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Democratic Taiwan is
unrelated to China
By Christian Fan Jiang 范姜提昂
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung’s (吳伯雄) statement
that Taiwan and China are two areas of one country has provoked a lot of
controversy.
One would expect President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to have a good understanding of
Chinese culture, judging by how often he urges everyone to read the classics.
Yet Ma must take most of the blame for the current mess, because he dispatched
Wu to propose this “one country, two areas (一國兩區)” to Chinese President Hu
Jintao (胡錦濤). While Taiwan’s pan-blue and pan-green political camps have their
own opinions about what Wu was supposed to say, the leaders in Beijing probably
do not like it either.
Why would the KMT think it could get the Communist Party (CCP) to deal with it
on an area-to-area basis? In the Chinese Civil War, the CCP defeated the KMT,
seized control of China’s Central Plain — the cradle of the Chinese nation — and
established its capital in Beijing. This signified that the CCP had become the
legitimate political power in China.
The victorious party had a certain respect for the KMT, which had also enjoyed
the support of the Comintern in the past, so they recruited Soong Ching-ling
(宋慶齡), widow of KMT and Republic of China (ROC) founder Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), to be
honored as the mother of the nation. Every year, on important national holidays,
such as National Day on Oct. 1 and International Workers’ Day on May 1, Sun’s
portrait is prominently displayed in Tiananmen Square to show the world that the
legacy of the 1911 Xinhai Revolution is now in the hands of the CCP. The CCP
claims to be the successor to the Xinhai Revolution, even though it had not been
founded when the revolution started.
Last year was the ROC’s centennial and it was celebrated by the CCP as the 100th
anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution. Eventually, the KMT decided against joint
commemorative activities with the CCP because they were afraid it would take the
opportunity to further assume status as the legitimate successor of the
revolution. On this point, Ma made a wise decision.
What is incomprehensible is why the KMT has lost its senses over the “one
country, two areas” incident. If the KMT ponders upon its place in Chinese
history it has to face up to the result of the Chinese Civil War, which is that
the CCP regime became the legitimate government of China, while the KMT
government ended up as a remnant state. As such, the ROC today is just like the
Eastern Jin, Southern Song, Southern Ming and other remnant Chinese dynasties.
Former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) says that the ROC can be
viewed as including the whole of China, or as being so small that all it has
left is Taiwan. Su says that this gives the country a lot of room to maneuver
when handling cross-strait relations, but that is mere wishful thinking.
The tradition of legitimacy is deeply embedded in Chinese culture. For the CCP,
“one country, two areas” means the legitimate government’s area on one hand and
a remnant area on the other, and history tells us that the legitimate regime
always ends up annexing the other. Unlike what Su imagines, there is no room to
maneuver.
Chinese culture forms one part of Taiwanese culture, but Taiwan is certainly
doomed if its national identity is absorbed into the Chinese historical
framework. Besides, Taiwan today is a democracy, so the only source of
legitimacy for a state authority comes from periodic democratic elections. It
has nothing to do with China, but only with Taiwanese — on this point we must
remain adamant.
Christian Fan Jiang is Deputy Secretary General of the Northern Taiwan
Society.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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