The Battle for Taiwan's Soul: The 2016 Presidential Election (2)
看2016台灣總統大選-這是為台灣精神之戰
In the past, the CCP hasn't played nicely with democratically elected DPP
leaders. What happens if Tsai Ing-wen wins?
從前中國共產黨並未與經由民主選舉產生的民進黨領袖相處愉快。那麼如果蔡英文選上會怎樣?
May 3, 2015
Ma’s presidency has not only poisoned
the well for the KMT, it has poisoned it for China’s integration-unification
project (not that there has ever been a clamour for unification in Taiwan). No wonder the CCP is eager
for a face-to-face meeting with KMT Chairman Eric Chu(朱立倫)—the only man who has a chance to dig the KMT out of the hole it is in. Having retained his position as mayor of
Taiwan’s largest metropolitan area, Xinbei City,(新北市) by the skin of his teeth, during the
carnage of local elections last November, Chu is the only KMT candidate with at
least a chance of beating Tsai to the presidency. He is the only candidate
with sufficiently broad support in both his party and the electorate. To date,
Chu has been steadfast in his refusal to run.
Chu’s reluctance is strategic.
Relatively young and very ambitious, he knows that mounting a challenge in 2020
is better than fighting a losing cause in 2016. Chu’s earlier promise to his
Xinbei constituents that he wouldn’t relinquish his Mayorship to run for
president provides him the cover to stand firm. By not running, Chu looks like
a man who honors his promises and someone else will have to endure a thankless
campaign.
If Chu sticks to his guns, the KMT’s
prospects are bleak, and the lack of viable candidates may yet force his
hand. House Speaker Wang Jin-pyng enjoys a measure of popular support and
appears to be ready to throw his hat in the ring.
But Wang is embroiled in a civil war
with President Ma’s faction and his nomination would provoke rebellion on the harder pro-China wing of the party. Other names include
a motley crew of has-beens like Wu Den-yih(吳敦義) and princelings who would be a liability in an election the DPP will try
to center on economic-justice issues. As a measure of the KMT’s desperation, in
recent days, the minority People First Party leader James Soong, (宋楚瑜) who split from the KMT ahead of the
presidential election in 2000 and polled 3 percent in 2012, has been mentioned
alongside the likes of central banker Perng Fai-nan, (彭淮南) Foxconn founder Terry Gou (郭台銘)and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je. (柯文傑) None of these are actually members of
the KMT, nor have they expressed any enthusiasm to stand for the party in the presidential
election. There are less than two weeks left until the deadline to enter the
KMT primary—enough for Chu to change his mind.
The CCP will surely want to hear from
Chu what the KMT intends to do to win the upcoming elections. However, noises
coming out of Beijing in recent times suggest that the CCP is already working
on contingencies, should the DPP win. Warnings about the gravity of accepting
the “one China” principle are clearly aimed at the DPP—and Taiwanese voters.
Giving Chu a face to face meeting with
the CCP could burnish his bona fides as a man they take seriously and can work with. This impression will dovetail with the joint recommendations and
policies that are routinely announced at the KMT-CCP Forum which Chu will
attend in Shanghai the day before.
For the Chinese side, with the political
logics that prevail in the CCP, it is inconceivable that Chu won’t eventually
throw his hat in the ring. But even if Chu does decide to run, the more likely
outcome is that the next ROC President will be the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen. Xi Jinping is more familiar with Taiwan
than any previous Chinese leader and he will be aware of that. The key question
is thus what the KMT and the CCP intend to do if the DPP wins the presidency,
and in the worst-case scenario, controls the legislature, too.
During the last DPP presidency—Chen
Shui-bian’s(陳水扁) two terms from 2000-2008—the KMT successfully used its legislative
majority (in concert with allies) to obstruct everything that the DPP tried to
achieve domestically. For their part, the CCP refused to speak to Chen and did
everything it could to strangle Taiwan’s external space. The KMT-CCP Forum itself was established as a
means to allow the two sides to bypass the DPP. Evolving out of a think-tank
set up by KMT Honorary Chairman Lien Chan,( 連戰) the forum paved the way for Lien to
visit China in 2005, where he acted and was treated as if he were Taiwan’s
elected leader, notwithstanding his actual defeat to Chen in two successive
presidential elections.
Although in recent years, DPP
politicians have visited China and there have been some hints that China could
find a way to work with a hypothetical DPP administration, these noises have
come mainly from academics and think tanks that tend to be more open-minded.
Ultimately, for all Tsai’s finesse of the issue, the DPP rejects the “one
China” principle that Beijing insists is its bottom line. With her pledge to maintain the status quo, Tsai has positioned herself in the
moderate middle of Taiwanese public opinion. But Tsai’s status quo refers to
Taiwan’s functional autonomy and existing separation from China, and Beijing
(and some parts of the KMT) wants to change that, not maintain it. In many
respects, China is stronger and more confident than it was fifteen years ago,
when the DPP won the presidency for the first time.
And with Xi Jinping exercising that confidence
more robustly in many areas of Chinese foreign policy, there is no reason to
think the CCP will concede acceptance of the “one China” principle in order to
work with the DPP. The most likely outcome is a repeat of the scenario that
pertained during the Chen era—a “united front” where the KMT and CCP combined
to squeeze the life out of the DPP presidency, and used a private body to
circumvent a democratically elected president whose policies they didn’t like.
In short, there is much for Chu and Xi to discuss, and none of it bodes well
for Taiwan.
作者：Jonathan Sullivan is Associate
Professor and Deputy Director of the China Policy Institute, University of
Nottingham.
05/12/2015
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