- Chen Shui-bian, P Taiwan, Dem. Progressive Party,
indipendentista, - ha perso terreno con linea anticinese, e va incontro a
sconfitta elettorale fra due anni. Rischio che abbia un colpo di testa nel
tentativo di recuperare. - La crescente integrazione economica Taiwan-Cina ha riportato
una maggioranza a preferire lo status quo, e la riconciliazione con la Cina,
vista come terra di opportunità, contro l’indipendenza. Solo 30%
dell’elettorato è pro indipendenza. - Ma Chen intende restringere l’investimento in Cina e ha
fatto incriminare il capo della United Microelectronics Corp., Robert Tsao, per
gli affari fatti in Cina. - USA si sono accorti che Chan è diventato mina vagante, e
hanno espresso preoccupazione dopo un infuocato discorso di inizio anno. - Cina invece lo ha ignorato, avendo ormai stabilito un
rapporto con il Kuomingtang, che può favorire facendo concessioni economiche. - A peggiorare la situazione per Chen è il fatto che
solo ora il reddito pro capite è tornato ai livelli del 1996, e che il tasso di
crescita è sceso dal 7% del periodo KuomingTang al 4%.
By HUGO RESTALL
January 19, 2006
Today Chen Shui-bian appears to be a spent
force. The Taiwanese president’s approval ratings are near all-time lows.
His Democratic Progressive Party was trounced in local elections last December.
Some DPP legislators are in open revolt against their own president. And to add
insult to injury, the legislature has just cut the presidential office’s
discretionary budgets in order to prevent Mr. Chen from getting into more
mischief.
If only it were that easy. Mr. Chen has shown
an incredible talent for upsetting the political applecart. Taiwanese of every
ideological stripe have wearied of the constant turmoil caused by their
president’s dramatic reversals of policy. But Mr. Chen has two more years in
office, and even if he gets no support from the legislature, Taiwan’s
strong executive branch gives him the power to go on setting policy,
particularly in regard to China. Indeed, his inability to craft a positive
legacy could end up unleashing his destructive tendencies.
Consider Mr. Chen’s recent behavior. In a New
Year speech, he returned to his previously stymied plans to create a new
constitution by referendum by 2008, rather than continuing to amend the
current constitution. Secondly, he announced a crackdown on Taiwanese
investment in the mainland. That was followed by the indictment of Robert
Tsao, head of chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp., for the
"crime" of doing business in China.
These moves roiled the public and gave the
local stock market a knock. They also raised hackles in Washington. Over the
past couple years, the Bush administration has recognized that Mr. Chen is a
loose cannon, and is trying to restrain his Beijing-baiting outbursts.
Taipei was forced to confirm press reports that the U.S. government had
raised "concerns" about the New Year speech, but the Taiwanese
president refused to back down. Another public warning from the State
Department followed the speech.
The most interesting aspect of Mr. Chen’s
démarche, however, was that it failed to bring a reaction from the audience it
was meant to provoke. Chinese leaders remained quiet, leaving the president
to face the wrath of his own people. That certainly marks a positive change
from the past. But it leaves Mr. Chen with few options to recover the
initiative and his lost popularity.
Mr. Chen has at times seemed to moderate his
pro-independence beliefs and expressed willingness to improve relations with
the mainland. However, the one consistent theme of his presidency has been
pushing the envelope with real and symbolic measures that bring the island
closer to formal independence. These have ranged from changing the design of
passports to creating a mechanism for a plebiscite on independence. From his
actions it is clear that Mr. Chen’s dream is to go down in history as the
father of a new nation, the Republic of Taiwan.
Up until now, the DPP has always been able to
portray Beijing as the evil empire against which oppressed Taiwanese must
struggle, because Chinese leaders played into Mr. Chen’s hands with their
bellicose rhetoric. This allowed Mr. Chen to satisfy his hard-core, mostly
pro-independence supporters, who make up no more than 30% of the population,
and at the same time appeal to the moderate middle, who want to preserve the
status quo but also react negatively to Chinese bullying.
For a time, this dynamic made it seem that a
Taiwanese national identity was emerging. The percentage of people identifying
themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese soared. But at the same time, the
support for maintaining de facto but not de nomine independence while improving
nonpolitical ties with the mainland remained steady. The question was which of
these two seemingly contradictory trends would prove most politically potent.
Beijing has discovered in the last year that
it held the key to defeating the independence forces all along. Communist Party
chief Hu Jintao is successfully wooing the opposition Kuomintang, business
leaders and the public at large. Taiwanese no longer view China as hostile, and
instead see it more as a land of opportunity.
However when it comes down to the crunch, the
president has always shied away from taking the political risk of better
relations with the mainland and trying to redraw the map of Taiwan
politics. He starts and ends by playing the anti-China card.
This would mean the DPP has little hope to
win the next presidential election in 2008. Not
only has Mr. Chen’s poor management of the economy, corruption scandals and
constant flip-flopping on all manner of domestic issues alienated the voters,
but the next candidate will have difficulty recapturing the middle ground due
to the makeup of the party.
That’s because although Taiwan is evenly
split between the "green" DPP camp and "blue" KMT camp, the
DPP is dominated by the hard-line pro-independence forces. Any DPP
presidential hopeful will first have to win over this 30% of "dark
green" voters to get his party’s nomination. That will then make it
virtually impossible to portray himself as a moderate in the general election.
The KMT half of the electorate, by contrast,
is mostly moderate, with only a fringe minority favoring speedy reunification
with China. That makes it much easier for the next nominee, presumably Chairman
Ma Ying-jeou, to chart a course that will appeal to a majority of the
electorate. In 2000, Mr. Chen was only able to win the presidency because
the blue camp was split between two candidates, and he barely hung onto
office in 2004 after a very suspicious last-minute assassination attempt swung
sympathy votes his way.
Since then, matters have only gotten worse
for the DPP as there has been a permanent, secular shift in public support
for reconciliation with China instead of confrontation. The strength of
this change became clear last year when the mainland reacted to Mr. Chen’s
provocative constitution-building plans with a belligerent piece of
legislation, the Anti-Secession Law, which threatened the use of
military force. Even this kind of law did not shake public support for better
relations with the mainland, and the law’s relatively calm reception emboldened
blue camp leaders Lien Chan and James Soong to make their historic visits to
China.
In short, Taiwan is sick of Mr. Chen’s
histrionics. The greens are tired and disappointed after being mobilized time
after time only to see their gains dissipated by ineffective leadership and
corruption. And the island as a whole misses the 7% economic growth and minimal
unemployment it enjoyed under KMT leadership. Today, per capita income has
only just recovered to the level of 1996, and unemployment has been over 4% for
the last five years.
Mr. Chen’s only chance of salvaging a legacy
is to declare independence and try to orchestrate a massive conflict with
the mainland before transportation links can be opened. His hope would be
that indigenous Taiwanese would rally round the green flag. While a declaration
of independence has been built up in everyone’s mind as the "nuclear
option" of cross-Strait relations, in reality it would probably prove to
be a damp squib. Most DPP politicians realize that supporting such an effort would
mean political suicide.
Meanwhile, mainland China is not only
reacting more intelligently now; it also has room to take the initiative. By
forging ties with the opposition, it effectively has a way into Taiwanese
domestic politics. Beijing can offer KMT officials concessions that
undercut Mr. Chen’s attempts to heighten animosity between the two sides. China
has all sorts of economic goodies that it can offer to different sectors of the
population.
The economic integration between the two
sides of the Taiwan Strait is fast making Chen Shui-bian into an anachronism. The big wild card is Chen Shui-bian’s flair for sabotaging
cross-Strait relations. Expect at least one last hurrah from a politician
who may have been a failure as a president, but is second to none as a
demagogue.
Mr. Restall is the editor of the Far Eastern
Economic Review. This is an edited extract from the Jan/Feb issue of the
Review, published tomorrow (www.feer.com1).