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A ‘social defense’ strategy is needed
By Wu Jieh-min 吳介民
Friday, Jul 09, 2010, Page 8
There is nothing all that new about cross-strait political or
commercial alliances, which are more often than not special interests clothed in
some form of rhetoric about being in the public interest. That is surely what we
have come to expect of globalization, with its emphasis on deregulation.
During the June 26 march organized by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to
protest the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA),
former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) said that China’s offers of concessions to
Taiwan were misleading, as they were only going to help big business, and not
workers or small and medium enterprises. Things always flow the way of powerful
vested interests; the big question is how to put an end to this kind of thing.
Who is going to be there to protect the weak and the vulnerable, the little guy?
Who is going to fight to protect the democracy and freedom that the Taiwanese
struggled long and hard to achieve? The DPP has been out in the wilderness for a
while. The time is now right for it to come back with a China policy that is
both substantial and effective, by which I mean it needs to look beyond election
results. Lee knows this very well, so once again, the question is how?
China has already replaced the US as Taiwan’s biggest trading partner, but
despite the importance of the relationship, there remain many tensions between
the two sides. We see eye to eye on trade, but not on politics. There is a
charged feeling in the air similar to what it must have felt like between the
major European nations in the run up to World War II. The biggest difference
between the current cross-strait dynamic and that in Europe back then is the
respective strengths of the nations involved. In its tussle with China, Taiwan
is always going to be at a disadvantage.
In the year 2000, the DPP took power, and some of the old guard of the Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) started to become more sympathetic to the idea of
dealing with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After the latter passed an
“Anti-Secession” Law, providing Beijing with a legal basis for the use of
military force against Taiwan should it make any moves toward independence,
there was a swift reconciliation between the KMT and the CCP. When President Ma
Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office he was quick to further solidify ties with Beijing.
At this point, tactical disengagement went out of the window and the two sides
began talking about economic cooperation. Beijing took the initiative in this,
magnanimously granting us “concessions.” The more they did so, however, the more
suspicious the pro-independence lobby became.
The DPP’s China policy for the last 20 years or so has had something of a
conceptual blind spot. That is, how is Taiwan to get this monkey off our back
once and for all? Is relying on the US to guarantee our national security, the
preferred policy of the government during the presidencies of Chiang Kai-shek
(蔣介石) and his son and successor, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), still the best way
forward? If we agree to purchase a large consignment of weapons from the US,
will that necessarily guarantee their intervention should things get a little
sticky in the Taiwan Strait?
As far as the US is concerned, Taiwan still constitutes an important market for
its arms sales. It’s a market that the Americans have a virtual monopoly over.
Beijing may well object, but they still do not have the wherewithal to challenge
the US. What Beijing is most intent on preventing is the US both selling arms to
Taiwan and subsequently coming to its aid should that be required sometime in
the future. Back in May, Ma told CNN that the government would continue to
purchase arms from the US, but would “never” ask it to go to war on Taiwan’s
behalf. This clearly plays right into China’s hands.
Let us take an objective look at how things would likely play out if the US
does, indeed, sell Taiwan the arms but not provide any, shall we say,
“after-sales service.”
The consequences of the likely future decline of US global hegemony will force
it to re-evaluate previous commitments to maintain security in East Asia. When
this happens, Beijing will have more freedom to pursue its ultimate goal in
terms of its ambitions concerning Taiwan. What’s more, the rising influence of
the China lobby in Taiwan would render any further saber-rattling redundant.
History is often a good teacher. Nazi Germany’s unobstructed annexation of
Czechoslovakia back in 1939, possible due to the policy of appeasement which
allowed Hitler to take control of Austria as well, serves as a good example.
Taiwan stands to learn something from this turn of events. Namely, if one takes
China as comparable to the ascendant Germany of the 20th century, the trick is
how to make Taiwan, in strategic terms, similar to the Netherlands or Belgium of
the time, places of strategic importance caught between two major powers, rather
than Czechoslovakia or Austria, pawns that other nations were willing to
sacrifice. The pro-independence lobby in Taiwan are calling for us to prevent
Taiwan from becoming another Czechoslovakia or Austria, to stop it from being
annexed. Again, the same question applies. How?
Capital knows no borders. In the past 20 years even national capitalists have
moved over to China, whether reluctantly or quite happy to fall into line and
play Beijing’s game. Our question therefore becomes, “What if Taiwan cannot get
China off its back? What then?” Well, let’s not hold out for some kind of
patriotic “national capitalist” to save the day. Such an idea brings to mind
Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and the dubious wisdom of waiting around for
something there is no good reason to suppose will ever materialize.
To my mind, it is far better to deal with, and as soon as possible, vulnerable
industries and the working class, the most obvious casualties of the coming era
of cross-strait deregulation. There is another concept I would bring up, that of
social defense as a form of resistance, with the resistance of the Czechs to the
1968 Soviet invasion as an example. Every regime requires a degree of
legitimization or acquiescence from the population if it is to remain in power.
Social defense involves the securing of widespread public participation to deny
such support. I say we take the initiative and make connections with civil
society in China, with a view to mobilizing some form of social defense network.
This would be preferable to relying on the continued protection of US hegemony,
for such time as it still exists. The KMT/ CCP leadership elites have no time
for “society.” What about the DPP?
The new watchwords for the coming cross-strait reality are to be “working class”
and “social defense.”
Wu Jieh-min is a sociology professor at the National Tsing Hua
University Institute of Sociology and Center for Contemporary China.
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