted in the previous section, the KMT under President Lee Teng-hui, its first Islander leader, changed its position very significantly as well from hard-line support of a “one-China” principle to a much more ambiguous position that combined the goal of Unification in the very distant future with a decided effort to upgrade Taiwan’s separate international status.[11] By the end of his administration, moreover, Lee had clearly indicated support for Taiwan’s separate sovereignty, somewhat in line with the DPP position noted above. For example, he wrote in 1999 that he opposed declaring a Republic of Taiwan because such an act “would endanger Taiwan’s sovereign independence and, ultimately, its existence.”[12]
Indeed, a surprising consensus on cross-Strait relations emerged among the three major candidates in the March 2000 presidential election, (Chen Shui-bian of the DPP, Lien Chan of the KMT, and KMT defector James Soong who ran as an independent). All indicated that they would protect Taiwan’s sovereignty against threats from China, but also all three rejected an open proclamation of Taiwan Independence as too provocative. Chen did begin his campaign by appealing to Taiwanese nationalism. However, he moved back to the middle of the spectrum on cross-Strait relations fairly quickly, both to appeal to the “moderate middle” of the electorate in Taiwan and to calm fears in Beijing and Washington that his victory would constitute a pro-Independence revolution.
After narrowly winning the election, Chen was surprisingly conciliatory toward China in his inaugural speech, promising not to do anything to change the status quo unless the PRC attacked Taiwan based on the “five no’s” that he would not: (1) declare Independence, (2) change the Republic of China’s official name, (3) hold a referendum on Taiwan’s national status, (4) add Lee Teng-hui’s “special state-to-state relations” to the Constitution, nor (5) abolish the National Unification Council or the Guidelines for National Unification that Lee had created in the early 1990s. For its part, however, the PRC refused to acknowledge his conciliatory policy and quickly changed its prime demand from Taiwan’s not declaring Independence to Taiwan’s accepting the “one China” principle. For example, the Chinese leadership refused to meet with Chen or representatives of his government, thereby continuing the freeze in cross-Strait relations.[13]