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DPP must learn from Chen’s flaws
By Liu Shih-chung 劉世忠
Tuesday, Sep 07, 2010, Page 8
Recently, some media outlets have run reports on my latest
book about strategic cooperation and the differences between Taiwan and the US,
paying particular attention to the two parts of the book in which I touched upon
the sensitive question of whether former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) sent
secret envoys to China during his time in office and whether he wanted to
reinstate the National Unification Council.
Given the Taiwanese media’s preference for headlines, taking things out of
context and only reporting what fits its needs, this was not much of a surprise.
Unfortunately, such actions often obfuscate the author’s main purpose in
writing.
Focusing on major decisions made during the Chen era, the book is an analysis of
how a decision-maker formulates policy when he or she is under both domestic and
international pressure. My goal was to look at changes in strategic cooperation
and differences in US-Taiwan relations during the eight years the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) was in office.
However, because cross-strait relations are inseparable from domestic politics
and foreign policy, the book naturally also discussed how Chen, at different
stages during his eight years in office, tried either a more conciliatory or a
more combative approach to China.
The two subsections on the council and secret envoys to China refer to the
periods when Chen first took office and the start of his second term when he was
eager to show good will and open up dialogue with China to create a “window of
opportunity.” The fact that Beijing ignored this from the start and later
cooperated with Taiwan’s pan-blue camp to weaken Chen’s political leadership,
forced him to retaliate by talking about “one country on each side [of the
Taiwan Strait]” and hold a defensive referendum, as well as additional
referendums on eventual unification and whether Taiwan should join the UN during
his two terms in office.
These past events should serve as warnings for the future. Two years after being
voted out of power, the DPP is once again focused and working hard at winning
the year-end special municipality elections as it rebuilds the political capital
needed to return to power. It is unfortunate then that the party still hasn’t
seriously reviewed the policies of Chen’s eight years in power.
When the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) accuses the DPP of “corruption,” the
DPP leadership should not formally distance themselves from Chen. Instead, they
should humbly face up to their errors, courageously discuss the mistakes
committed during their time in office and propose new policies to regain public
trust. This is the reason I conducted this study.
Furthermore, the history of popularly elected presidents is very short in
Taiwan. It is not as long as that of the US, which makes it difficult to conduct
comparative research on the different leadership styles of former presidents.
Using my participation in the drafting of certain national security and foreign
policies during Chen’s presidency and conversations I conducted with US
officials involved with Taiwanese affairs during former US president George W.
Bush’s administration, I tried to present a study about the decision-making
process that went into major policy decisions during Chen’s time in office.
Judging the historical significance of the Chen era based on ideology, the
prejudices of political parties and personal dislike is not really conducive to
rebuilding strategic cooperation between the US and Taiwan or establishing
balanced cross-strait relations.
Despite the fact that US-Taiwan relations were unstable during the Chen era,
reviewing the shortcomings and oversights of Chen’s decision-making provides a
pragmatic and important way of thinking about these issues for future leaders.
US-Taiwan relations have improved since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) came into
office, but they are far from perfect. A month into Ma’s presidency, a ship
collision in the waters off Diaoyutai (釣魚台) almost caused a diplomatic crisis
between Taiwan and Japan, amid mutual misunderstandings, and were not solved
until the US stepped in. The US beef scandal then became the major reason for
former National Security Council secretary-general Su Chi’s (蘇起) resignation.
These and other domestic crises, such as the handling of Typhoon Morakot, have
highlighted the shortcomings of the Ma administration’s policy-making system and
these failings prompted the resignation of former premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄)
and his Cabinet and can also be blamed for Ma’s long-term low approval ratings.
The policy errors that any popularly elected president is likely to make have
nothing to do with the pan-blue or pan-green camp or whether one supports
independence or unification. They have much more to do with the quality of
decision-making and systemic health.
Finally, China should not willfully and unilaterally focus only on Chen’s
mistakes and blame him for the failure of the DPP and the Chinese Communist
Party to open dialogue. Nor should it say that the impatience of DPP leaders
resulted in changeable policies to rationalize their own failure to start
dialogue with the DPP government.
Ultimately these were the result of the single biggest difference between the
two — a pluralistic and democratic Taiwan and an undemocratic and unfree China.
If these misunderstandings continue, then we can expect a new cross-strait
stalemate when the DPP returns to power.
Liu Shih-chung is a senior research fellow at the Taipei-based
Taiwan Brain Trust.
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