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The top leadership of the People’s Republic of
China on the mainland, still ruled firmly by the Communist Party, is
incessantly irritated by the pro-independence stand of the present
administration running the “Republic of China” on Taiwan.
Ironically, China’s leaders are nowadays more pleased and at home
with their former archenemy, the Kuomintang (KMT).
That’s because the Kuomintang
has always held, and doesn’t look like it will ever abandon, the
principle that there is only one China. There may be a fight between
communists and noncommunist Chinese over which is better for China,
but they are all Chinese. To both the CCP and the KMT the Chinese of
China include all the Han Chinese as well as the Taiwanese on Taiwan
and the surrounding islands.
In a visit to mainland China in
April 2005, the former chairman and a still respected figure of the
KMT, Lien Chan, reiterated his party’s “One China Policy.”
Immediately after, James Soong, the chairman of KMT’s ally, the
People First Party (PFP), also visited China and affirmed his
party’s belief that “there is only one China which happens to be
controlled by two governments [one in Beijing and the other in
Taipeh] and that Taiwan is an integral part of China.” Taiwan’s
KMT, PFP and the New Party are coalesced pro-unification parties.
Unfortunately, since 2000 the KMT
and its pro-unification allies have been reduced to playing the
opposition role in Taiwan politics. The democratically elected
ruling party, since 2000, has been the native-Taiwanese-based party
of President Chen Shui-bian, the Democratic Progressive Party.
The DPP was formed illegally in
1986, when Taiwan was still under martial law. It was the first
opposition party in Taiwan to challenge the KMT.
The trouncing of the KMT by
Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party came as a result of the
process of liberalization and democratization started by President
Chiang Ching-kuo, the late President Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s
son. KMT’s defeat was also the result of the dislike the Taiwanese
have always had for the Han-Chinese from the mainland.
The “Republic of China”
gradually became really democratic during the 1990s. In the 80s, the
ROC and the KMT, under President Chiang Ching-kuo, started
democratic reforms and liberalization. Chiang allowed the Taiwanese
to share power. He made native Taiwanese Lee Ting Hui, a technocrat,
his vice-president.
In 1987, a year before his death
while still president of the ROC, Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial
law. He had been gradually relaxing government control over Taiwan
society. He granted his people the freedom of speech and of the
press.
When Chiang Ching-kuo died
Vice-President Lee Teng-hui succeeded him. He continued the
democratization process and gave more administrative authority to
native Taiwanese. This was called “localization.” Hardline KMT
politicians bitterly criticized it. Localization was not just about
government power. It was also about giving pride of place to
Taiwanese culture over that of national Chinese culture. Schools
focused less and less on China and more and more on Taiwan as if it
were a nation and a state.
This led to the division of the
people between the pro-unification and pro-independence. But not
only ethnic Taiwanese follow the pro-independence line, many
children of mainlanders also think the best thing for the people of
their wealthy and self-reliant island and the surrounding islands is
to be on their own—dealing with China as a separate country.
President Chen Shui-bian’s
pro-independence government has changed the name of the Chiang Kai-shek
International Airport. The late President and Generalissimo’s name
is replaced with the name of the place, Taoyuan.
One of Taipeh’s landmarks, the
Chiang Kaishek Memorial Hall, will also be given a new name, if some
PDP leaders will have their way.
All of this is to make more
residents of Taiwan feel less connected to the China of the
Nationalists (Kuomintang), of the Communists and of history books
and of legends.
Now the Chen Shui-bian government
is removing statues of Chiang Kai-shek from military establishments.
They do not need to remove
statues of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the father of modern China and founder
of the KMT. There aren’t many, anyway.
The greatest irony would be if
mainland China becomes the only place where Chiang Kai-shek
statues—well cared for and accorded proper respect—can be found.
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