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Taiwan Tati Cultural |
Dear Mr. President Bill Clinton,
Mrs. Madeleine Korbel Albright,
Mr. Trent Lott,
Mr. Denny Hastert,
President-elect Chen Shui-bian yesterday (March 22) invited Beijing’s chief negotiator with Taipei, Wan Daohan, to attend his inauguration ceremony on May 20.
“I became a believer,” he said. “We should have two separate countries across the Taiwan Straits…. Taiwan is an independent sovereign nation.”
That ideal now bedevils him as a leader some find too extreme or too likely to push Taiwan into war with the mainland, which still considers the island a rebel province.
But it propelled Chen into politics as a anti-KMT, first as a muckraking member of Taipei’s City Council in 1981 --- where he was the youngest councilor ever --- and later, in 1989, as an opposition legislator in the national assembly after martial law was finally lifted.
In between, a personal tragedy occurred that became a defining point in Chen’s life. After losing a county election in 1985, he was speaking to supporters when a truck ran over his wife, leaving her a paraplegia.
Chen insists that it was a deliberate, politically motivated attack aimed at him, although the evidence is scant.
The incident left him with a guilt that still haunts him and that some say made him work even harder as a form of atonement.
“If you want to know my greatest failure,” he told his official biographer, “it is my failure to protect my wife. … The consequence of my decision to become a political figure is that my wife has to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.”
A year later, Chen was thrown into jail for eight months after a KMT official sued him for libel in a case widely seen as politically motivated.
After his release in 1987, the year that martial law was lifted, he joined the newly formed Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, which enshrines Taiwanese independence as part of its platform.
His biggest triumph before Saturday’s presidential victory came in 1994, when he was elected mayor of Taipei. He revamped his wooden style during the campaign with the help of an aide who sat in on his news conferences and pulled at her cheeks to remind him to smile.
During the wide-ranging interview at his office, Chen, looking relaxed and speaking in Mandarin Chinese through a translator, made these other points:
--- He doesn’t believe that last week’s bellicose attack on his candidacy by mainland Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji had any impact on the Taiwan election. “The effects were not significant,” Chen said, neither scaring voters away from him nor pushing undecided Taiwan to vote for him.
--- Despite some divisions within his own party, there is a “mainstream consensus” in favor of Chen’s own pragmatic approach toward dealing with Beijing. For example, Chen said, the Democratic Progressive Party’s mainstream agrees that Taiwan should be willing to discuss with Beijing the idea that both Taiwan and the People’s Republic are both part of “one China.”
--- Peace and coexistence across the Taiwan Strait will be his “top priority” as president --- more important than domestic concerns such as the economy or fighting corruption. “Only with peace in the strait” can his other goals be achieved, Chen asserted.
Chen repeatedly came back to the theme that he is eager to improve Taiwan’s relations with mainland China. He said that he is trying to be especially cautious as he prepares to take office.
“Not only are the people of Taiwan watching us,” Chen said, “China is watching us. The whole world is watching us. And history is also watching us.”
Yet while proclaiming his desire for peace, Chen also made it plain that he doesn’t think Taipei should be intimidated by Beijing.
“What we mean by peace is a very firm and free, autonomous peace,” he said. “We don’t want the peace that is weak or peace that comes under pressure.”
Chen repeated an assurance made during his campaign that as president, he won’t hold a popular referendum on whether Taiwan should be independent or The idea of such a referendum had often been proposed by leaders of his party, but Beijing vehemently opposes it.
Furthermore, Chen promised that despite his party’s past support for independence, as president he will not declare Taiwan to be independent “unless Taiwan faces a military attack or invasion from China.”
Asked whether he felt prepared to deal with any military action or threats from Beijing, the president-elect replied:
“I believe that across the Strait, leaders of both sides want peace. … The Chinese leaders have said repeatedly that ‘Chinese do not fight Chinese.’ But if they use threats or force against us, then wouldn’t that phrase be meaningless?”
Chen asserted that when leaders in Beijing threaten force against Taiwan while at the same time proclaiming that “Chinese don’t fight Chinese,” their words could be interpreted to mean that “they don’t see us (Taiwan) as Chinese.”
Although Chen said he would be willing to discuss with Beijing the idea of “one China,” he rejected mainland Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s assertion this week that Taiwan should embrace “one China” as a precondition for talks.
If Taiwan accepted Jiang’s idea, he said, “it would be very difficult actually to enter into discussions (with China) on an equal basis.”
Instead, Chen suggested, perhaps the two governments could reach agreement on other, smaller issues that do not define Taiwan’s relationship to mainland China.
“We feel that we can first put aside the differences and discuss areas of agreement and cooperation,” he said. “And maybe once these other areas of agreement are resolved or improved, then we would in the process gradually overcome the differences that we have and build more trust.”
“Although I am a very proud member of the Democratic Progressive Party, and I hope to continue to contribute to this party and the democratic values it represents, as president of Taiwan or as the national leader, I am the leader not just of the DPP but of the entire nation,” he said.
“And therefore, the national interest must come before partisan interests or individual interests. When there is a conflict or interest between the national interest and party interests, I must consider first the national interest.”
In our view, increased economic tie of both sides do not guarantee that force will not be used. From Chinese history, we had found not any effective proofs could keep peace with China mainland.
On the other hand, Taiwan wants to set up “peaceful agreement” under Beijing’s “one China” precondition. That needs political and military power to protect itself.
Let us review the past. Since Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces fled mainland China for the island in 1949, the Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan government have been virtually synonymous.
For more than a decade, Mr. Lee exercise near-total control his party, even as he earned the nickname “Mr. Democracy” for opening up Taiwan’s political system including the introduction of direct elections for president.
Unfortunately, he had a very contradictory role inside the party, because he kicked out of his enemies, if not so, some Nationalist’s power can not accept the reality of Taiwanese democracy. Among those was James Soong, once a Nationalist stalwart, who ran a surprisingly strong independent campaign for the presidency, finishing ahead of Mr. Lien and just behind Mr. Chen.
Just end the presidential campaign, angry supporters of Mr. Soong have massed in front of the Nationalist party’s headquarters everyday this week, shouting anti-Lee slogans and pelting the fortress-like building with eggs and rocks. They shout “Lee Teng-hui step down”!
To say the truth, if Mr. Lee was quitted, Mr. Soong is a possible candidate to take over the party. However, his popularity with votes, Mr. Soong still has many supporters in the Nationalist ranks, that the most part of supporters are Taiwan mainlander. As we have known nearly 100 Nationalist legislators, 22 of whom circulated a petition calling for Lee’s resignation.
It’s funny, supporters of Mr. Soong announced today (March 23, 2000) that they would form a third major party, called the new Taiwanese party, to challenge the Nationalists … Mr. Soong was coy about whether he would join that his party is not definite decision.
Many Taiwanese people revealed a question of his intention … “What is Soong’s waiting for?” We don’t want to see internal chaos again.
Indeed, democratic Taiwan should be supported by your honesty.
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Yours Sincerely, 
Yang Hsu-Tung. |
