Response #11: “T” stands for my country. I wonder whether everything is political in Taiwan
As a so called de-facto independent country, Taiwan’s politics has become the most prominent issue domestically and regionally. Nobody knows whether it is because of the democratization of Taiwan since the 1980s or it is simply based on the peculiar China-Taiwan Relations.
The Recent visit of Dalai Lama was supposed to focus on something essentially religious and charitable. Nevertheless, due to his troubled relations with China and the resentment of Beijing, his visit to Taiwan has been largely politicized. Not only did Beijing protest against the decision of Taipei to accept Dalai Lama, but also within Taiwan, different political parties have been struggling over whether it is appropriate to greet Dalai Lama with the respect of a Nobel Prize Winner and a great leader regardless of the political concerns.
Another more critical issue that has been bothering the Taiwan is the ex-president Chen Shui-Bian. His sentence has become the number.1 issue of the Taiwan for over half a year.
It has gradually transformed from a legal case into another crucial partisan battle field, just like many other issues.
Speaking of the ex-president Chen-Shui Bian, his mis-handling of the China-Taiwan relations and Taiwan-US relations around 2004 has been widely received as a disaster regarding Taiwan international space. However, if we look into what he has endeavored to do during his first term, it is not unfair to argue that actually his efforts was still evident in terms of reconciling with the mainland China. Even though personally I am not supportive of Chen, it is still necessary to reexamine what he has done at that time. Initially, although Beijing’s position on Democratic Progressive Party (DDP) and Chen’s pro-independence background remained adamant, during the first term of the Chen administration, both Taipei and Beijing did send some positive signals in terms of public statements (CRS 2006). Both sides aimed at maximizing their gain and profits, though different and hard to meet the ends, by riding on a relatively amicable cross-Strait relation. On the Taiwanese side, for example, “it launched what it called the “three mini-links“ –for the first time permitting direct transport, commerce, and postal exchanges between two outlying Taiwan islands and the south of China” On the Chinese side, it also attempted to work with the new administration regardless of its political ideology. In 2002, “PRC Vice-Premier Qian Qichen described pro-independence advocates in the DPP as only an ‘extremely small number’ in the Party, and he invited DPP members to visit the mainland under a ‘suitable status’ — a change in the PRC’s policy of not meeting with DPP members”.
In that sense, instead of saying it is all Chen’s fault, the fundamental nature of Taiwan’s existence has limited his potential to achieve his own goals, i.e. everything seems political in today’s Taiwan.
