The KMT: The OTHER independence party
Finishing off comments from my fourth post on TOS: We just don't agree on what path to take towards democracy, and who we need to be independent from.
Much has been made of the DPP being pro-independence, and it is often said, assumed or insinuated that the KMT is not. The DPP embraced declaring independence from China in the 1990's, but changed its platform to become a more mainstream party and avoid an extremist label. Now, only the DPP-allied TSU openly advocates independence, along with some sort of reunification with Japan. The KMT does not support declaring Taiwan to be a sovereign country, and so therefore is assumed to be against independence. I really do believe, however, that there is a fundamental difference in the way that the two groups define independence.
The DPP has made independence into an issue of sovereignty. A wise man, or anyone who has read through enough back-stabbing Chinese literature, knows that a name or a title is easily given or taken away - what matters is the power you have underneath. Just getting the seat at the UN isn't enough - dozens of nations have come and gone from the General Assembly. What defines a country's ability to stay there and be truly independent is economic and military independence.
If one considers that the KMT is born of the Chinese experience of democracy-building, and that Chinese cultural mores say it is often better to say one thing and do the opposite, one may find a different attitude towards independence in the KMT. The KMT was born of Chinese frustration with foreign domination in trade as well as territory, so it naturally has a bias toward economics rather than political ideals. Nobody pays attention to you if you're broke in every democracy that I know of, anyway.
Taiwan does need to be independent. However, it does not need political independence, which buys nothing but war, but rather it needs independence from foreign domination. This is right up the KMT's alley. The economic miracle engineered by the KMT weaned this country off of US foreign aid, propelled it from third to first world, and turned it into the world's eighth largest economy. Many a country has received aid and burned it away, but Taiwan actually used it and turned itself into a respectable country. Those are results we can trust, though some of methods could have obviously used some improvement. The KMT goal, as I see it, is to become as economically independent as possible by knocking out dependancies, one by one.
Why does this matter? Because right now, TW is completely dependent on a foreign power, specifically the US, for its defense. It could declare independence tomorrow and still not be able to disguise its complete dependence on the US to ensure its status. Back in the KMT days, the attitude was "If you come over here, you may wipe us out but we're going to make you pay for every inch," and THEN the US sent in the fleet for its own reasons. Now, all we have are Chen Shui-Bian's assurances that the US has to protect Taiwan, and maybe the US will send in the fleet for its own reasons. Not even Japan wants to rely on US defense anymore.
I think the first option was better for the country and at least honorable.
The moment that the US decides TW is no longer useful, Taiwan is alone and defenseless. China is the second biggest holder of US treasury bonds in the world, having financed most of that nice deficit Bush II ran up. What happens if the US cannot pay, or the Chinese buy up enough bonds to threaten the currency? No amount of overpriced arms purchases of outdated military equipment will ensure that the US will come, especially if it has to suffer for it. Taiwan has become a client state to a patron that doesn't want it or need it. There are words for people like that at parties, and none of them are nice.
Much has been made of the DPP being pro-independence, and it is often said, assumed or insinuated that the KMT is not. The DPP embraced declaring independence from China in the 1990's, but changed its platform to become a more mainstream party and avoid an extremist label. Now, only the DPP-allied TSU openly advocates independence, along with some sort of reunification with Japan. The KMT does not support declaring Taiwan to be a sovereign country, and so therefore is assumed to be against independence. I really do believe, however, that there is a fundamental difference in the way that the two groups define independence.
The DPP has made independence into an issue of sovereignty. A wise man, or anyone who has read through enough back-stabbing Chinese literature, knows that a name or a title is easily given or taken away - what matters is the power you have underneath. Just getting the seat at the UN isn't enough - dozens of nations have come and gone from the General Assembly. What defines a country's ability to stay there and be truly independent is economic and military independence.
If one considers that the KMT is born of the Chinese experience of democracy-building, and that Chinese cultural mores say it is often better to say one thing and do the opposite, one may find a different attitude towards independence in the KMT. The KMT was born of Chinese frustration with foreign domination in trade as well as territory, so it naturally has a bias toward economics rather than political ideals. Nobody pays attention to you if you're broke in every democracy that I know of, anyway.
Taiwan does need to be independent. However, it does not need political independence, which buys nothing but war, but rather it needs independence from foreign domination. This is right up the KMT's alley. The economic miracle engineered by the KMT weaned this country off of US foreign aid, propelled it from third to first world, and turned it into the world's eighth largest economy. Many a country has received aid and burned it away, but Taiwan actually used it and turned itself into a respectable country. Those are results we can trust, though some of methods could have obviously used some improvement. The KMT goal, as I see it, is to become as economically independent as possible by knocking out dependancies, one by one.
Why does this matter? Because right now, TW is completely dependent on a foreign power, specifically the US, for its defense. It could declare independence tomorrow and still not be able to disguise its complete dependence on the US to ensure its status. Back in the KMT days, the attitude was "If you come over here, you may wipe us out but we're going to make you pay for every inch," and THEN the US sent in the fleet for its own reasons. Now, all we have are Chen Shui-Bian's assurances that the US has to protect Taiwan, and maybe the US will send in the fleet for its own reasons. Not even Japan wants to rely on US defense anymore.
I think the first option was better for the country and at least honorable.
The moment that the US decides TW is no longer useful, Taiwan is alone and defenseless. China is the second biggest holder of US treasury bonds in the world, having financed most of that nice deficit Bush II ran up. What happens if the US cannot pay, or the Chinese buy up enough bonds to threaten the currency? No amount of overpriced arms purchases of outdated military equipment will ensure that the US will come, especially if it has to suffer for it. Taiwan has become a client state to a patron that doesn't want it or need it. There are words for people like that at parties, and none of them are nice.
posted by Taiwan's Other Side at 11:15 PM
2 Comments:
You're absolutely right that Taiwan has become a client state. It's a sad state of affairs that Taiwan must so utterly depend on the US for its security, but that, as they say, are the breaks.
However, I disagree with your assertion that the KMT era represented a "golden age" of self-sufficiency. The KMT pushed hard for a mutual defense treaty in the '50's following the Korean War, and one of the biggest issues surrounding the breaking of diplomatic ties involved what would become of US-Taiwan military ties (check out David Tawei Lee's excellent treatise on the Taiwan Relations Act for details).
The KMT pushed the US hard for security guarantees and literally soiled its drawers when Reagan announced the Shanghai 2 communique vowing to eventually stop selling weapons to Taiwan. After intensive lobbying on the part of the KMT government the US made the 6 assurances to not put a time-limit on the end of weapons sales. Likewise, heavy KMT lobbying brought about the Bush, Sr. decision to sell Taiwan F-16s.
Fast-forward to the present. The DPP government continues to pursue US security assurances and weapons in very much the same manner (I would say its actually making progress, given the closer military ties Taiwan and the US enjoy today.) President Chen and his rotating cotiere of Premiers have always publicly advocated military self-sufficience just as past KMT presidents and premiers did.
While the KMT did indeed start out as a party calling for independence from foreign powers and self-strengthening, the nature of the party has fundamentally changed since. Rather than advocating economic independence, the KMT set policy in the '90's that actually made Taiwan more dependent on the US technology market (hence the saying "when the US sneezes, Taiwan catches a cold."). It's economic policies have also made it highly dependent on its former enemy the PRC when it could have urged Taiwanese industry to invest more in southeast Asia. Granted, the DPP is to a large degree following in the KMT's footsteps in its economic policy, but the fact is that the KMT has done much to put Taiwan in its present situation.
I also take isue with the characterization of the KMT as more of an economics-oriented party as opposed to an ideological one. The fact that the KMT taught the "New Life" ideology for decades in public schools rather than economic theory illustrates the KMT's reliance on ideology. It only turned to economics when it realized it needed to bring native Taiwanese up the economic ladder in order to ensure social stability.
Also, the DPP didn't change its platform on independence, as stated in its charter. Rather, a group of non-New Tide DPP members banded together in 1999 and decided that Taiwan is the ROC, and is thus already independent. But the pro-indpendence plank remains in the charter (probably due to the muscle of the New Tide faction).
To Whoever Writes this Blog (Otherside?)
You are an absolute genius with all your piercing deductions.
But on the treasury bonds things, no worries. If the US is unable to pay, it will simply print money to pay off (at least according to my various Econ profs) Problem is we Taiwanese hold lots of US treasuries as well, so if the US print us off, that would really suck (for a lot of us including me).
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