|
|
|
Strange cross-Taiwan Strait
bedfellows By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - The Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) has never stood in an election, so can it
now learn to take part in a democratic process
and, of course, emerge the victor? This is the
real prize and was the challenge in Nanjing last
week in the meeting between Jia Qinglin, chairman
of China's People's Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC), and a delegation of Taiwan's
Kuomintang (KMT) headed by its chairman Lien Chan,
Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's main rival.
Both Lian Chan and Beijing organized the
meeting for the interests of the Taiwanese voters.
The message: We will work hand in hand for the
welfare of China and Taiwan. We shall bring
stability to the region and the island. Moreover,
both Lian Chan and Jia Qinglin tried to show that
the relationship is one of equals: Jia is not
superior to Lian or vice versa.
Beijing's
choice of Jia to meet with the KMT delegation was
wise. He deals with elements who are not
foreigners and who are not in the Communist Party,
though they may have leftist and pro-mainland
leanings. Jia was also chosen to represent the CCP
at the funeral of Zhao Ziyang, the party secretary
ousted because of his support to the Tiananmen
protesters. Jia had also been party secretary in
Fujian, the province speaking minanyu, the
same dialect as that of many people on Taiwan.
The Beijing papers marked the meeting as
"historic", and tried to give a new, positive spin
to the relationship with the island, which has
been marred by the mainland's recent approval of
the controversial Anti-Secession Law, authorizing
China to use "non-peaceful means" if necessary
should Taiwan move decisively toward independence.
According to Beijing, China passed the
law, in a way, to put the onus of forcing the
responsibility for any violence on Taipei. Then,
after turning the tables, Beijing wanted to show
that there are people in Taiwan willing to talk to
China's leadership. Earlier, China had been a
silent presence in Taiwan's political process.
Different parties tried to lure and influence
Beijing, interpreting China's utterances in
various ways. Now the KMT can claim that it knows
what Beijing really means - and convey it to the
Taiwan public.
KMT's main competitor,
Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP), can't claim to have the
same access to Beijing, and thus its
interpretation of CCP intentions would be de facto
weaker than the KMT's. Of course some people can
claim that any way you look at it, the CCP is bad,
it is deceitful, and there is no need to hold
discussions with it. But except for some very
ideologically driven people, middle-ground,
pragmatic voters in Taiwan now have one more
reason to listen more carefully to the KMT than to
the DPP when it comes to issues involving Beijing.
The visit of the KMT delegation to China
last week is a political card, and much depends on
how the CCP - and more so the KMT - will play it,
but it definitely could be of some advantage. For
this visit to have positive results, the KMT
should not be described or viewed as a running dog
of the CCP - an image both the CCP and the KMT
have been careful not to convey.
The visit
also appears to convey new attention on Beijing's
part to the democratic process. As a confirmation
of this at least perceived (by some) new
sensibility, Beijing demoted (though technically
promoted) Hong Kong's unpopular chief executive
Tung Chee-hwa and promoted his successor and chief
administrator Donald Tsang. Although the process
was not open or subject to a popular election, it
was intended to reveal that Beijing pays attention
to the popular sentiment of the Hong Kong people
who shouted Tung out of office. It also was
intended to reveal that it wanted at least a
stopgap solution in Hong Kong to get the selection
of the territory's new chief executive handled
swiftly. This would avoid the situation of the
Hong Kong selection of chief executive not
coinciding with the Communist Party Congress in
2007.
The coincidence of Tung's selection
with the party meeting in 2002 helped to confirm
Tung, because people in Beijing were too busy with
their own agenda to pay too much attention to Hong
Kong. The decision to replace Tung was also
encouraged by the success in the elections in Hong
Kong last year, when the Communist Party-backed
candidates performed much better than anticipated.
This emboldened people in Beijing: the competition
from the Hong Kong democrats could be resisted and
won through democratic process.
All these
signs still appear to fall very short of a
commitment to a democratic process, but are
nevertheless signs of a new attention that should
not be overlooked. In a way, through a
relationship that could grow closer with the KMT,
the CCP could learn more and better about what
happens during a democratic election. This
knowledge could be precious in the future.
Moreover, these mainland ties with the KMT
could help promote the ideas of political
transformation in China, possibly better than a
confrontational attitude imposing on Beijing what
it considers a sort of blackmail, first
democratize then talk of reunification.
It
may appear strange that two parties that were at
war for decades are now closer to each other than
in 70 years. If the signs are right, this could be
telling not of how much the KMT has changed in the
past years, but of how much the CCP is willing to
change in the future.
Francesco
Sisci is the director of the Institute of
Italian Culture in Beijing. This article
represents his views alone and not those of the
institute.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
?0„8 Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
|
|
|