LOS ANGELES - Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy hosted a forum March 8th on The Worth of US-Taiwan Relations at their Malibu campus.
Some important issues regarding US-Taiwan relations were addressed at the forum including the validity of current U.S. policy regarding Taiwan and cross-strait relations between the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (Taiwan).
The flowering of democracy on the island of Taiwan under the shadow of the Chinese communist regime across the Taiwan strait is one of the great success stories in international geopolitics. But a complete success in terms of full independence has yet to be realized by the Taiwanese people.
The Chinese communist regime continues to make strong claims to sovereignty over Taiwan, using military intimidation and its anti-secession law enacted last year. As the economic and military influence of the PRC grows it calls into question the commitment of the United States to Taiwan.
In Part III presentations were made by all four panelists.
We now continue with the second half of the forum that focused on US-Taiwan relations from the perspective of the Taiwanese people. The second half began with comments by Professor Stanley Rosen of USC. Following Rosen, Professor Robert Kaufman of Pepperdine made comments in response to Rosen's presentation.
Professor Stanley Rosen, USC
Stanley Rosen is the Director of the East Asian Studies Center and Professor of Political Science at USC; author or editor of a variety of books on China, including State and Society in 21st-Century China (co-edited, 2004), Red Guard Factionalism and the Cultural Revolution in Guangzhou (1982); Editor of the journal, Chinese Education and Society; He received his Ph. D. from UCLA.
Rosen Describes the Political Polarization in Taiwan Society
"The most striking thing to me about society in Taiwan today is the polarization that exists. The polarization exists between the two major groups of parties and the hardcore supporters of the two parties. So any discussion of the relationship between Taiwan and the United States, Taiwan and China, has to start with that basic split."
"Both Rick [Richard Baum] and I were part of the same group that went to Taiwan in March of 2004 as official presidential election observers. I have been observing their elections, first one going back to 1991 and I have a lot of data on public opinions. I was actually in China during the shooting incident and talked with a variety of leading politicians from the major parties, academics and voters there and also in Taipei after the election and came away very concerned with the lack of mutual trust on both sides."
"Now of course the polarization is exacerbated by the media in Taiwan. Everybody knows what newspapers to read and TV stations to watch if you want to reinforce your views. I was watching a lot of the talk shows and it is even worse than in the United States in terms of everybody just getting their point of view across for their candidate with no kind of objectivity. I have examples with me of the different papers and how they cover the same events if anyone would like to see them."
"I looked at political campaigning during the election. Bruce is quite right in raising some of these issues about the KMT [Kuomintang], they have to overcome a long reputation going back to February 28, 1947 and the concern that they are going to sellout Taiwan to the mainland. So you see during the election Lien Chan of the KMT, or James Soong of the People's First Party kissing the ground, 'we love Taiwan'. Now Chen Shui-bian doesn't have to kiss the ground because everyone knows how he stands."
Strong Political Characterizations Highlight Polarization in Taiwan
"In terms of polarization, if you look at the campaign during the election, here is a newspaper ad comparing Chen Shui-bian to Adolph Hitler with a picture of Hitler in a full page ad. I don't think the Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. would resort to anything quite like that. But even more in Taijung for example, Osama Bin Laden is actually supporting Chen Shui-bian, and Sadam Hussein is shown here saying, you know, I lost a huge referendum, and I am glad to see you're doing… " (audience breaks out in laughter).
Moderator: "So those are official documents of the campaign?"
Rosen: "Campaign documents, yes."
Rosen continues: "On the other side, Chen Shui-bian and the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] try to make the argument that "we are following in the great tradition of John F. Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis, and with all these missiles facing us, just as Kennedy stood up to Khrushchev, we have to stand up to the mainland.
"And of course the KMT is questioned in terms of its identity with Taiwan and so the DPP is basically saying that if the referendum loses the Chinese consulate would be very happy, this was the time when Jiang Zemin was president, and Jiang Zemin is shown giving the KMT a two finger salute. So the polarization is quite serious and is not receding very much as far as I can tell."
Kenneth Lieberthal Argues Agreement Needed by middle of 2007
"But I also want to talk briefly about some recent developments. In the Kenneth Lieberthal article in Foreign Affairs that I mentioned, he suggests that if you want to get a framework agreement to avoid miscalculation, that promotes stability, the United States has to initiate and guarantee something that needs to be done before the middle of 2007. And to see how the DPP came to respond to this possibility, I think it is interesting to see what happened since the 2004 presidential election. I would first say that I was completely wrong in a lot of what I predicted after the election."
"A lot of politicians felt after the election and the aftermath of the public protests from the People's First Party and the KMT that the DPP would sweep the legislative elections of December, 2004 and also do well in the local elections of 2005, which they did not. Many expected the KMT would disappear as a political party and the two parties that would be participating would be DPP and the TSU [Taiwan Solidarity Union] of Lee Teng-Hui. So I perhaps got some wrong information. Maybe things changed in a direction that no one could predict. One of the reasons they made that prediction was the whole reason of Taiwanese identity."
Taiwanese Identity Becoming Stronger
"If you look at the first chart done by the Political National University, the number of those who identified themselves as solely Taiwanese went from 17.3% in June, 1992 to 46.5% in December, 2005. Whereas the number who have identified themselves as both Chinese and Taiwanese has been relatively stable. But it has dropped from 48.3% in June of 2004 right after the election, to 42% in December 2005."
"We now have more people that identify themselves as solely Taiwanese instead of both Chinese and Taiwanese. Now the question that needs to be asked, a lot has been written on this subject, is how this identity issue translates into support for political parties and political independence and a lot of people argue it does not as it is a cultural identity and not a political identity."
Largest Percentage Supports Maintenance of the Status Quo
"The second table looks at changes in unification and independence stances and here you see by far the largest number, 38.2%, supports the maintenance of the status quo, decisions put off to a later date. And it is interesting only 18.8% say they support the status quo indefinitely. So you have supporters of unification and supporters of independence but they think at the current time neither is reasonable.
"This tends to buttress the argument of Ken Lieberthal and the plan he is suggesting to try and forestall any decisions or solutions until the next generation. And if you look at the independence advocates and unification advocates for the long term, it is pretty evenly divided at by 12 or 13%."
KMT Gaining Support in terms of Party Identification
"The third table is Changes in Party Identification of Taiwanese . It shows that KMT support, as far as party identification, has been increasing and DPP support has been decreasing since December, 2004 with a continuing large number of independent and uncommitted voters."
"In light of these results the KMT was very wise in February, 2006 by literally going to the enemy media camp and taking out an advertisement in the Liberty Times, those of you who know Taiwan newspapers know that it is not a KMT paper to say the least.
"The KMT took out this very interesting advertisement about Taiwan and Chen Shui-bian. I am sure a lot of people have seen this if you are from Taiwan. The advertisement criticized the policies of Chen Shui-bian and DPP while emphasizing the absolute importance of maintaining the status quo. Saying that 'all this talk about identity issues, all the talk of unification, all the talk of independence has only harmed Taiwan's interests.' For the foreseeable future, they say, neither unification nor independence are possibilities and they are not in the interest of the Taiwanese people, to even discuss those, so it's not possible.
"They are also very clearly moving toward the center as it suggests in the ad, in the longer term future we have a number of options, we could be unified with mainland China, we could be independent, we can maintain the status quo, but this has to be decided by the people themselves and the ROC constitution, not by parties or politicians for their own electoral interests.
"Now this is a very good strategy as Rick was suggesting earlier. Ma Ying-jeou has done extremely well and is a very charismatic politician. His recent talk at the London School of Economics attracted an overflow crowd of both mainland and Taiwan students."
Strategy of KMT Fits Closely with Public Opinion and with U.S. and China Strategy
"The strategy of the KMT does very closely accord with public opinion polls and also fits very well with the United States strategy at the current time and certainly appears to make Ma Ying-jeou and the KMT far better partners for the United States than the DPP and also for China. So it will be very tough for the DPP in the current situation to make a comeback.
"Chen Shui-bian learned from his electoral defeat in December of 2005 in local elections that moving towards the center does not seem to work so well for the DPP, there is such distrust of Chen Shui-bian. So what he has been doing is solidifying his political base of independent supporters in the DPP. But at this point that does not look to be a winning strategy.
"We have a long way to go before 2008 but the danger to me is because Chen Shui-bian is being pushed into a corner and the KMT has been doing so well, how far will he push the envelope? And that is something we are thinking about."
Professor Robert Kaufman, Pepperdine
Robert Kaufman is Professor of Public Policy at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy. He is the author of Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics and earned his Ph.D. in International Relations from Columbia University as well as a J. D. from Georgetown University.
Below are Professor Kaufman's comments:
China Does Not Have a Credible Military Option
"I have two things I would like to point out. The Lieberthal argument I think is flawed in that it overestimates the plausibility in this current time frame of a serious Chinese military bid to take over Taiwan. That may occur, but for the foreseeable future China does not have nor will it have a credible military option to deal with Taiwan, so I think that undermines the urgency of Lieberthal's analysis."
Taiwan Consensus: Neither Side Wants to Be Re-united by a Dictatorial, Hegemonic China
"I think there is a consensus in Taiwan despite the fractious differences even if ultimately some members of the Kuomintang foresee some unification and even if the other side believes independence is the goal, there is a consensus that as currently constituted neither side wants to be re-united by a dictatorial, hegemonic China.
"So until China becomes peaceful and free, it really is a non issue by talking regarding unification. So in the short term there is a consensus on that fundamental issue."
U.S. Cannot Support Independence nor Unification so It Supports the Status Quo
"In the short term, I think there is even a consensus that it is premature, even if you want to strive for independence, to push for independence, when your major patron the United States and a very supportive patron in President Bush doesn't want you to do so.
"So I think the concatenation of China's lack of military option means we want to keep it that way and keep the terms robust and we want to steer a middle course between a precipitous declaration of independence and any signal to the Chinese mainland that negotiations that would yield Taiwan moving from democracy to tyranny are on the table.
"We can't do either of those two things. So right now I think robust deterrence and prudence serves both American and Chinese interests best."
Feeds