http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/lr288/IWSpring2004/articles/3.27.04%20economist22.txt
Taiwan
Independence day?
Mar 25th 2004 | TAIPEI
From The Economist print edition
Even the Kuomintang is starting to take more account of the Taiwanese
desire for greater freedom from China
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So complained Su Chi, a spokesman for Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT), as
thousands of his party's supporters rallied in front of the
presidential palace in Taipei in protest against the outcome of the
island's presidential polls on March 20th. Mr Su was not referring to
the air-horn-blasting demonstrators, but to the events that had riled
them. In particular, the KMT insinuates that the shooting of
President Chen Shui-bian on the day before the ballot may have been
rigged to gain sympathy for the incumbent, who won by a tiny margin.
Suddenly, after more than a decade of remarkably smooth transformation
from one-party authoritarianism to multi-party democracy, Taiwan has
hit a bumpy patch. The KMT and its allies have called the election
unfair and have refused to concede defeat. Ironically, the one-time
party of the establishment has taken to the streets. Disdainful though
they profess to be of Philippines-style politics, some of its leaders,
including the presidential aspirant and party chairman, Lien Chan, and
his running-mate, James Soong (who heads the smaller People First
Party), apparently hope tha t will force Mr Chen to bypass cumbersome
legal processes and order a recount or, if that fails to secure them
victory, another election.
On Thursday, Mr Chen had agreed to a recount, but his Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) was still bickering with the KMT over how this
should be donehave liked the KMT to win. It is afraid that Mr Chen
will use a second term of office to push forward more forcefully his
efforts to assert Taiwan's separateness from the mainland. Mr Chen has
said he would like to conduct a referendum in 2006 to gain approval
for a new constitution for the island. China worries that this
constitution will abandon the island's claim to be part of Chinese
territory. It is also concerned that Mr Chen may regard Beijing's
hosting of the Olympic Games in 2008 as an opportunity to press for
independence, given that China would not want to ruin the event by
going to war.
But would Taiwan under a KMT leadership really be much more compliant?
Whatever the outcome of the current furore (few expect the result to
be reversed), Taiwan's dealings with the mainland will remain
fraught. In the months leading up to the presidential poll, the KMTs
Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Mr Lien echoed Mr Chen's notion that
Taiwan and China are already separate states. A senior KMT official
even suggested that formal independence may one day be a possibility.
But its past still haunts the KMT. Among the middle-class protesters
who have joined continuous rallies outside the presidential palace
this week, some furiously denied that the KMT espouses
reunification. Traditional DPP supporters are unconvinced. They are
mainly concentrated in the south of the island and are resentful of
the KMT's mainland origins and its erstwhile suppression of Taiwanese
culture. Chao Chien-min of Taiwan's National Chengchi University says
accusations that the KMT agreed with China's Communist leaders on the
notion o f provided the DPP with a very effective weapon in its
campaign for Mr Chen's re-election.
Many KMT supporters accuse Mr Chen of fuelling tensions between
mainlanders (or their descendants) who arrived at the end of the civil
war and other ethnic Chinese whose ancestors migrated to the island in
the preceding centuries. Chu Yun-han of National Taiwan University
says support for or opposition to reunification is no longer the main
dividing issue. It is whether Taiwan should maintain the status quo or
seek formal independence (and if so, how fast). This challenges a
tenet of America's relationship with China, th e of 1972, in which
America acknowledges tha t.
Some in the KMT (whose full name, as DPP politicians like to point
out, translates as the Chinese Nationalist Party') realise the need
for change. Assuming he loses, in the coming months, many expect Mr
Lien, who was born on the mainland, to step aside in favour of a
younger politician with stronger appeal to native Taiwanese. The
Taiwan-born speaker of Taiwan's legislature, Wang Chin-pyng, is often
suggested as a candidate. Another likely contender is Ma Ying-jeou,
who is mayor of Taipei. Mr Ma was born in Hong Kong of mainland
parents, but his charisma gives him wide appeal.
Taiwanese identity is only likely to get stronger. In recent years,
school curriculums in Taiwan have changed to give much greater
emphasis to Taiwanese culture, history and language. Wen Ming-Cheng,
the principal of Dong Men Primary School in Taipei, says most members
of his generation would identify themselves as Chinese .
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