Taiwan's New Nationalists: Democracy with Taiwanese Characteristics

Ian Buruma

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 1996

Article preview: first 500 of 5,650 words total.

Summary:  The Nationalist Party still holds the reins of government, but Lee Teng-hui, elected in Taiwan's first direct presidential contest in March, has brought the island a long way from the repressive regime of Chiang Kai-shek. Himself a native of Taiwan, Lee has opened up his party as well as the political system, divesting the mainlanders who arrived in 1949 and governed the country for decades of much of their power. Their dream of reunification has gone the way of their might, replaced by the native Taiwanese desire for an independent country. As Taiwan's newborn democracy matures, homegrown nationalism will carry the day.

Ian Buruma has published widely on Asia. His most recent book is The Missionary and the Libertine: Love and War Between East and West.

The presidential election was over. Discarded baseball caps with party insignia still littered the streets of the old city center as municipal workers tore down election posters. For the first time in the history of the Republic of China on Taiwan, such people had voted for their national leader. Taipei buzzed over the March election for quite a while, as though people could not believe what had happened. The three state-run television stations continually broadcast scenes from the victory celebrations of President Lee Teng-hui and his running mate, Lien Chan. Radio talk shows and the 63 cable stations rehashed the results, and callers asked about China's designs on Taiwan, the chances of further democratic change, and the problems of national independence.

Ten years ago, all this would have seemed like a fantasy. Until the mid-1980s Taiwan's authoritarian government ruled by martial law, suppressing dissent and imprisoning opposition activists. But a week before election day, I walked into a restaurant at an expensive hotel, past a sign in English that read, "Please deposit your cellular phone with the hostess," and joined a group that included a dissident writer who had been jailed for more than a decade in Taiwan, a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising in the People's Republic of China, and a former speechwriter for Zhao Ziyang, the reformist general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party who was purged in 1989. They were discussing the extent of government corruption in Taiwan, the prospects for Chinese democracy, and the outlook for Taiwanese independence. Not long ago one could have been arrested for such talk.

The trend toward democracy appears to be gathering speed in Asia, especially in countries that were once American client states. While the authoritarian rulers of Burma and China have snuffed out popular demonstrations calling for democracy, a combination of local activism and prodding from Washington has done the trick in South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan. However, American pressure on Taiwan to open its political system is different, for the United States does not officially recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state; after President Nixon's 1972 visit to China, the relationship with Taipei cooled, and in 1979 the United States severed diplomatic relations and recognized the People's Republic in its stead. Yet the quiet, and sometimes not so quiet, Taiwanese insistence on national sovereignty lies at the heart of the new democracy. Until the 1990s, both the Nationalists, also known as the Kuomintang (KMT), on Taiwan and the Communists on the mainland claimed to represent the whole of China. They disagreed on everything else, but they shared a commitment to the goal of reuniting the mainland and Taiwan under a single government. This aim gave dictators on both sides of the Taiwan Strait patriotic legitimacy and formed the basis for an alliance of enemies that lasted more than four decades. But now that the Taiwanese have directly elected their own president, who is more committed to the preferences of Taiwan's voters than to the one ...

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