Challenging The Status Quo In Taiwan

President George W. Bush’s censure of Taiwan’s
President Chen Shui-bian for unilaterally moving toward changing the status quo
between the US, China and Taiwan was for some here a slap to
the face. Given the increasing political polarization of the island, it will
variously be read as comeuppance and as an affront to the island’s dignity.

 

But, however it is interpreted, the
question remains whether Mr. Chen deserved a dressing down. Washington’s
irritation stems from Mr. Chen’s call for a referendum urging China to remove close to 500 missiles aimed at Taiwan.
Those missiles actually exist; China
has recently threatened to use them.

 

Certain U.S. policy makers have criticized
Mr. Chen for having acted “foolishly.” But at least he cannot be accused of
having acted wrongly, or – perhaps more importantly – undemocratically.
However, it would seem – as Mr. Chen has implied in response to the latest
developments – China’s
threatening missiles are a “natural state of affairs.”  At the very least, it would appear that China is free to threaten Taiwan without international
condemnation.

 

This so-called status quo – a small
democratic island militarily threatened by an autocratically governed superpower – is a historical legacy. However, it in
no way represents the interests of or benefits the Taiwanese people today. Its
existence means that Taiwan
– the world’s 14th largest trading nation – is a community in isolation,
humiliated by denial of the right to an international identity, representation
in the United Nations, or almost any other international organization,
including even the World Health Organization.

 

China’s insistence that this status quo be
maintained at all costs has won it no friends here in Taiwan. Its refusal to allow World
Health Organization officials access to the island during the outbreak of SARS
earlier this year, is seen here as simply the latest – if not one of the more
resented – instance in a long litany of humiliations Taiwan has had to accept.
Indeed, Taiwan
is a member of just two international organizations: the World Trade
Organization and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. In the WTO, Taiwan is known as the  “Representation of the Separate Customs
Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu to WTO.” In APEC gatherings, Taiwan’s president is barred from attendance,
while ministerial-level meetings attended by foreign ministers is open only to Taiwan’s
economic minister. Even in that most inclusive of global gatherings, the
Olympic games, Taiwan’ s athletes cannot enter the arena bearing their national
flag, and their team goes under the name Chinese Taipei.

 

This is the status quo, and its
upholders are currently toasting each other in Washington. China’s
stand on Taiwan is no
different from its stand on Tibet
and Xinjiang – both of which can now be safely relied upon not to trouble the
world with troublesome democratic movements and public votes for the right to
self-determination. That stand is
that Taiwan
is an inalienable part of the Motherland, and no movement towards independence
can be tolerated.

 

But if the world recognizes the moral
authority of the Dalai Lama’s efforts to highlight the plight of his people and
find a peaceful end to their oppression, how it can it brand a democracy’s
efforts to choose its own fate “trouble making?” Are Taiwanese to be blamed for
thinking the avowed commitment to democracy that took the U.S. to Iraq
would also bring the U.S. to
the defense of Taiwan?

 

Speaking this week, Mr. Chen said the “Taiwan problem” was China’s inability to accept
“democracy, freedom and human rights.” But the problem is equally a unique
convergence of a historical standoff between the Chinese Communist Party and the
Chinese Nationalist Party, the exigencies of appeasing an emergent modern China, and the complexities of Washington lobbies. In other words, the Taiwan problem is as much the U.S.’s as it is China’s. And, in that sense, the
growing momentum of a democratic movement in Taiwan
that calls for a clearer definition of Taiwan’s
international status is a challenge for both the U.S.
and China.
For China, the challenge is
to resist seeing Taiwan’s
burgeoning democracy as a threat that must be crushed. And, for the U.S.
the challenge is to recognize that to champion democracy is to live with the
outcome of its collective choices.

 

At least one positive emerged in Washington this week: the beginnings of an agreement to
deal with the Taiwan
issue peacefully. Bravo. But let us
not forget that peace should be unconditional; that it should not be achieved
at the expense of justice. To ensure
a peaceful resolution in those conditions, as the world’s leading power, and as
the one nation that should be counted on to say “no” to China when necessary,
the U.S. bears an undeniable responsibility when it comes to Taiwan.

 

The American commitment to justice, democracy and
human rights, demands it assume the
role of an impartial mediator in this standoff. National security may bias it
to maintaining the status quo, but if Taiwan society continues to evolve
to the point where a majority of people realize that a true deepening of
democracy is not compatible with the status quo it will have to recognize that.
It is an open secret here in Taiwan
that a referendum for independence would find little opposition if it could be
carried out free from fear of attack. In this unfair standoff, in which a small
but determined democracy finds itself pitted against a vast totalitarian
regime, it is disappointing not only to see the U.S. take sides, but to take the
wrong one.

 

——Published Dec 16, 2003, Asian Wall Street Journal