Will Taiwan's elections get Shanghaied?

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

Whatever else it proves, the nip and tuck battle between President Chen Shui-bian and his challenger in the March 20 elections, Lien Chan, is a demonstration of democracy. Unfortunately, the second round in the only peaceful transfer of power in China’s long history, is taking place with Taiwan’s 23 millions. And its Siamese twin, the Mainland Communist Party dictatorship with better than 1 billion, is interested only in seeing the process fail. That’s why the mundane concerns that divide voting blocks in a representative democracy are even more critical in Taiwan. The way they play out could dictate war and peace in the Taiwan Strait.

Chen is a clever politician. His Democratic Progressive Party fought its way, often literally, to power through authoritarian decades of Kuomintang Party rule with an appeal to the native Taiwanese against the Mainland refugee power structure that came over with President Chiang kai-shek in 1949 after his defeat on the Mainland. In the last few months, Chen has nimbly danced around Lien with his Kuomintang baggage, forcing him repeatedly to accept Chen’s formulations.

Even when President Bush trashed Chen’s latest political gimmick [publicly in the presence of China’s visiting Prime Minister Wen Jiabao], a referendum to be attached to the presidential vote, the wily Taiwanese quickly fudged the whole thing. He makes it awfully hard – especially for Americans – to denounce his latest version of his referendum for Taiwanese voters: would you like Beijing to disarm those 500 missiles facing us across the Strait and declare a demilitarized zone? A political ad signed by a thousand Taiwan professionals argued “If the March 20 referendum fails, it will lead Communist China to misjudge the will of the Taiwan people, to step up efforts to intervene in Taiwan's democratic process and to take a tougher stand toward Taiwan's international living space."

But “referendum” is a dirty word for Beijing – and, Bush has said, for Washington – because it was originally advocated by Chen’s DPP as a way to vote formal “independence”. That would turn Taipei’s back on its own longstanding commitment to continued negotiations for eventual unity – presumably when Beijing, too, had moved toward democracy. It also challenges Washington’s hopes to continue to defuse the problem without another show of force to back up the U.S. longstanding guarantee [enshrined in law in the Taiwan Relations Act] the Beijing [and Washington] formula of “one China” will not be settled militarily.

Unlike the election four years ago when Beijing helped Chen to office by threats, including missiles launched into the China Sea, Beijing has been playing it relatibvely cool. Of course, it may not have helped Lien’s Kuomintang that in the midst of the election run-up, Beijing has threatened Hong Kong’s politicians. They have been calling for implementation of provisions of the Basic Law which returned the British Crown Colony to China which promised direct election of its now largely appointed legislature. As February wound down, Beijing questioned the loyalty of Hongkongers taking this line. Significantly, Beijing has promised the same Hong Kong “one country, two systems” to a “reunited” Taiwan.

It appears Chen is marginally trailing Lien. But just as in the U.S. this year, the vote looks volatile down to the final hours. Chen’s latest gambit is to promise he will go to the Mainland and shake hands with President Hu Jintao in an effort to establish his bona fides. [Have DPP strategists been reading Eisenhower biographies?] But just as in the U.S. where the Democrats hope to frame the election around the economic well being of average citizens, Taiwan’s relationship with the Mainland may take a backseat to “it’s the economy, stupid”. For again, as in the American debate, “the hollowing out” of the Taiwanese economy and loss of jobs to overseas manufacturing – in this case employers jumping just across the Strait – is part of the debate.

Still, that issue too, cuts both ways. A new business lobbying group of Taiwanese chambers of commerce across China held a well publicized, sumptuous banquet pledging their allegiance to Lien and his charismatic running mate, American educated Jimmy Soong. Taiwanese business in China has been mushrooming since the early 1990s when restrictions on investment were lifted by both sides. Last year alone Taiwanese invested $4.59 billion – a 19 percent increase over 2002.

Officials estimate 400,000 eligible Taiwanese voters are working in China, owners and managers of factories, restaurants, karaoke bars and other services – most of them in Shanghai. Beijing is trying to help them get back to Taiwan to vote for the Lien-Soong ticket. They could provide the counter to Chen’s strong rural constituency in south Taiwan, likely to stick with the DPP for “ethnic” reasons, if no other. But like most democratic elections, it is still too early to know how this one will come out.