Taiwan: Sliding toward independence and war?

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See the Sol Sanders Archive By Sol Sanders SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Many years ago I sat in on a polite but animated discussion between a U.S. ambassador, an expert on Japan, and a Japanese academic who had suffered under the military regime. The argument turned on the American’s insistence that Japan had a democratic tradition. My Japanese friend responded, “If you mean that Prime Minister Ikeda talks familiarly to his barber, yes, we have a tradition of egalitarianism. But I believe that democracy in the modern world has to mean representative government, and there we have no traditions.”

That conversation comes to mind with daily discussions of how, when – and if – the U.S. can bring “democracy” to Iraq. “Democracy” is a many splendored thing that involves much more than political institutions. And only a few societies have been able to create it – and hang on to it for extended periods. Even they find it constantly tested, always mutating as solutions are sought for old and new social, economic and political problems. It is no surprise that the U.S.-appointed national council in Baghdad is making trouble for our gauleiter, Paul Bremmer, now forcing an abrupt change in policy to move to less orderly constitution making.

But just as putting down a “democracy” in Baghdad is a daunting task, a test is coming in the first ever Chinese representative government created in Taiwan – and for which the U.S. can take some credit. There 23 million people built a liberal regime based, in part, on lessons learned in their civil war. Prosperity based on Chinese industriousness, skills and a faith in education – and a huge U.S. aid program – has reinforced a transformation from dictatorship.

A tough political contest next spring will choose a new president. Public opinion has shuttled between the current incumbent President Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party and the two wings of the old Kuomintang which – at least temporarily – have reached electoral agreement. Chen, his party founded on anti-KMT sentiment of Taiwanese resident before the Mainland refugees arrived in 1949, proposed dumping the old constitution. With its Leninist overtones, it was written for the whole of China by the founder of the Republic, Sun Yat-sen back in the 1920s. Chen proposed an updated, rewritten constitution should face a popular referendum. But the DPP had also earlier suggested Taiwan independence should be submitted along with other controversial proposals to referenda, e.g., a new nuclear plant for Taiwan’s extensive power grid.

Beijing has threatened to halt any move toward independence with military action. President Bush, abandoning what had been a policy of “strategic ambiguity” [but which found President Clinton sending aircraft carriers into the Taiwan Strait when Beijing’s bellicosity seemed on the point of exploding], announced Washington would do whatever necessary to defend Taiwan. But the U.S. has held on to the concept, enshrined since the recognition of Communist China by the Carter Administration, that the U.S. recognizes only “one China”, that the Mainland and Taiwan somehow should peacefully negotiate a reunification.

Not surprisingly, Beijing now sees any referenda, whatever the subject, as part of the move toward independence. Nor is it happy about the possibility, ironically, that Taiwan would now formally abandon the political structure under which it once claimed all of China, a claim abandoned a decade ago. Chen has promised not to change the name of the Taiwan regime, its flag, etc. But even the move to put “Taiwan” on the Republic of China passport has already brought Beijing screams.

Now, in a complete reversal of its “one China” position, the Kuomintang leadership has announced it, too, favors rewriting the constitution, and wants a timetable even faster than Chen suggested. The KMT leadership also has bought a referendum. It is obviously aimed at halting the drift to the DPP. But Beijing, which has been playing down the Taiwan issue recently, perhaps hoping not to repeat its earlier failed strategy of threats and missile firings that helped Chen to power, will now see this convergence as moving toward independence.

The U.S. has repeatedly reaffirmed it opposes an independent Taiwan. But it is also not only committed to helping to defend Taiwan against attack, but supplying the Island with whatever it may need to defend itself. This week new ground to air missiles was reported shipped to Taiwan to match new Russian-made missiles which Beijing has brought. A U.S. mission to help Taiwan somehow secure additional diesel submarines, a craft Washington hasn’t built in 40 years – to fight off any attempt of the Mainland to enforce a naval blockade – is not doing as well. Taipei complains American prices are too high. The Europeans who could build them don’t dare because of Beijing’s opposition.

What this all seems to prove is that however much democracy is a good thing, representative government does often make relations among countries even more difficult to manage. Iraq, under a “democratic” regime, isn’t likely to be an exception, something Washington might remember for the days ahead.