Last Saturday's Taipei Times looked at the new Democratic congress and predicted it'll be tough sledding over the next four years with the Obama administration at the helm; Michael Turton on the other hand has reason to believe relations will continue roughly the same as they are now.
As for myself, I will approach the question from a different angle. Without denying the importance of pro- or anti-Taiwan sentiment in the next administration and congress, the other side of the equation cannot be overlooked. That is to say, will the administration of Taiwan's president Ma Ying-jeou make it easier for American politicians and State Department bureaucrats to support Taiwan, or more difficult?
Because Michael raises a good point when he says there won't be a single "Taiwan-policy czar" -- there will in fact be many doing that -- some more supportive of the country than others. So what Taiwan does over the next four years ALSO matters, because negative developments in Taiwan will strengthen the hands of Taiwan's detractors versus its supporters.
Ask yourself this, then: One or two years from now, will Taiwan's ranking on leading international democratic and good government indices be higher or lower? For example, within the first five months of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency, disturbing reports surfaced that the Taiwanese government had begun interfering with the editorial freedom of Radio Taiwan International (the KMT government wanted RTI to quit being so critical of the KMT's newest best friend, the Communist Party of China). As a result, members of the RTI board ended up quitting in protest.
If this is any evidence of what the next year or two will bring, Taiwan's position on press freedom indices will decline.
The same goes for indices ranking freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest. Last week, the Ma administration took the extraordinary measure of confiscating Taiwanese flags from Taiwanese who attempted to protest the arrival of a delegation from China. Just yesterday, we learned that Taiwanese police under KMT direction had begun tailing political dissidents. And tomorrow? We await with dread. Indeed, one official from the Ma administration ominously warned the opposition that they shouldn't take their free speech rights for granted. So on this matter too, I predict a decline in Taiwan's international scores.
And what of Taiwan's position on lists evaluating judicial independence? Leading members of Taiwan's opposition have now been jailed for corruption-related crimes -- jailed incommunicado without charge, whilst prosecutors drag their feet on cases involving KMT politicians accused of similar crimes.* But just this Wednesday, American and Dutch officials began to question the impartiality of the Taiwanese judicial system; a day later, even President Ma's former law school mentor at Harvard University wrote an op-ed column to express his own doubts on the matter. What we see is that the KMT's politicization of the justice system IS being noticed overseas, though it may take some time before the criticism begins to mount.
Finally, I'll go a little out on a limb regarding Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index. I'd bet even money that 2 years from now, Taiwan's position on that list will be worse than it is today. But even if it DOES hold its place on the CPI, Taiwan's reputation as a democratic nation will still take a hit. Politicians will take note of its declining status on all the OTHER indices I've mentioned, and those friendly to Taiwan will be left on the defensive.
Which is why when relations between Taiwan and America begin to cool, I'm prepared to cut Obama some slack. President Obama, President McCain -- it doesn't matter -- either one would be forced to display SOME kind of American displeasure in response to Ma's alarming initial steps towards authoritarianism.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* We've known since at least January of this year that KMT legislator Diane Lee owes the government of Taiwan the equivalent of $3.29 MILLION U.S. dollars due to government paychecks she illegally collected while she was still an American citizen. But the wheel of justice grinds slowly . . . if you're a member of the ruling party, that is.
Comments