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DPP can be pragmatic
and retain its identity
By Lee Cheng-hung 李政鴻
Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
should move toward the political center, where he believes more voters would
identify with the party and support it. Hsieh did not give any details to go
with his suggestion, but people are being naive if they think that if only the
DPP can mimic the cross-strait policies of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT),
it would then be able to avoid interference from cross-strait issues in future
elections. Besides, doing so would make the DPP’s cross-strait policies hard to
distinguish from those of the KMT.
Relations across the Taiwan Strait are influenced by geopolitics and
international economics. Following the end of the Cold War, the latter has
become the main decisive factor. The idea is that people in China and Taiwan
would both benefit from a free market, while close interaction between the two
sides would make them dependent on each other and that this would help to dispel
animosity and avoid military conflict.
This idealistic peace theory fails to take into account the two world wars of
the past century. The peace theory also overlooks asymmetrical power relations
that may exist between interdependent entities. Taiwan is clearly overly
dependent on China’s productive forces and its market. This makes it easy for
China to influence Taiwan’s politics through economic strength, without recourse
to military power.
The DPP could be more pragmatic in the way it defines the core issues that
influence cross-strait relations. For example, it should consider whether China
will become more democratic and whether relations between China and the US will
become more cooperative or more adversarial. Most importantly, the DPP needs to
outline its own cross-strait strategy based on Taiwanese identity. For example,
what role could Taiwan play in China’s economic development and democratization?
How could Taiwan survive in the niche formed by simultaneously cooperative and
competitive relations between China and the US? More important still, how can
Taiwan’s government safeguard the interests of its citizens and make sure
Taiwan’s national identity is not lost in the course of cross-strait
interaction?
In terms of electoral strategy, the DPP needs to develop its ability to
deconstruct and construct — to deconstruct President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policy
of “no unification, no independence and no use of force” and construct new DPP-style
cross-strait policy proposals. “No unification, no independence” can be
interpreted as maintaining the “status quo,” dispelling worries about Taiwan
independence and unification with China. As to “no use of force,” it serves to
reiterate that we would not resort to military means to resolve cross-strait
disputes. Well thought-out as this policy may seem, it is subject to many
restrictions as the government tries to get China to accept it.
Mainland Affairs Council Minister Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) recently raised the idea
of institutionalizing the principle of “no use of force.” Her proposal is meant
to test the waters for a possible formal cross-strait peace agreement and should
come as no surprise. The problem is that the initiative in deciding whether
peace would continue to prevail between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait is in
the hands of Beijing, not Taipei.
The DPP should be able to foresee the challenges that the Ma administration will
face in cross-strait policy over the next four years. It is to be hoped that the
DPP can do more than just criticize the government and it should come up with
new and concrete proposals of its own.
Lee Cheng-hung holds a doctorate in social science from National Sun Yat-sen
University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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