One China, One Taiwan (Bush's democracy-promotion doctrine doesn't square with his China policy)

DURING HIS RECENT TRIP TO Japan, South Korea, China, and Mongolia, President Bush extolled the region's wave of democratization as "one of the greatest stories in human history" and lamented the holdouts who are "out of step with their neighbors and isolated from the world." The president also made it clear that democratic Taiwan, though itself isolated internationally, is as important to the United States as Japan and South Korea. He pointedly held Taiwan out to China as an example of a "free and democratic Chinese society."

Such praise of Taiwan--delivered in Kyoto shortly before the president arrived in Beijing--contrasts sharply with Bush's humiliating rebuff to Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian in 2003. Partly as a result, Bush's trip to Asia has been interpreted as a turning point, marking the application to Asia of the Bush Doctrine of U.S. support for democracy. This attractive notion, however, is complicated by one essential fact: The Bush Doctrine is incompatible with America's one-China policy, which holds that Taiwan is a part of "one China" and that there should be a peaceful resolution of the dispute between Beijing and Taipei. More recently, the Bush administration has added the demand that neither side change "the status quo."

When Taiwan held its first democratic presidential election in 1996, it was praised internationally as the first "Chinese democracy." And indeed, Taiwan's people are overwhelmingly ethnic Chinese. Nevertheless, many, perhaps the majority, of Taiwan's citizens would choose other words to describe their achievement. More and more of them view themselves as Taiwanese, or as both Taiwanese and Chinese. Fewer and fewer consider themselves exclusively Chinese.

Several things explain this, starting with history. Taiwan has not been governed from Beijing since the end of the 19th century, when Japan took control of the island after the Sino-Japanese war. After World War II, Taiwan's people hoped they might be liberated, but instead Taiwan was placed in a trusteeship under Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang (KMT) movement had fought a civil war on the mainland with the Communists led by Mao Zedong.

When Chiang fled from China to Taiwan in 1949, his Kuomintang dictatorship empowered the small minority of newcomers over the island's existing population--often referred to as ethnic Taiwanese, though their forebears emigrated from the mainland centuries before. Eighty-four percent of Taiwan's 23 million people are descended from these immigrants, while 14 percent are descended from the more recent arrivals. As one scholar has pointed out, Taiwan not only experienced 100 years of development outside mainland control, it also missed "key events that shaped the national consciousness of the Chinese," including the collapse of imperial rule in the early 20th century, the civil war at midcentury, and the imposition of communism, with all the ensuing upheavals. Taiwan's people have never been ruled by the People's Republic of China.

When Chen Shui-bian and his Democratic Progressive party, the longtime opposition to the KMT, are accused of stoking Taiwanese identity for electoral gain, it must be remembered that, for decades, the KMT dictatorship repressed the Taiwanese and engaged in a program of Sinification, which included not only suppression of the Taiwanese language and culture but also the actual massacre of thousands in 1947 and almost 40 years of martial law. Only after martial law ended in 1987 and liberalization began in earnest in the 1990s have the Taiwanese been free to discuss their history, and Taiwanese intellectuals to compensate for what one of them calls Taiwan's "peripheralization," or relegation to footnote status in the history of grander subjects.

Contrary to a common misperception abroad, the recent development of Taiwanese identity is neither the product of pro-independence activism, nor a phenomenon confined to ethnic Taiwanese. Both the traditionally pro-unification Kuomintang and the traditionally pro-independence Democratic People's party agree that Taiwanese identity encompasses both ethnic Taiwanese and mainlanders. "These politicians did not invent this identity," writes Stanford University scholar Melissa J. Brown, author of Is Taiwan Chinese? "They merely articulated and emphasized a change in Taiwanese identity that had been developing" during the decade of democratization beginning in the mid-1990s.

A trend is clear. According to a poll by the National Chengchi University in 2004, 41 percent of respondents identified themselves as Taiwanese in 2004, up from just 17 percent in 1993. In the same period, the share who called themselves Chinese fell by more than half, to under 10 percent.

The devastating losses by the Democratic Progressive party in the December 3 municipal elections have fanned speculation that KMT leader and Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou will be a formidable candidate in the next presidential election, in 2008, tipping Taiwan's China policy back toward the KMT's traditional reunification position. Perhaps so, but it is too soon to tell. Ma's own career owes much to his association with the "new Taiwanese" identity. At a rally during the 1998 mayoral campaign in which Ma beat Chen Shui-bian, President Lee Teng-hui asked Ma in Mandarin, the language of mainlanders, whether he was a mainlander or a Taiwanese. Ma famously responded in Taiwanese that he was a "new Taiwanese," a sure sign that he recognizes the power of that identity among his constituents. In fact, after his party's recent electoral triumph, Ma quickly disavowed the notion that his victory reflected "the people's stronger inclination toward the mainland," adding, "I do not see it that way."

To be sure, the question of identity is complicated. It can be difficult to know what anyone means by "Taiwanese" or "Chinese." The American expert on Taiwan Shelley Rigger argues that discussions of Taiwanese identity often conflate several distinct issues, such as people's origins (Taiwan or mainland) and citizenship, neither of which is a reliable gauge of opinions on unification or independence. On that matter, views appear pragmatic, and conditioned upon other things, such as people's sense of security, the state of the economy, and political developments. However, Rigger writes, "the absence of consensus on nationality does not spark a crisis, because there is a consensus about the process by which decisions should be made: democracy. . . . [T]heir commitment to democracy is stronger than their determination to achieve a particular outcome."

The same cannot be said of the U.S. government. Washington's official "one China" policy is not rooted in democracy or self-determination. Conceived during the Cold War, U.S. policy has remained mostly static and hamstrung by anachronistic views of China and Taiwan. Washington has tried to soften the edges of Chinese demands without questioning their legitimacy. U.S. policy reflects neither the dramatic changes in Taiwan nor China's economic and military growth and petrified political system.

As a result, U.S. policy treats Taiwan as an abstraction. American officials resist as provocative all assertions of a Taiwanese identity, including revisions to the constitution, referenda, and other normal prerogatives of a democratic nation. This state of affairs is both unsustainable and at odds with the Bush Doctrine.

Even the president's attempt to mitigate the imperatives of his own policy--by arguing that democracy in Asia typically follows economic development--fails to bridge the gap between the one-China policy and this administration's pro-democracy doctrine. Taiwan has achieved both democracy and economic development, while China's growing wealth only makes its drive to take Taiwan by undemocratic means more feasible.

A president who speaks so stirringly about freedom for victims of Arab dictatorships must consider the implications of Taiwan's democracy for U.S. policy. Precisely because of the achievement the president praised so fulsomely, Taiwanese increasingly feel both separate from the mainland and committed to a democratic society. Until U.S. policy toward Taiwan reflects that fact, the Bush Doctrine cannot be applied to one of the greatest foreign policy challenges the United States will face in the coming years.

I think I'll just go there Tuesday and see the situation for myself.

I was there last week, and I'm not sure I understand the situation any better for having been there. My colleagues in Taipei were enthusiastic about their Mayor and his chances for the Presidency, but that may simply be local pride.

In addition to the recent and earlier mainlanders, there is also a small aboriginal population, relatied to Filipinos. So far as I could tell in my previous visit of last year, they don't suffer under any disabilities. I bought postcards of them in "traditional" costume. My colleagues arranged a meal for my wife and me in an aboriginal restaurant, and the aborigines are free to live where they want, although may still live in as particular district in Taipei.

While there seems to be growing interest in independence, the fact remains that a large share of Chinese cultural artifacts (archives of the Emperors, etc.) were brought to Taiwan by the KMT, and preserved from the upheavals that were stimuated by Mao Zedong. Eventually the mainland Chinese will want these back, no matter what happens to Taiwan.

In the 1970's I have seen poll numbers indicating 1/3 was against independence and that Taiwan is part of China, 2/3 wants independence but half of them are reluctant to support it because they do not see Taiwan surviving independence (the Taiwanese that feel this way were survivors of World War II). Today I have seen numbers that indicate 40 percent of the Taiwanese consider themselves Chinese and 60 percent wee themslves as Taiwanese and no longer part of the mainland. The rise in strong support for independence is due to the World War II generation dying out and younger generation never experienced war and living in affluence. How does my numbers hold out against what you have seen in Taiwan?

"A president who speaks so stirringly about freedom for victims of Arab dictatorships must consider the implications of Taiwan's democracy for U.S. policy."

I'm not sure this is incorrect, but to be fair, I think (IIRC) this policy has been in effect for some time..through many presidencies.

a large share of Chinese cultural artifacts (archives of the Emperors, etc.) were brought to Taiwan by the KMT

Palace Musuem, huh? It's on the list of things to see. As are the Ami and Yami aboriginal peoples. I got three weeks so I'll have plenty of time to investigate the local women. I mean the local political situation.

That's about right, but i don't think there are 2/3 that are ardent independent supporters.

As the last elections shows, KMT is gaining ground in the representatives and Ma is poised to win the 2008 presidential election at this point. He'll get the women vote :-)

So, the only way the pro-independence forces can do anything about it is in 2007 (i think the presidential elections are held in March of 2008, so not much they can do during the Beijing Olympics).

If the Chicom are bold they will have a two party system (CPC and KMT). Since the KMT and the PRC decided to bury the hatchet (like they did temporarily during WWII), what is to prevent the KMT, once in power to re-unify Taiwan with the mainland under the arrangement that the KMT runs Taiwan and the Communist in the mainland and form the Repuclic of China and using the flag of 1911. That way the US cannot object because China made a right step in political development (2 party system), US may like it because it avoids a war which collides with US desire for Chinese labor and markets, and the rest of Asia may like it because it diffuses a flashpoint for a major war between the US and PRC. The biggest loser under this move would be Japan because Taiwan becomes a Chinese base against the Japanese islands.

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