The Success State As A Political Theory

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Democracy (Made in Taiwan)
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Democracy (Made in Taiwan)

The Success State as a Political Theory
Chih-Yu Shih
LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Plymouth, UK
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LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, MD 20706 Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright 2007 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
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Contents
Introduction: Political Theory and Taiwan Part I 1 2 The Taiwan Success Revisited
1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
Not about Human Rights Not about Liberalism The Rational Actor Backfire
Part II 3 4
The Loss of the Median Voter The Loss of an Ally Political Theory in Practice
Part III 5 6
Back from the Future The World Timing of Un-Chinese Consciousness Two Theses on Confucian Democracy
Part IV 7 8
Parenting Personality Beyond the State-Society Divide Political Theory for Democratic Ontology
Conclusion Bibliography Index
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Introduction: Political Theory and Taiwan
This book talks about a success state. Success is a factor often left out in the theory of failing or failed states. The traits of failing states include their inability to provide service or maintain order. They fail because they did not evolve into normal states. The implicit assumption is that there are ways to evolve into normal states, hence the term success states. The existence of success states demonstrates that the solution to the problem of failing states is internal. According to the Clinton Administration, the way to remove undesirable elements which lead to a failing state is to carry out marketization and democratization.1 These processes translate into liberalizing the state-society relations in contemporary political science. The ability to execute the plan is therefore a characterization of success states. Acknowledging success states reproduces political sciences preoccupation with the research agenda of democratization. On the contrary, to question success states will push the ship of political science into a maelstrom. The intent of this book is to question success states, thereby rocking the ship of political science. Specifically, it argues that the impression of success reflects the insensitivity of political science to the knowledge of the peripheral. From the Bush Administrations point of view, failing states, along with terrorism, are challenges against globalization. However, it is arguable that globalization contributes to the formation of failing states, both by alienating them institutionally and by prescribing to them solutions that threaten to collapse their regimes. Political science is not neutral in this finger pointing exchange, since the literature on failing state places the root of their problems within their territories. It is as if their differences with normal states in terms of cultural values as well as institutional arrangements are illnesses to be cured.2 While critical scholarship blames hegemonic states as
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the source of evil that creates and defines a failing state,3 mainstream political science appears comfortable with the simple-minded diagnosis that democratizing and liberalizing failing states are the most practical approaches to globalization. This argument is no longer true today because even a success state can turn out to be a problem which requires management. Taiwan is an example of this state. Taiwan is certainly not unique, but is perhaps the least obvious place to challenge the conventional wisdom in political science. When measured against the familiar standards that fail the failing states, Taiwan is doubtlessly a success state. It has taken off economically with an impressive record of balanced distribution, followed by peaceful democratization and a demonstrated capacity for technological advancement as well as global entrepreneurship. Echoing Washingtons decision makers,4 however, known political scientists have begun to assign blame to Taiwanese politics for irresponsibly stirring up the relationship with Beijing, which has become a significant partner in Washingtons global management of failing states and terrorism.5 This poses a puzzle because failing states are failures presumably due to internal reasons. Yet Taiwan does not share this trait. Why and how is a success state reduced to a threat to globalization? Not too long after Taiwan becomes a trouble maker to some of the American Taiwan watchers, the legitimacy crisis appears increasingly serious in Taiwan. To begin with, in September 2006, over half million protestors surrounded the residence of the elected President to demand his resignation for involvement in corruption. He then alleged to possess the constitutional power to special secrecy in order to avoid charges of embezzlement, which has become too apparent to deny. In the following year, the attorney office charged the opposition party leader of embezzlement over a deed that has long been considered typical for decades, potentially placing over 100,000 retired and incumbent government employees on the list of criminal charges. Compared with those answering the polls in the 1990s, many fewer respondents still have trust in either judicial impartiality or political leadership in 2007. Taiwan is no longer on the track familiar to many of its international observers in the earlier decade. This book argues that post-colonialism and Confucianism met at the historical moment when democratization and liberalization occurred in Taiwan. The familiar political science standards took little note of either Confucianism or post-colonialism. In fact, these standards are unbalanced, wishful, and Washington-centric. They result in a misunderstanding of Taiwans performance. The liberal bias blinds international observers from the hybrid characteristics embedded in Taiwans post-colonial history. Although this book is not about failing states per se, its criticism of the standards of success alludes to the problematic nature of the mainstream view
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of failing states. In many aspects, Taiwan is a disguised failure, or even a fake. This is so in the sense that Taiwans democratization adopts a populist identity strategy, rather than a liberal one. In addition, its foreign policy compliance to hegemonic leadership is characterized by an anti-China determination, instead of a realist approach involving the calculation of power. Having said this, the book does not criticize Taiwan for failing liberalism to avoid the liberal teleology from lingering on. Instead, Taiwan in this book serves as an arena of polemics on political science, which is a major theme of the book. By rewriting domestic liberalism and external realism into meanings unknown to hegemonic power, this book celebrates Taiwans post-colonial fluidity. It is embedded in a kind of ontological anomaly beyond the scope of mainstream political science, which takes for granted the ontology informed by individualism in domestic politics and statism in international relations. Taiwans case appears subversive not because of the subversive nature itself of post-coloniality, but due to the inability of political sciences liberalism to make sense of its post-coloniality. Through decoupling the idea of political science from the entity known as Taiwan, this book attempts to achieve two goals: re-present Taiwan and call for reflexive political science. Political science has become the source of political problems in Taiwan. It intervenes in Taiwanese politics by supplying a language for Western writers who speak or write on Taiwan. Taiwans political actors who are constantly questing for legitimacy must respond to this language. Their assistants, who write their debate and question papers; the journalists, to whom they explain their platforms; and commentators, who evaluate their daily behavior, all receive education from colleges permeated with political science jargons. Jargons are no longer jargons after decades of repetition. Those who speak or write to the public find political science to be the only legitimate discourse. This means that anything incommunicable through the language of political science discourse will require cultural decoding. Since the 1980s, political science professors in leading colleges are primarily trained in the United States. As such, liberalism has substituted nationalism and Confucianism to become the dominant vehicle of public exposure. One example shows the power of political science as a discourse. During the debate on constitutional reform in the early 1990s, the party in power Kuomintang (KMT)held an ad hoc committee meeting for a final decision between the absolute and the relative majority systems for electing the President. One major argument for those who support the relative majority system was that the absolute majority system would allow smaller parties to overly influence the result of the election if the first round of election shows no candidate winning the absolute majority. However, the incumbent Speaker of the Legislature, Liu Songfan, used exactly the same argument to
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advocate the absolute majority system, baffling the audience. There was no confusion for Liu, though, because he might have read the wrong side of the slip prepared for him by his assistant who was a political science major and who did not know which side Liu would take in the meeting. Sarcastically reported by the leading newspaper United Daily as a headline,6 this incident demonstrates how the pressure to use political science jargons could even deprive a veteran politician of his familiar logic of politics. Unfortunately, Lius unintended revelation of his ignorance in political science is not anything new. For those masters of politics, they may have experienced powerful pressure, forcing them to camouflage their true motives that lack political science justification. This stronger pressure consists of a number of features, all of which challenge post-colonial Taiwan to face the lack of expressible selfhood. First of all, political science adopts a deductive logic that presumes some connections between thought and action. By contrast, the dialectic logic allows at least two behavior patterns. There is no set connection between thought and action for the same actor who alternates from one pattern to another as embedded in dialectics. Thus, political science easily misleads observers of a periodical, short-term performance into predicting a significant, long-term trend toward modernization. In dialectics, logically contradictory positions can attract the same voter. However, this is not necessarily ambivalent in-between-ness, as the deductive logic would usually suggest, nor schizophrenia, although it might be easily mistaken as so. The book reports this as the force behind Taiwanese voters contradictory welcome of both unification and independence as valid options. However, political science gives no room for developing this kind of language. The pressure to be consistent compels actors to choose sides and mistakenly read schizophrenia into their constituency. Likewise, political science is a universalist discourse that attempts to apply an existing proposition of behavior to all cases. The universalist logic easily entices narrators to see differences as a sign of deviation, to explain deviation by looking at local structures or mindsets believed to have caused the difference, and to prescribe solutions by institutional as well as cultural reformation. To avoid such external intrusion, a post-colonial society needs to show that it can comfortably adapt to universal norms. Moreover, the ability to speak the universalist language privileges local narrators over others who use the particularist discourse, now reduced to an inferior other. As a result, one can talk in a public forum in the same language used perhaps by English scholars or by U.S. Congressmen which fail to echo ones true intention. The repeated use of language clothed in liberalism tends to expose, rather than cover, an embarrassing lack of liberalism. The initial motive to act in a certain way is unavoidably obscured under the pressure to comply with universalism. Political actors in Taiwan are always anxious for rhetoric that would enable them to speak like an American, which they
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think allows them to face China from a presumably universalist (i.e., superior) position. For example, pro-independence scholars cite American civic nationalism as Taiwans model of forging nationhood.7 They argue that there are four different ethnic groups (which is still a highly contestable claim) in Taiwan. Together, these four groups practice civic nationalism to make Taiwan into a new nation state. However, instead of promoting Taiwanese citizenship as a protective identity for those claiming to be ethnically distinctive members, the scholars set the condition that the rights to citizenship depend upon ones willingness to substitute the new Taiwanese identity for ones primordial identity.8 In short, the discourse on civic nationalism serves to rhetorically bring Taiwan and the U.S. closer. After all, in American civic nationalism, the ideal is for one to acquire a civic identity that protects ones primordial identity, rather than substitute it completely with a new one. Another recent example is when incumbent President Chen Shui-bian once used the homosexual relationship celebrated in the Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain,9 banned in China, to portray the degree of intimacy between him and President George W. Bush, Jr. This is done at a time when the Bush Administration questioned his approach to democratic consolidation by stirring China. When critics blasted him for misunderstanding democratic understanding, the critical approach continues to draw upon universalist wisdom, nonetheless, so that the solution usually involves the elimination of a local difference that causes deviance. Accordingly, there is a belief that a right institution operating over long periods of time will eventually generate a mature democratic culture.10 In contrast, instead of treating Confucian values as a barrier (or a boost) to universalism, this book sees universalism as a condition upon which the Taiwanese practice Confucian values. Despite its universalism, political science is a Eurocentric discipline introduced to a Confucian society as a reformation campaign. Although many Taiwanese leaders are Christians, they continue to perform rituals that fulfill Confucian role expectations. If an action satisfies both Confucianism and liberalism, the English media quickly interpret the event as a sign of modernization or democratization. From the political science point of view, the state and the society become further separated, granted that there is disagreement in the discipline concerning how they are separated. However, Confucianism makes no such assumption. On the contrary, precisely because the state and the society are considered to be symbiotic in this belief, the constitutional principle of a limited government is only insignificantly relevant. Accordingly, the political leader serves as a moral leader at the same time. The government is both a necessary evil and a morally superior being. Therefore, it is extremely important to give any particular action or emerging pattern a second, and even a third, reading before
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interpreting its meaning. With a constitution of limited government without constitutionalism, Taiwans democratization can ironically be mistaken as liberal democratic at some particular moment. This lack of constitutionalism is especially obvious when the purpose is to achieve solidarity. Those who fall in the category of enemy could suffer from human rights violations. Violations are carried out in the name of defending democracy, though, since the enemy is conceptually connected to anti-democracy China. In this book, the research question is reversed to show how, for local actors, democratization can become a quest for solidarity and order. Another point is that political science is an interest-driven analysis in contrast with a purpose-driven analysis. Political scientists must juxtapose interest with cost analysis. On the other hand, a purpose involves little calculation. A post-colonial Confucian society breeds political actors who are usually submissive to the authoritarian regime. Highly sensitive to signs of submission, political actors are incapable of making a compromise, even though confrontation is against their obvious interest. Where there is cost calculation, the calculation does not always serve to evaluate the purpose rationally. A possible scenario is that the higher the cost, the higher the felt value of the purpose. This irony concerns both social and personal characteristics. Social roles deprived of which one would lose the identity required for social interaction impose the pressure to perform the roles on one. Accordingly, one is psychologically unprepared to take no for an answer whenever taking over a specific duty. Neither constitutionalism nor interest is strong enough to lure political actors away from the determined and hostile violations of norms and procedures for the sake of performing duties (i.e., saving face). There is also the element of Confucian conservatism which believes that working for short-term gain gives the impression of moral corruptibility. Young political scientists in Taiwan began to challenge this moral pretension in the early 1980s, citing Hans Morgenthau or Ramon Aron. They raised the issue of opportunity cost to question the wisdom of Taiwans claim of sovereignty over Mainland China. Historically, the KMT struggled against the Chinese Communists through every possible method, from being a military front for Cold War containment, a base of cultural renaissance confronting the Cultural Revolution, to a model of capitalist development looking down upon Chinas socialist economy. The KMT was not an equal competitor to Beijing, but its extreme moral dictum against Chinese Communism ironically led to the rise of the Taiwanese independence movement. Although pro-independence forces and the KMT differ on their view toward the issue of reunification, the former expands the anti-Chinese Communism doctrine to another extremity of anti-China. The modified doctrine discourages the exploitation of the Chinese market, something
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that is critical to sustaining Taiwans economy. It led to the rejection of two pandas offered by Beijing as a peace overture, and the discrimination against Chinese spouses and children who come to join their husbands in Taiwan. Finally, political science sees power as an instrumental resource, while power under post-colonialism is about the need to dominate the unwanted self or to cleanse self-hatred. Power is something used to exchange for other goods in political science. It may be a value, like how money becomes a value in itself in economics. Political science fails to mention that power is also a therapy for those lacking in sense of security. To dominate is a need of those who experience violations of selfhood, either under the colonial authorities or the Confucian hierarchy. Power driven by need is allegedly pathetic when compared to power driven by interest, because the former respects no individual boundary or rights. In order to instill a sense of security to soothe the need to dominate, the prescription offered by political scientists is to introduce liberalism as a value, as an institution or, as a personality type. This wishful approach aims at separating the state from the society. However, Taiwan is able to carry out this liberal prescription only to a limited extent (to the point of perfecting the technique of ballot casting and counting system), but definitely not to the extent where one is left alone to decide for ones self what one wants. However, this prescription can backfire since liberalism threatens to expose the misfortune that there is no such consistent self to be presented in the public. Hence, this will lead to an even stronger need to seek domination. The book highlights the historical reality that Taiwan has been both a Confucian and a post-colonial society. In each chapter, the author discusses how post-colonialism and Confucianism interact with the arriving dicta of modernization. Domestic modernization embedded in liberalization and democratization and external modernization, in realism and liberalism, are late comers. They manifest in the form of political science, as political leaders in the government, and in political parties, their assistants, and journalists who report and comment on their activities and who are trained by social science disciplines in general and political science in particular. Taiwans democratization attracts some international attention, too. This attention, academically as well as journalistically, is substandard compared with that received by other parts of the world, but is great enough to make a significant impression on the post-colonial subjects who believe that Taiwan is very important. This results in the pressure to camouflage anything Confucian or post-colonial. The story in this book is not about Confucianism or post-colonialism blocking modernization. It instead shows the reverse, that it is, modernization conditioning Confucianism and post-colonialism.
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Chapter one moves away from liberal thought by exposing the illiberal purpose of the local leadership to represent Taiwan in the liberalism discourse. Liberalism respects differences; however, under Taiwans human rights practice, this difference is functional to the building of national consciousness. It works to such an extent that the need to be different from China prompts actions of discrimination. Even on the universally oriented agenda of human rights, the government does not hesitate to work the images of difference into a discursive foundation to discriminate against the Chinese. The least fortunate of this group are probably the offshore fishermen hired by Taiwanese fishing companies. Chapter two continues along the same line of argument to deconstruct the image of liberal democracy of Taiwan. It links the emergence of this image to Washingtons global strategic need, and explains why this image is false against the post-colonial and Confucian background of Taiwanese politics. Contrary to mainstream political science which is interested in how the process of modernization advances under the constraint of an indigenous cultural tradition, chapter three discovers a type of constituency that shifts comfortably between seemingly contradictory positions as perceived by the rational choice theory. These voters are either constantly holding in-between positions, or alternatively showing contradictory preferences, and each adapting quickly to contingencies. Specifically, having heard the arguments of both pro- and anti-Taiwan independence positions, a good number of voters can simultaneously be both pro- and anti-independence. Their indecision reveals an inexpressible agency for dramatic change from one end to the other, the strength of which cannot be predicted before it takes place. These voters, however, may not necessarily feel the same amount of vicissitude because pro- and anti-independence are not contradictory ideas according to their perspectives. We should move away from the modernist, rational model in order to appreciate their tolerant mind. Chapter four uncovers how a small power such as Taiwan could continuously entice the hegemonic powers in changing its strategic positions, while making them believe that they are still in control. The ability to disguise this power does not necessarily come so much from the wisdom of Taiwans leaders; rather, it stems from the inability of the hegemonic power to appreciate the post-colonial, peripheral knowledge of the weak. Part III examines how historical and cultural practices have influenced the evolution of theory. Treating modernity as the newest addition to social development, chapter five sets aside the teleology of modernization and turns the mainstream agenda upside down. In this chapter, the main agenda is about how modernization intervened with the evolution of local traditions in Taiwan. This research agenda reverses the mainstream problematiqu, which asks the question of how local tradition intervened with the universal process of modernization. Through this, modernization joins
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ongoing tradition in generating hybrid cultural strategies that cannot be determined in advance through universal theory alone. Modernization does replace tradition. They converge and blend in different mindsets. As a result, a number of hybrid personality types emerge to explain why it is possible for a portion of voters in chapter three to desire policy positions at opposing ends of the spectrum in a single-issue dimension. Chapter six disputes the popular narrative that Taiwans pursuit of independent statehood has been brought about by democratization. It shows how Taiwan, as a term representing Chinese-ness, gradually evolved into an independent reference point amidst the changes in the international political economy. This led to Taiwans independence becoming a discursively expressible notion. The International Political Economy (IPE) scholarship, along with the real IPE structure, contributed to this process in ways never envisioned in the literature. In short, IPE not only operates among states but also among construct states. In part IV, the book begins with the construction of a personality type unfamiliar to American democratic culture. Based upon liberalism, the individuality of personhood should be subject to no violation, and mainstream political science endeavors to discover the law of progress that eventually brings all societies to this teleologically determined destiny of liberalism. By contrast, this book introduces an alternative parenting personality that defines model citizens for Confucian societies. This personality does not fit in liberal historiography. This book hopes to show a different kind of rationality and a different discursive environment that breed and justify the rationality of a parenting personality. From this alternative version of model personality, this book proceeds to challenge the narrative of mainstream political science in Taiwan in two domains: modernization and world politics. In chapter eight, the book constructs a scheme that is free from the liberal assumption about the distinction between society and the state. Acknowledging the classic wisdom of eighteenth century Sinology that the Chinese polity practiced despotism at the top but laissez-faire at the bottom, the book jettisons mainstream political sciences preoccupation with the state-society divide. It is a notion of folk society where there is no clear distinction between the society and the state, and where the state supplements the notion of civil society. This has to do with a history that once promoted leadership with no action, which later transformed itself into an allround and strong leadership in response to imperialist invasion. Instead of the state-society divide, the real contradiction exists between these two different ideas of leadership, and between the concomitant role conceptions for social relationship. Similar to the discussion on parenting personality, this scheme for analysis should also be applicable to both Mainland China and Taiwan.
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The book concludes with an analogy of the post-colonial clock, suggesting that a form of consistency exists among logically inconsistent positions. It is also a call for a political science that enables the presentation of an ontology (or anti-ontology) without falling into the teleological track of democratization and liberalization. Indeed, cases of success that appear to follow political science closely may also be cases that expose the ideological nature of political science. Taiwan is just one of such possibilities.
NOTES
1. To stress the open market, the development of economic links, the promotion of democracy and human rights, the development of infrastructures, and the strengthening of the government to enable states to resolve their own conflicts. . . See Michael Stohl, The Failed and Failing States and the Bush Administration, CDI Center for Defense Information, <http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?Document ID=2769> (16 Dec. 2004); also see Simon Chesterman, You, the People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration and State-Building (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). 2. For a discussion on the institutional and cultural causes of failing states, see Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004); James Fearon and David Laitin, Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil War, American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (2003): 75-90; Samuel Huntington and Lawerence Harrsion, Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress (New York: Basic Books, 2000). 3. For an example of systematic criticism, refer to the Conference on The Global Constitution of Failed States: the Consequences of a New Imperialism? The University of Sussex, Brighton, 18-20 April 2001. 4. John King, Blunt Bush Message for Taiwan, CNN International, <http://edition .cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/09/bush.china.taiwan/index.html> (10 Dec. 2003). ? 5. Robert Ross, Taiwans Fading Independence Movement, Foreign Affairs 85, no. 2 (March/April 2006); Yun-han Chu, Taiwans Year of Stress, Journal of Democracy 16, no. 2 (2005): 43-57. 6. Huang Yuchen, President and Vice-President Will Be Elected Directed[AU: Directly?] by the People (zongtnog fu zongtong jiang you renmin zhijie piaoxuan), United Daily, 17 Jan. 1994, 1. 7. For a brief introduction of civic nationalism, see Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). 8. The Yale-trained, pro-independence political scientist Julian Kuo, for example, advocates the substitution approach when he lauds Lee Tenghuis promotion of a new Taiwanese identity in New Taiwanese: Reconstructing the Discourse on Taiwan Identity (xin Taiwan ren: chonggou Taiwan rentong runshu), China Times, 9 Dec. 1998, 15. This substitution approach is different from the perception of Taiwans civic nationalism in English writing by Melisa Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese? The Impact of Culture, Power, Migration on Changing Identities (Berkeley: University of California Press,
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2004); Stephane Corcuff, Mirror and Mask: An Interpretive Study of Mainlanders Identity Dilemma, in In the Memries of Future: National Identity Issues and the Search for a New Taiwan, ed. S. Corcuff (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2002), 102-122. 9. Chen said this at the same time Taiwanese movie director An Li won the Oscar Award for directing Brokeback Mountain. 10. Gary Rawnsley, The Day After the Night Before: Thoughts on the 2004 Presidential Election in Taiwan, Taiwan Perspective e-Paper 19 (12 April 2004).
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I
THE TAIWAN SUCCESS REVISITED
The 1990s was the most important time of Taiwans democratization, according to almost all students of Taiwanese politics. Constitutional reform took place in 1990, which first created a popularly elected legislature in 1993 and eventually produced the first popularly elected president in 1996. In 2000, the first turn over of the ruling party came true to achieve the end of democratization. Was this process truly one of democratization? Says no this book. Revisiting two of the many undemocratic, illiberal moments, the Thousand Island Lake incident in 1994 and the election of an opposition candidate into presidency in 2000, during the heyday of democratization yields a different interpretation, upon which this book embarks. The answer lies in identity politics, which has never allowed liberalism to root in Taiwan and constrained democratization in such a way that it has been merely an expedient tool of political struggle. Both chapters point to the irony that democratization in Taiwan means purge of internal enemies as well as assertion of anti-China identification. It does not refer to the protection of rights, nor limitation of government power, tolerance toward difference, or pursuit of plural interests, despite the evolution of the world most effective ballot casting and counting system.
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Not about Human Rights
HUMAN RIGHTS AND IDENTITY POLITICS

For most people, the concept of human rights is about political ideals, policy guidelines, and/or life practices. As such, they have often become a pretext for one state to interfere in the internal affairs of other sovereign states, or serve as a bargaining chip to exchange for other desired values. Human rights advocates today condemn the use of human rights for purely political purposes and suggest that such use undermines the credibility of human rights arguments in the long run.1 Their critical perspective presumes, indirectly perhaps, a status quo ante in which human rights are both natural and universally guaranteed, which is exactly what this chapter will dispute. This chapter will not argue whether human rights are good or bad, or right or wrong, but that in practice, human rights are not part of the original state of nature, and are instead psycho-cultural derivatives of ones quest for collective identities. In other words, human rights are historically constructed notions that, without question, mean different things in different contexts for different people. The idea of universal human rights assumes that men and women all over the world have identical needs, at least in certain realms.2 This idea paradoxically allows most human rights advocates to discover how different people really are.3 Nonetheless, in discovering the difference, human rights advocates have defined a mission for themselvesto spread the human rights gospel to those areas that have failed to meet the so-called universal human rights standards. Here, the ideal of universal human needs is preserved through a vision of transformation, from a condition lacking universal human rights into one offering them. These advocates self-identity as
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humane individuals is put forth as a model for those living under different conceptions of human rights, and it is the difference between them that provides their sense of mission. The mission, in turn, animates the ideal, and the ideal helps to clearly reinforce (henceforth reproduce) the difference. Human rights advocates thus gain a sense of historical progress by trying to contribute to those areas where there is a longing for human rights. This is not to say, however, that these advocates understanding of human rights is completely meaningless. They are, and indeed have to be, very real. Any thought, otherwise, would deny the life experiences and identities of those universal human rights advocates and would not do justice to their genuine beliefs. In fact, each group of people has at least some culturally based understanding of the natural rights associated with individual human existence, the most important of which usually involves the right to life. However, this does not mean, for example, that regardless of ones perspective, killing is always wrong. What is often in question is what type of killing can or cannot be justified. If justifications are matters of political practice and derivatives of historical experiences, they are different for every group. Certainly, one would feel deeply threatened if a type of killing that is entirely at odds with ones own understanding of life were to be justified.4 Thus, it is only natural that people would seek to demonstrate their own justification for killing as the universal model. Both as the case in point, the 911 terrorist attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq were strikingly similar in their enlisting the name of God to either justify or ignore the massive killings. Together, they suggest the potential violence of universalism despite its name.5 Controversies have often arisen when human rights advocates in the United States try to persuade the world that their understanding should be the universal standard. The kinds of criticism they typically face are threefold.6 First, Western notions of individualist human rights are not necessarily applicable in collectivist cultural areas like Singapore or Korea.7 Second, Western notions of human rights are products of economic development and as such, are not applicable to developing countries like Malaysia or Iran.8 Third, human rights advocates government often adopts a double standard when applied to strategically allied countries like El Salvador and pre-Apartheid South Africa, strategically contestant countries like Cuba and Iraq, between independent countries like China and Russia, and dependent countries like Taiwan and Panama.9 Though these critiques are at the same time valid, politically motivated, and somewhat self-centered (through expressing who they think they are and who they do not want to be), they are not the focus of this chapter. Instead, we will look into cases where a concept of universal human rights has guided political action, and we will examine how in these cases, human rights are in fact a function of identity. An ensuing discussion will examine
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how Taiwan (or the Republic of China) has attempted to change its human rights practices from those sympathetic with national security arguments to those in line with the so-called universal understanding of human rights. The author will then interpret these changes not as a convergence toward universal standards but as a reflection of identity politics in Taiwan, one that used to present itself in affective terms before but does so now in intellectual and cognitive terms. There will be two case studies illustrating how the universal understanding of human rights which guides Taipeis official norms today serves as a mechanism to differentiate Taiwan from China, with the ironic effect of discriminating against many Chinese. Finally, the chapter reflects upon the impacts of the regime change in 2000 on human rights discourse, to further demonstrate that human rights are mainly a matter of identity strategy in Taiwan.
THE ANTI-COMMUNIST IDENTITY

To understand Taiwans position on human rights, one must first review the changing national identity on the island. Taiwans national identity is usually defined in terms of its relationship with China. When the regime in Taiwan regarded Mainland China and Taiwan as one country, there was no need to make a distinction between Chinese and Taiwanese human rights. One could legitimately sacrifice Taiwanese human rights in order to promote Chinese human rights in the long run. However, as the regime in Taiwan gradually redefined itself as an independent actor outside of the Chinese sphere, there also developed a need to differentiate Chinese human rights from Taiwanese human rights. Indeed, one could now legitimately set aside concerns for Chinese human rights in order to suggest that Taiwan and China are two separate polities. The new logic runs like this: Taiwan is a universal type of state but China is not; Taiwans human rights are universal but Chinas are not; to treat Chinese human rights as universal would obscure the difference between Taiwan and China. For decades, anti-communism has made the Kuomintang (KMT) more sympathetic with national security arguments against human rights concerns. The KMT-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) conflict has shaped the China-Taiwan conflict and human rights concern in Taiwan since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. In order to appreciate the meaning of Taiwans human rights policy after 1949, one should trace the China-Taiwan conflict back to 1927 China when Chiang Kai-shek, the former leader of the KMT, cracked down on Chinas Communist Party organization for the first time. The Communists, upon advice from Stalin, had at that time joined the KMT. This crackdown, however, started what has been six decades of confrontation between the two parties and was followed by a series of
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annihilation campaigns which sent the CCP off to a ten-thousand-mile march, what is now known as the Long March, through Chinas countryside. Thousands of Communist comrades died during the march, ensuring that the conflict between Chiang Kai-sheks KMT and Mao Zedongs CCP would be intensely personal as well as political and ideological. Indeed, the story thereafter only reinforced the hatred between them. In 1936, the Communist Party participated in a coup attempt against Chiang, known as the Xian incident, which compelled Chiang to engage in a premature and unwanted war with Japan. The eight-year Sino-Japanese war not only saved the CCP from KMT attack but also actually enabled the CCP to enlarge its sphere of influence, ultimately gaining the support of one fourth of the Chinese population. The subsequent four-year civil war resulted in a thorough defeat of the KMT and its ultimate flee to Taiwan in 1949. Military collisions have continued between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits since that time up until 1979, with the CCP determined to reunite China and the KMT equally disposed to recover the Mainland.10 In short, the war mentality between the two Chinas is a unique product of their history, and is completely different from those that existed between other nations like the United States and the former Soviet Union, for example. In the first place, it was not a Cold War. Indeed, despite the fact that American leaders distrusted the Soviets, they did not really hate them. The American people learned to consciously distrust Russia because it was communist, totalitarian, expansionist, and so on. However, there was no learning required for the KMT to maintain its hatredit was in some respects a part of them.11 Conceptually, it was a fight between the two Chinese entities over the right to rule China, and thus they had little choice but to despise each other. KMT propaganda concentrated not on why the CCP was evil but how it was evil as manifested in its suppression of the freedom of the Chinese people, the elimination of Chinese cultural tradition, and the exhaustion of social resources for peoples livelihood.12The superpowers Cold War was an intellectual war, while the Taiwan-China conflict was, and continues to be, both a physical and emotional war involving the real representative of China. Human rights issues seemed trivial in comparison with the seemingly grand mission of Chinas reunification. The KMTs long-term struggle to maintain its goal of recovering China gave people in Taiwan a clear sense of direction which in turn encouraged and was promoted by a determination to self-sacrifice. Human rights concerns were not germane to political legitimacy before the 1980s. Whenever the violation of human rights met overseas criticism, especially from the United States, the KMT appealed to national security pragmatism. For the KMT, the Communist enemy was evil, threatening, and ever present. Sacrifice on the human rights front actually
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dramatized the KMT-led collective quest for a just return to China, and the impact of human rights concerns and the American desire to provide continued support to Taiwan could not offset the anti-Communist spirit which the sacrifice strengthened. Indeed, if human rights had been of utmost importance, the fight against communism would have lost importance. Therefore, not only would the KMTs personal war with the CCP have lost justification, the immigrant KMT rule in Taiwan would have also forfeited its guiding point of reference.13 What has therefore determined human rights policy (or the lack thereof) in Taiwan has been, first, an affective need to institutionally express the KMTs hatred toward the CCP, second, an anti-Communist national identity to explicate the difference between the KMT and the CCP, and third, a sense of being threatened in order to maintain the negative image of the communists over time. Political psychologists have found in cases elsewhere that on an affective level, contestants in a conflict tend to perceive their own culture as superior to their adversaries. In contrast, on the cognitive level, they care less about the status of their adversaries than about why they are adversaries and therefore treat them more as an equal rather than as an inferior.14 Clearly, with their personal experiences with Maos Communist Party, the KMT under Chiang Kai-shek and his successor Chiang Ching-kuo was operating on an affective level, and it never intended to treat the Communists as its equal. In fact, they consistently predicted the eventual fall of the CCP regime. The psychological need for a positive image of themselves compelled the Chiangs to demonstrate self-confidence which explains, to a large extent, why Taipei appeared unreasonably adamant in severing diplomatic relationships with any country attempting a policy of dual recognition of both Taipei and Beijing. The KMT-CCP relationship has obviously been emotionally driven with the KMT attempting to prove its superiority by acting as if it were more Chinese than the CCP. This, in turn, has pushed it toward a further institutionalization of Confucian ethics in which leaders duties are not responses to peoples rights but are products of their role as social benefactors. Rights conceptions were an anathema which carried with them a message that leaders were not trustworthy. As a corollary, exposing the evil nature of the CCP relied primarily upon signs of political instability in the Mainland, and thus clearly suggested that the CCP did not have the Chinese peoples respect. Human rights violations in China, in the Western sense, were rarely condemned by the KMT as such. The KMT attended to these violations in order to calculate how much support the CCP could still mobilize, rather than what relief the people might need as human beings.15 The only remedy that the KMT could envision was the familiar prescription to substitute the KMT for the CCP.
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SOVEREIGNTY OUTSIDE OF CHINA

One might expect that human rights concerns in Taiwan would shift focus if Taiwans identity began to change, and indeed, this change actually occurred. When anti-communism lost momentum, so did national security arguments against human rights concerns. Identity politics in both China and Taiwan drifted indecisively at the end of the 1970s; however, several developments challenged the established anti-Communist identity to which the KMT subscribed to for over fifty years. First of all, the post-Cultural Revolution regime in China looked away from moral purity and toward productive power as the answer to socialisms ills. The CCP opened up China to overseas Chinese who were seeking investment opportunities, tourist entertainment, and lost kinship. The Chinese in Taiwan were among the most eager participants. Communism was under reform, and the CCP was in a way more critical than the KMT of its own practice of political economy in the Mainland. The simple image of an evil communist China was not only difficult to maintain, but it also challenged the relevance of the KMTs antiCommunist identity.16 In fact, those opposition leaders who later became the most ardent pro-independence politicians and even took power after two thousand had rushed to the Chinese motherland during the late 1980s. They wanted to deride and discredit the KMTs claimed representation of China. No less serious was the loss of a meaningful identity for the Taiwanese. As most countries in the world began to recognize the Peoples Republic of China as the sole representative of China, which included Taiwan, the KMTs claim to recover the Mainland became increasingly untenable. When the Republic of China lost its seat in the United Nations to the Peoples Republic of China in 1971, the KMT decided that it would have to win popular support in Taiwan in order to maintain legitimacy. This awareness prompted the KMT to institute electoral mechanism after 1971. Subsequently, the people in Taiwan received their legal and political rights to elect legislative representatives at all levels, and in the process, the KMT was forced to demonstrate how a regime dedicated to the recovery of the Mainland could also be a government for the people on Taiwan. Thus, the KMTs Taiwanization of the party structure was initiated. In hindsight, this process inevitably created friction within the party between those more locally oriented and those who still saw themselves as contenders for greater China.17 When the people in Taiwan are no longer considered the same as the people in China, the manner in which their human rights are treated is necessarily different. The locally oriented KMT was structurally ready to win over the Chinaoriented wing because of the sheer numbers it could mobilize in an election. However, senior Mainland-oriented party officials continued to act in
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the moral (i.e., committed to China reunification) and ideological (i.e., anti-Communist) realms. In order to establish their own legitimacy, the emerging indigenous forces throughout the late 1970s and the early 1980s began to redefine Taiwans identity vis vis China. After a series of maneuvers by both the indigenous forces within the KMT and by the local Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which maintained close ties with this indigenous wing of the KMT, China was successfully depicted as an oppressor of Taiwan and Taiwan as a colony of the immigrant (i.e., Chinese) KMT regime. In fact, this reinterpretation of history culminated in President Lee Teng-huis widely quoted depiction in 1994 of the KMT as an alien regime. Ironically, Lee claimed that it was he, as the leader of the KMT, who led the transformation of the KMT into an indigenous regime.18 The implication is that the rights of people living in a foreign area are different from those of domestic citizens. Identity politics on both sides of the Taiwan Straits has rendered anticommunism a trivial matter. Indeed, from the perspective of Taiwans new identity, Communism is no longer a substantive threat to Taiwan. The birth of a new KMT (President Lees term) asserts itself by publicly jettisoning the KMTs previous mission of recovering China.19 This demonstrates that the regime is now genuinely indigenous, and effectively demolishes the legitimacy of any policy that continues to see the KMT as a contender in Chinese politics. The problems such a situation engenders are twofold. First of all, the KMT successfully educated most of its people with regard to their mission in China. People still maintained strong emotional and affective ties with developments in China. Second, a good number of people in Taiwan have rejected this indigenous campaign, most of whom are the men and women, and their children who fled to Taiwan in 1949. These people simply cannot make sense of the new indigenous direction that the KMT had taken, in which Communism in China is acceptable, and the CCP is no longer a deadly enemy. Indeed, these counter-indigenous forces still possess power sufficient enough to compel the indigenous wing of the KMT to keep intact at least one element of its former agendathe claim that its ultimate goal in China is to reunite Taiwan and China. This outcast wing has, to date, retained this pledge from the new KMT leadership because as a crucial minority in local elections, it still determines whether or not the KMT will win in each election. The task of the KMT is now extremely subtle and difficult. It must overthrow its old identity in order to compete with the DPP as a genuine indigenous force. However, it must preserve some part of its old identity at the same time in order to win the critical support of the pro-unification minority. There has been a sophisticated shift in the KMTs self-portrayal to accommodate those seemingly contradictive identitiesit is the ruling party
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of the Republic of China on Taiwan, a term that could be interpreted as its continued attachment to the name China (to satisfy the minority and the senior leadership), or as its intended limitation of the term China to the geographical sphere of Taiwan (to meet the requirement of the indigenous identity). The code word associated with this formulation is sovereignty which defines China as belonging to the outside (the anarchical world in which human rights concerns no longer apply). The KMT says that it would still strive to reunite Taiwan and China, if Mainland China would demonstrate its respect for Taiwan by granting the Republic of China Taiwanese sovereignty.20 The CCP understandably denies this invitation, worrying that once the Republic of China on Taiwan becomes an independent country, repossession would be extremely unlikely. This anticipated rejection allows the KMT to depict the problem as one of Taiwan-China relations and not as one of the KMT-CCP contention within China. The quest for sovereign status promotes the image of a China outside of Taiwan; through a perception of continued oppression, Chinas rejection of sovereignty further assists the indigenous wing of the KMT in constructing the impression that the Taiwanese are not Chinese. The difference between Taiwan and China on the sovereignty issue also dissuasively silences the counter-indigenous forces for they, too, would like to see the name Republic of China accepted globally and thus feel frustrated by the CCPs continued antagonism.21 Taiwans official position on human rights issues has witnessed concomitant changes. In order to further differentiate Taiwan from China, the KMT has used its struggle against the senior, anti-indigenous wing of the party as proof that it has followed universal democratic and human rights standards. National security concerns have disappeared, and those who were previously against reunification with China became national heroes and celebrated the triumph of an indigenous democracy. Indeed, there cannot be a better show of human rights practices than released political criminals of Chiangs regime winning legislative elections and the return of expatriated politicians to Taiwan as the Presidents guests of honor. However, whose human rights have this seemingly laudable change of policy toward universal standards promoted? Definitely, these human rights are not those of the pro-democracy advocates in China. The KMTs lukewarm response to the Tiananmen massacre of 1989 surprised, if not shocked, many anti-Communist supporters; the government continues to cut the budget allocated to support the pro-democracy movement in and outside of China. This is, however, in line with Taiwans new indigenous identityChina is a sovereign state and Taiwan, as an equal sovereign state, has no right to intervene in Chinese affairs. The meaning of the Taiwan-China confrontation dramatically changed within the framework of Taiwans new identity. Although the KMT still
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needs a different, antagonistic China to consolidate the indigenous identity, it is no longer a personal, affective kind of conflict. The indigenous wing of the KMT does not hate the CCP as its predecessor did. Indeed, at present, this threat is considered to have come from China and not from the CCP, and the task is to explain why China, now an external actor, is the problem instead of the CCP which used to be an internal enemy. The answer is simply that China is not democratic; it violates human rights and refuses to recognize the Republic of China on Taiwan. In other words, for the KMT, the Taiwan-China confrontation is now an intellectual one, and if the KMT and the CCP are not enemies, the people in Taiwan, therefore, have to learn why Taiwan and China cannot be friends. At the same time, the indigenous wing of the KMT does need to distance Taiwan from China, lest its emerging indigenous identity be obscured if Taiwan and China should develop a good relationship. An improved relationship between Taiwan and China would likely renew the call for reunification and consequently undermine the appeal of the nascent indigenous identity. Thus, the new KMT must now look for signs of anti-democratic incidents in China in order to firmly establish the differences between China and Taiwan. This sense of difference serves as a new source of danger, and so for the KMT, sovereignty is necessary to protect Taiwan from intrusion.22 Under these circumstances, the KMT often perceives human rights violations in the Mainland as reasons to feel elated for it demonstrates the difference between democratic Taiwan and undemocratic China. Not only is it unnecessary to rescue those who are suffering in China (since they are outside of Taiwan), but it is also psychologically necessary to ignore it (so as to show that their affairs are their own business). As a result, human rights thus conceived refer to the rights of the Taiwanese people and not of the Chinese people. The KMT has recently begun to treat human rights issues involving Taiwanese and Chinese differently. This discrimination consolidates the fact that the indigenous identity of human rights violations in the Mainland is not a reason to recover the Mainland; on the contrary, it is a show of difference and a reason to refuse reunification. Mutual animosity between the KMT and the CCP witnessed dramatic transformation since 2000, the year when the KMT handed over its reign to the pro-independnece DPP and more importantly, when it expelled its proindependence Chairman Li Teng-hui. The two parties formally ended their enmity in 2005 during their historical meeting in Beijing, primarily for the purpose of curbing the Taiwan Independence Movement which the KMT effectively helped cultivate in the past decade and a half under its reign. Ironically, it was at this time that universal human rights entered the KMT discourse. The following case studies actually illustrate the intellectual need on the part of the KMT to construct images of human rights violations in China
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and overlook actual violations in Taiwan. If the rectification of past human rights violations is a show of indigenous identity, then current human rights violations that are overlooked are also similar demonstrations. The two cases we will examine reveal the identity at the root of the human rights practices in Taiwan in the 1990sthe KMTs need for China to violate the human rights of the Taiwanese people and the need to prevent the Taiwanese from caring about the human rights of the Chinese people. Then the chapter will move into an episode which indicates how deep discrimination has rooted at the very core of the Taiwanese society.
THE THOUSAND ISLAND LAKE INCIDENT

In order to remind those in Taiwan who have gone to the Mainland with incredible frequency in the 1990s of Taiwans unique identity, it has become a psychological necessity for the any pro-independence regime to constantly construct reference points that can bring into focus the differences between the two. Differentiating Chinese from Taiwanese human rights in practice would reproduce the sense of difference between China and Taiwan which can then help in consolidating the identity of a unique Taiwan. One key message that has been communicated is that while Taiwan is civilized, China is not. The KMT points to the fact that Taiwan allows for opposition parties, runs elections at local as well as central levels, and has broad economic freedom. In contrast, China appears in Taiwans media as an authoritarian system rife with corruption and crime. Evidence to the contrary has rarely attracted attention, and politicians revealing inclination toward this more positive image would be committing political suicide by inviting a pro-China (hence anti-Taiwan) label.23 Indeed, this environment has not at all been conducive to genuine scholarly comparison between Taiwan and China regarding electoral practices, or the type and volume of corruption and crime. As a result, it has been difficult to ascertain the real scope of the differences between the two. Such is the background of the Thousand Island Lake incident. The Thousand Island Lake in Zhejiang Province is the largest national park in China which covers approximately eighty acres of water and another eighty of forest. The crystalline lake has the best quality of water in China and allows one to see twenty five feet below the surface. To date, it has been one of the most visited spots for tourists from Taiwan. In April 1, 1994, a group of twenty four Taiwanese and eight Chinese guides and staff were murdered on Thousand Island Lake. In the beginning, the Zhejiang authority denied all clues indicating foul play and refused reporters requests to visit the yacht on which the victims had been burned to death. This aroused great suspicion on the Taiwan side and encouraged the belief that govern-
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ment officials must have been involved in the killing. Family members eventually arrived in the county of Chunan to whose administrative district Thousand Island Lake belonged. However, there was virtually no official channel to assist the Taiwanese families in locating responsible officials in Zhejiang. In 1991, Taiwan and China had in fact agreed on a formula to deal with the quickly evolving interactions between people from both sides of the Taiwan Straits. The KMT, originally out of concern for its decades-old antiCommunist identity, designed a quasi-official organ, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), to deal with cross-Straits affairs. The Foundation is largely funded by the government, but it acts as a private organization to save the anti-Communist regime of any embarrassing implications of formal ties with Beijing (In 1991 when the SEF was established, Taipei still officially claimed its sovereignty over the Mainland). The indigenous faction of the KMT, having decisively defeated the antiCommunist wing, was now ready to confront Beijing as an equal, sovereign state. Beijing could not accept this for the obvious reason that it was not prepared to give up the nationalist goal of reunifying China and Taiwan. However, having anticipated the victory of the indigenous wing in the KMT, Beijing consented to Taipeis request and set up its own quasiofficial organ, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) in 1992. Ironically, for Taipei, this institutional design later kept the indigenous wing of the KMT from gaining the implied official recognition of Taipei that it sought through talks between the two nominally private organizations. In April 1994, despite the communication channels, the SEF failed to get any useful information about the Thousand Island Lake massacre from the ARATS. There were three key reasons. First of all, the ARATS was a newly established organ and was definitely not capable of overcoming the bureaucratism in Zhejiang. Second, Beijing agreed to establish the ARATS for the sole purpose of avoiding any hint of official recognition of Taipei, and thus the ARATS was not institutionally ready to deal with affairs within the Mainland. The third and the most important reason, the ARATS did not trust the SEF. The two organizations arranged for a meeting between their chairmen in Singapore in April 1993. For China, it was a major breakthrough in cross-Straits relations because Taipei had continually refused this type of political contact. For Taipei, however, it was an opportunity to show the world that the two sides met in an international forumoutside of the two Chinas as two sovereign states (despite the fact that neither SEF nor ARATS was official). Taipeis subsequent, unilateral, and painstaking claim at home of Beijings tacit recognition of Taiwans sovereignty in Singapore must have caused great anxiety in Beijing which hindered the ARATS from responding to the SEF positively in April 1994.24
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In any case, the ARATSs cold reaction and inability to help collect information about the massacre actually served Taipeis purpose better. What Taipei needed at that particular moment was proof of the complete lack of human rights in the Mainland, so that there was not any justification on either the Chinese side or the outcast wing of the KMT to request the reunification of China and Taiwan. The Thousand Island Lake incident occurred at a time when the indigenous wing of the KMT was struggling to demonstrate the difference between China and Taiwan. The incident provided the desired proof by highlighting the different nature of politics in China and by depicting Taiwan as a victim of China in this event. The KMT was thus able to clearly point out the differing conceptions of human rights in China and Taiwan. Premier Lian Chan was the first to launch the attack. He accused the CCP of senselessly ignoring human rights and disposing human lives like grass.25 President Lee, also the chairman of the KMT, then began a series of attacks on the Mainland regime. He denounced the CCP as a bandit (tufei) regime which the Chinese people had jettisoned for a period of time. He questioned how a group of evil forces could be the ruling party of a government.26 One top official of the SEF called those behind the ARATS decision not to help the SEF turtle eggs (a curse typically uttered among lower classes, meaning ones father is a turtle).27 In addition, the media geared up to accuse the CCP of sabotaging the investigation and blocking the families from knowing the truth. Rumors flew and the lethargic response from the Zhejiang authorities intensified the criticism from Taiwan. President Lees National Security Council reported to the legislature that there was evidence that the Peoples Liberation Army was involved in the crime;28 this substantiated Lees earlier claim that it had been the CCP who had brutally slaughtered our compatriots.29 The opposition DPP also could not let go of the opportunity to prove that it, and not the indigenous wing of the KMT, was the central force guiding Taiwans emerging identity and with it, a new human rights perspective. General Secretary Su Zhenchang declared that the Thousand Islands Lake incident justified the necessity for Taiwan to become an entirely independent country for the Taiwanese people could not stand Chinas weak response to Taiwans human rights concerns as reflected in its lack of empathy for the families. The lesson, according to Su, was that Taiwan and China were two totally different states. For him, reunification, to which the KMT is still nominally attached, was in itself a weapon being used to kill the Taiwanese.30 The most important feature arising from this incident was the tendency to portray all Taiwanese as victims of Chinas human rights violations. The sense of self-pity revealed itself in the remark that if there had been foreigners (meaning non-Taiwanese) on the yacht, China would have never dared
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to block the news or conceal the investigation.31 The media sounded particularly bitter, as they complained about the lack of international exposure as compared to that given to Taiwans environmental problems at home. It seemed clear to them that the world cared little about Taiwan. Lee, in the aforementioned remark, contended that the Taiwanese were the real victims. A DPP legislator used the opportunity to remind his countrymen of the evil bully mentality China maintained when dealing with Taiwan, and urged anyone who still embraced the dream of reunification to give it up.32 Interestingly, even though no single piece of evidence linked the Peoples Liberation Army to the crime, the SEF again raised the possibility of PLA or other official involvement in the crime when China arrested three suspects. The SEF argued that three could not have killed thirty two, and that there must have been someone else involved; moreover, denying that others were involved simply indicated that those others must have had official affiliations. After a thorough explanation, the ARATS arranged to have the SEF, accompanied by criminal experts from Taiwan, investigate all the evidence at the crime scene. Suspicion continued in Taiwan, but there remained no evidence that the PLA or any fourth person was involved. The Mainland court ordered the quick execution of the three criminals. However, from Taiwans perspective, this did not demonstrate Chinas determination to punish or curb crime in China as a whole; on the contrary, such quick execution only suggested that China was afraid that the three would eventually tell the truth. The lack of substantive evidence linking the crime to the Chinese government prevented Taipei from exaggerating the CCP regimes involvement and weakened Taipeis own human rights charges. In addition, despite the death of two Taiwanese in an earlier air crash in Russia and another six Taiwanese by a criminal group involving the policemen in Thailand, there were never any official requests of clarification or accusation of the Russian or Thai governments with regard to human rights. While Taipeis commentators appeared particularly hypocritical in criticizing Beijings human rights stance while remaining officially silent when pro-democracy advocates in China were imprisoned, other reporters complained that news articles taking a non-critical stand toward Beijing never got published in the periods following the Thousand Island Lake Incident.33 It is interesting to note that China treated the families of the twenty four Taiwanese victims dramatically better than it did the families of the eight mainland Chinese victims, and that it adopted an apologetic posture exclusively toward the Taiwanese families. However, no human rights narrator in Taiwan thought to mention the Chinese treatment of the families of the eight Chinese victims. In short, human rights are not just abstract, idealist standards. Rather, it is essential for us to know who violates whose human rights. In the Thousand Island Lake incident, certain forces in Taiwan wanted (and needed) to
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see China violating Taiwanese human rights. This specific search for the oppressor explained Taipeis lukewarm reaction to the Russian and Thai incidents and its total neglect of the other eight Chinese victims. It was precisely because the indigenous regime was struggling to define the difference between Taiwan and China that the subsequent anti-China media campaign was mobilized. Taipeis China policy was theatrically illuminating in this regard: the government launched a boycott against all China tours;34 the SEF talked about boycotting the talks coming up with the ARATS on matters generally concerning cross-Straits exchange. The Ministry of Economics also requested boycotting investments in China, factory exports to China, and invitations of Chinese businessmen to Taiwan, and a DPP legislator pushed to cut the entire budget relating to cross-Straits exchanges.35 Like all these policy moves, the human rights issue for Taiwan was a matter of establishing differences and creating new boundaries.
THE OFFSHORE HOTEL ISSUE

If the Lee regime was in fact seeking an identity outside the traditional antiCommunist, China-centered complex, then it would become important to construct new boundaries between the Mainland and Taiwan. In this sense, an identity-based human rights treatment toward Mainland people which would symbolize Taiwans advanced social status relative to the Mainland would be useful. This new treatment turned out to be a comprehensive legal discrimination against Chinese people from the Mainland and from Hong Kong. The application of legal discrimination of this sort in the 1990s serves the quest for an indigenous identity. Consequently, the statutes that now govern Taiwan-Mainland relations and Taiwan-Hong Kong relations deny people in these two places the rights normally granted to the Taiwanese or even those enjoyed by aliens in Taiwan. For example, people legally entering Taiwan from the Mainland and from Hong Kong can potentially be dispelled without any due process of law and are subject only to administrative discretion on national security grounds. They are not provided any legal channels through which to seek remedy. People in the Mainland are not eligible to receive bequests over US$80,000 [AU: $80,000 (US)?] from a Taiwanese because they have clearly not contributed to Taiwans economic development. The same limit or even discussions of it have never been applied to non-Chinese aliens. The Hong Kong people are legally divided into overseas Chinese and ordinary Hong Kong people, and depending on their regime loyalty, they are entitled to different rights. This legal design resembles a caste system in many ways.36 A relevant government organ in Taiwan can revoke all conditioned political and economic rights granted to Hong Kong and Mainland people overnight
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if it judges that their relations with the Mainland (authorities as well as people) are close enough to threaten Taiwans national interests. There are no provisions with regard to remedy or compensation. While the law treats Mainland and Hong Kong people like other non-resident aliens in many respects, they cannot, in any way, expect protection or assistance from their mother government like most other countries can provide. In fact, it is exactly their ties with the Chinese governments that jeopardize their legal status in Taiwan.37 In short, human rights for Mainland and Hong Kong peoples in Taiwan have no true legal basis. Rights vary according to Taiwans national interests, the persons overseas Chinese status, and their connections with the Mainland people or government. These three categories of consideration are the legal pretexts to confine, reverse, or violate the human rights of those who become close to Taiwan from the Mainland or from Hong Kong. Under these circumstances, Taiwans economic, social, and cultural needs to develop relations with the Mainland face numerous uncertainties. However, the needs are too great to be completely disrupted by these legal obstacles. In reality, Taiwanese authorities are not capable of controlling fastdeveloping relations in all areas. Legal bans can, at best, push to the underground the actual exchange of investment, tourists, and services. Indeed, it is against this background that the issue of the off-shore hotel system has come onto the stage. Taiwans fishing businesses first built off-shore hotels sometime in the mid-1980s to accommodate illegal fishermen from Southeast Asian countries. The government later legalized the employment of alien fishermen. Ironically, however, the business has since looked not to Southeast Asia but to the Mainland for even cheaper employment. Mainland workers are also culturally and linguistically easier to manage for the owners in the fishing industry. Because the Cross-Straits Relations Act (CRA) forbids Taiwanese employers from hiring Mainland labor, the industry has rebuilt a few outof-date boats into sea hotels for the temporary residence of Mainland workers.38 As long as the police authorities do not physically see the hotels floating miles off-shore, they will not pursue them. Indeed, a few sea hotels built by companies with political connections have actually parked inside the harbors, and the one time that the police attempted to expel them, the political pressure on the police and the fierce demonstrations mobilized by the fishing industry demonstrated the inability of authorities to prevent such behavior. These floating hotels typically lack adequate food or sanitation, and are vulnerable to epidemics, abuse, and so on. The Mainland fishermen are physically as well as legally marginalized as they belong to neither the Chinese nor the Taiwanese sphere, and this in turn leads to periodic abuse and violence. Violence has even occurred between Mainlanders from different
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hometowns; infighting once led to over 10 fishermen from the town of Pingtan being thrown into the sea by a larger group from the town of Huian. The most dangerous aspect of these hotels is their vulnerability to typhoons which visit Taiwan frequently during the summer and autumn months. It is believed that any typhoon could cause serious casualties on those offshore hotels. However, since the CRA bans the employment of Mainlanders, and the National Security Act (NSA) prohibits illegal immigrants from landing, no government agencies were willing to get involved in these national identity-related matters simply for human rights reasons. Moreover, as noted before, it was psychologically imperative for the indigenous authorities to ignore the human rights of the Chinese fishermen. Unfortunately, Typhoon Tim struck on July 10, 1994. For fear of the NSA penalties, the owners and the captains of the offshore hotels first persisted on anchoring off shore. They also tried to get in touch with the local government officials for exemption to the NSA and permission to drive into the harbors. As Tim approached, hotel captains finally decided to force their way into the harbor. Local authorities maintained the position that the owners would be subject to NSA penalty, but gave the boats access to humanitarian shelter in the harbor. The Mainland fishermen, however, were still required to remain on board. This humanitarian concession came too late for one boat, the Shanghao, as its own fishing net trapped it and ran it onto a reef. Most of the fishermen were forced to jump into the soaring waves and swim to shore. Rumor had spread that several men drowned, but the owner of the boat denied the charge, and the authorities all claimed that there was no evidence of drowning.39 Meanwhile, the government claimed that those who swam to shore would be dispatched back to the Mainland along with smugglers.40 In the next few days, bodies floated ashore one after another. However, the owners of the offshore hotels and their Mainland customers refused to recognize the bodies as their co-workers for fear of possible criminal prosecution.41 The government, interestingly, continued to state that there was no evidence of Mainland fishermen killed during the typhoon. News reporters recorded, with disbelief, a dramatic statement made by the Council of Mainland Chinese Affairs (CMCA) that it had nothing to do with the deaths of these obviously Mainland Chinese fishermen, as long as no one could legally prove who they were.42 A week had passed and a total of 10 hardly identifiable bodies were discovered. The owner of the Shanghao finally acknowledged that his books indicated that there were indeed ten Mainland fishermen missing. This confession started a bureaucratic battle, as all the parties involved wanted to evade responsibility for the deaths of the fishermen. The Council of Agricultural Affairs in charge of fishing policy criticized the CMCA for inappropriately maintaining the ban on employing Mainland fishermen
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and the subsequent development of illegal offshore hotels. The CMCA blamed the coastal police for tolerating the existence of illegal offshore hotels and the Council of Agricultural Affairs for consistently failing to come up with a practical proposal to persuade the CMCA that there was at least some other way to regulate the fishing industry after lifting the ban. The local coastal police complained that it was in charge of inland security, not harbor security, and thus could not board the hotels to enforce the NSA.43 Unlike most cases involving deaths in which different authorities vied for jurisdiction, no one wanted jurisdiction over the deaths and the related human rights issues stemming from the Shanghao incident. Interestingly, a parallel was drawn in the media between the Thousand Island Lake incident and the Shanghao offshore hotel incident, and CMCA officials were furious about the comparison. They contended that in the Thousand Island Lake incident, Taiwanese tourists who entered the Mainland legally were killed, while in the Shanghao incident, the fishermen had entered Taiwan illegally. Besides, the Mainland authorities intended to hide the truth, while the Taiwanese authorities had after all allowed the illegal entry on humanitarian grounds. Finally, the CMCA agreed that the Shanghao incident was an accident but asserted that the Thousand Island Lake incident was a crime. These arguments remain problematic.44 First of all, Taiwan had yet to legally allow its citizens to tour the Mainland in 1994, so the Taiwanese tourists were in fact illegal from the Taiwanese governments perspective. However, the Mainland fishermen hired by the Taiwan fishing industry all had permission from Mainland authorities. Indeed, the Taiwanese tourists in the Mainland were no more legal than the Mainland fishermen in Taiwan. The second and most important argument is that legality should not be the essential element in determining the kind of universal human rights position which Taiwan pledges. In actuality, Taiwan is using the legal terminology to differentiate the value of the thirty two who were killed in Thousand Island Lake and the ten who drowned off the coast of Taiwan. By legal definition, all those lucky enough to swim ashore from Shanghao immediately became illegal immigrants and were put into the smuggler category. Those staying in other boats which sought shelter in the harbor were not placed in that category for they came into the jurisdiction on humanitarian grounds. Evidently, ones physical position distinguishes the humanitarian entrant from the illegal, and in this case, landing or not was the criterion for applying the humanitarian argument. Mainland authorities later refused to receive the Shanghao fishermen along with other smugglers precisely for the reason that the fishermen were legal workers from the Mainlands point of view.45 They believed that their case must be separate from the smugglers. Finally, the Shanghao incident, like the Thousand Island Lake incident, was not just an accident. Any foreign crafts could have sought shelter in
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Taiwans harbor, but the Shanghao and other offshore boats from Taiwan had to wait until the last minute and eventually show determination in order to get permission.46 This was apparently because the status of Mainland fishermen on these offshore hotels was an important symbol of what differentiated Taiwan from the Mainland. In this sense, the so-called humanitarian permission granted was by no means humanitarian. Instead, it was a claim of exception, an abnormal state of affairs, and thus was a logic designed to protect the fabricated difference between Taiwan and the Mainland from being destroyed. Moreover, this so-called humanitarianism did not exempt the owners from the NSA penalty and understandably delayed the escape of the fishermen from the typhoon. To consider the Shanghao incident as an accident means that events outside the national boundary generally have no humanitarian relevance. This means that the boundarydrawing actions (i.e., discrimination against Mainland fishermen) in the Shanghao incident define the scope of humanitarianism and are themselves not subject to humanitarian consideration. In other words, humanitarianism presupposes that national identity and the consolidation of national identity require a clear boundary, which is tautologically embodied in the way one applies humanitarianism.
THE CHINCHING EPISODE

While the government deliberately discriminated against the Chinese for the sake of consolidating the identity of independent Taiwan, private citizens did the same without consciously realizing the reason. To illustrate this ubiquitous learning by private citizens, no other incident is more appalling than the massacre on February 16, 1999 which took place on the fishing boat Chinching. Captain Gong Tai-an killed eleven Chinese fishermen and chased after another four who plunged overboard to their death. Reportedly, there had been confrontations between the Taiwanese captain and the Chinese fishermen before the killings. There was also a report that Gong was going through marriage problems at home before going ashore. Equally important was that he was drunk at the time of the murders. The killing spree was triggered by his anger when he returned to his boat from a supply stop and failed to see the two Chinese fishermen who should have been guarding the boat at all times. Granted that these anger-induced motive-related narratives were true, there is still no explanation why Gong needed to kill them all. In addition, there were also Taiwanese fishermen on the boat, but none were threatened by Gong. However, Gong was unable to explain the incident and instead thought of committing suicide.47 Indeed, he could not explain because he was drunk, and as such, he could not understand how he had easily selected his targets.
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The government must be held responsible though it was not at the scene of the killings.48 As expected, the spokesman of the government expressed regrets as a routine, calling the incident an exception, an accident, and a crime. However, this could not be written off as just a personal crime. What Gong could not explain would have to be expounded by a larger political discourse that familiarized Gong with the distinction between the inferior Chinese and the universal Taiwanese. Anyone as drunk as Gong, who could not think clearly, would have to depend on the most familiar, even subconsciously embedded mindset to guide his actions. This frame of mind is completely a product of the government. The government practices human rights into a national identity issue so dexterously that private citizens soon acquire the same discriminative image of the Chinese fishermen. The Chinese image, in the government propaganda, is backward, dirty, poor, and lazy. No human rights protection whatsoever is evident in China. Chinese lives were neither worth attention nor protection. Moreover, the welfare of the Chinese people is legally and politically irrelevant to Taiwan. The government advised citizens to refrain from having connections with any Chinese. Hiring Chinese fishermen is thus not only illegal but also morally wrong because it jeopardizes Taiwans national security as well as undermines the defense against potential Chinese invasion. By any standard, Gong was already in a psychotic mindset while committing the murders. One wonders how the influence of discrimination had seeped so deeply that it remained effective even during psychosis. The Chinching incident took place five years after the Shanghao incident. The Chinese image fared even worse in the governments propaganda. During the 2000 presidential campaign, there was a negative advertisement against the non-aligned frontrunner James Soong. The advertisement, which had been broadcasted on TV even during family viewing hours, obliterated the eyes of a whole screen of Chinese fishermen to obviously frighten the viewers.
LOSS OF REGIME AND UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS

It was not until the KMT lost its regime to the pro-independence DPP did the KMT seriously enlist the notion of universal human rights in its China policy. Right after losing the 2000 election, the KMT central committee passed the resolution to revoke the party membership of Lee Teng-hui for his suspected disloyalty to the Party. Lee had been the most important player to raise Taiwanese independence conscience in the 1990s, thus contributing to the rise of the DPP. After Lees expulsion, the KMT soon returned to its early policy of anti-Taiwanese independence, aborted only after Ma Ying-jeou became the KMT Chairman in 2005. Theoretically, the
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KMT should also come back to its long-standing neglect of human rights issues. However, the situation is now different from the 1950s. Taiwan enjoys a human rights advantage in opposition to China. While Lee and the DPP use human rights as a wedge to separate Taiwan from China, the KMT in opposition has innovatively rewritten the meaning of human rights in Taiwans identity politics. While the KMTs anti-independence advocacy gives the impression of being cowardly to Beijing, to raise the issue of human rights with Beijing would be a perfect show of having no fear. On the other hand, this show of no fear promises nothing on the issue of independence. The move closer toward universal human rights has been particularly clear when Ma Ying-jeou replaced Lian Chan as the Party Chairman in 2005. Ma has established a record of being a constant caregiver for victims of the June 4, 1989, massacre of Tiananmen Square. Lately, he has picked up Falungong, a private movement of self-rectification now banned by Bejing, as another human rights issue about which he would like to question Beijing. He additionally makes the famous claim that he would not allow the KMT to discuss reunification issues with Beijing if Beijing does not first rehabilitate the reputation of the June 4 victims. This official decision by the KMT to resort to universal human rights is not much different from the strategy adopted by other older KMT officials who worked under Lee Teng-hui as he promoted Taiwanese independence. These KMT old guards generally do not support independence. They cleverly use democracy as a reason to support Lee Teng-huis confrontational approach to China. Lee simply did what he thought was good for Taiwanese independence. He rarely used democracy or human rights as reasons for Taiwanese independence. Rather, he is more of an anti-Chinese than a human rights advocate. He straightforwardly promotes the Taiwanese identity. By contrast, the KMT officials under Lee used to resort to human rights and democratic rhetoric, which were not in any sense compatible with Lees animosity toward China. However, they did not support independence, per se, so they did not stir any anti-China sentiments. After the KMT expelled Lee, they could justify their former loyalty to Lees leadership as a human rights decision and not one for independence. Ma uses the same strategy, but probably for an additional political purpose. Like older KMT officials under Lee Teng-hui, Mas KMT must also face the ruling DPPs accusation that Ma is a China walker. To avoid closing the window of opportunity which Taiwan has in China economically, socially, and culturally, Ma must remain critical of Beijing in order to gain credit as someone willing to stand against it. He then can defend his peace approach. Abiding by the medium voter theorem, Ma needs to win enough votes from the portion of the population that voted for the DPP in order to win the next presidential election. In addition to his show of no fear of Beijing, Ma
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uses the human rights argument for the purpose of confronting the DPP. For him, criticizing Beijings human rights violation is not sufficient for him to defend against the DPP. He lauds the human rights achievement of Taiwan to shun the identity question posed to him by the DPP. This is tantamount to challenging the DPP to return to the human rights issue. In fact, Mas former spokesman Long Yingtai wrote a controversial piece in 2006 to declare that democratic identity is more important than national identity and that one should identify with wherever there is democracy.49 While the article seemingly aims at Beijing, it indirectly demands the DPP to stop harassing Ma on his identity. To be precise, to dispute Beijings human rights violation is an identity statement saying that because politics of identity is irrelevant to human rights protection, the KMT in opposition does not need to oppose Taiwanese independence. In short, the KMT wants to cover the identity question with a human rights shield. Human rights continue to be an identity issue in Taiwan sixty years after. The first-generation KMT disregarded the human rights issue to highlight its civil war. Lee Teng-hui used human rights to differentiate Taiwan from China. The DPP follows this pattern by portraying Taiwanese independence as one of the human rights of the Taiwanese. Once in opposition, the KMT uses human rights to distract the constituency from the identity issue. In conclusion, there have been three identity approaches to human rights in Taiwan: that people in both Taiwan and China are Chinese so human rights should not be an issue, that Taiwan has human rights but China does not so the two belong to two different countries, and that both Taiwan and China have human rights issues so identity should not be an issue.
THE MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS

The political acts that objectify certain human beings as recipients of human rights protection and others as irrelevant creatures have identified to the current KMT regime the central parties in the emerging indigenous image. The construction of that image is a psychological necessity in an age when the KMTs anti-Communist identity has faded into history. The confrontation between China and Taiwan lost ground on the affective level as the role of the old KMT who knew and personally hated the CCP has declined in politics. However, the new regime faces competition from an opposition which declares itself as the genuine representative of the people in, and only in, Taiwan. In order to reproduce its own source of legitimacy and move beyond the anachronistic anti-Communist pursuit, the KMT had to appeal to an indigenous identity whose meaning is rather vague to most people. Moreover, for the sake of preserving the necessary support of the anti-Communist wing while at the same time winning over those who
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subscribe to the indigenous movement, the confrontation between China and Taiwan will have to continue. The problematiqu in Taiwans identity politics has changed. The premise has shifted from a Taiwan led by the anti-Communist KMT seeking to be a contender in Chinese politics to a Taiwan led by the indigenous wing of the KMT seeking to be a sovereign entity outside of China. Since many in Taiwan still regard themselves as Chinese, the identity of a sovereign Taiwan requires conscious construction. Indeed, the political problems presented in Taiwan have recently invariably addressed, directly or indirectly (but not less importantly), the problematiqu of a Taiwan outside of China. In this regard, the human rights concerns, which are always presented as universal values but in fact are not, become a showcase of the new identity. This need for identity, when confronted with the political reluctance of the old wing of the KMT, necessitates a politics of differencedefining someone outside as an antagonist instead of refining ones own self-understanding. The task, therefore, is to draw boundaries and not to clarify what is within the boundaries.50 This boundary-creating mentality further compels local human rights policies to attend only to human rights of the in-group and conceive those of the out-group as inconsequential. The indigenous wing of the KMT, by identifying whose human rights are valid and whose are not, tells the Taiwanese people how to differentiate themselves from the Chinese. Thus, the wedge of difference opens a new problem of discrimination. The Taiwanese authorities ignored the eight Chinese victims on Thousand Island Lake and thus consolidated their perception of a Chinese violation of Taiwanese human rights. Similarly, they dismissed the discrimination against the victims of the offshore hotels during the Typhoon Tim incident by emphasizing that it was a natural accident. This chapter suggests that universal human rights advocates should more carefully examine other cases from the rest of the world to find out if the identity problematiqu is epidemically present in all human rights policies in the world.
NOTES
1. See Jimmy Carters remarks quoted in New York Times, 23 May 1977, 12; Xin Li, Human Rights Concern or Power Politics, Beijing Review 33, no. 10 (5-11 March 1990). 2. See, for example, Jorge I. Dominguez et al. eds., Enhancing Global Human Rights (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979). 3. Peter Van Ness, Chinas Human Rights Diplomacy: The Theoretical Foundations of the Chinese Communist Partys Response to Western Condemnation of Chinas Human Rights Practices, Working Paper Series 141, Canberra: Peace Research Centre, Australian National University ( November 1993)
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4. Similarly, it would be an enormous threat to those who considered certain crimes as deserving of capital punishment to learn that there are claims that no death penalty can be justified. 5. See George Bush, Presidents Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly, The White House, <www.whitehouse.gov/news/ releases/2002/09/ 20020912-1.html> (2002.9.12). 6. Debate on human rights and Asian value has become a fad at the turn of the century, see for example, Linda S. Bell, Andrew J. Nathan, Ilan Peleg eds., Negotiating Culture and Human Rights (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001); Michael Jacobson and Ole Bruun eds., Human Rights and Asian Values: Contesting National Identities and Cultural Representations in Asia (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000); Zhao Suisheng ed., China and Democracy: Reconsidering the Prospect for a Democratic China (New York: Routledge, 2000). 7. For a summary of Chinese perspectives, see Chih-yu Shih, Contending Theories of `Human Rights with Chinese Characteristics, Issues and Studies 29, no. 11 (November 1993): 42-64. 8. See Jack Donnelly, Recent Trends in the UN Human Rights Activity, International Organization 35, no. 4 (Autumn 1981). 9. For a more detailed discussion, see A. James Gregor and Maria Hsia Chang, The Republic of China and U.S. Policy (Washington D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1983). 10. See Warren Kuo, On the History of the Chinese Communist Party (Zhonggong shi lun) (Taipei: Institute of International Relations, 1989). 11. Robert Jervis stated in his keynote speech at the 1988 International Society for Political Psychologys annual meeting (Meadowland, N.J.) that past American studies on war never mentioned the element of hatred. In contrast, hatred seems to be a crucial factor according to Taiwans China experts. See Cheng, Nian-tses interview of her father (unpublished term paper, National Taiwan University, 1994), a shorter version appears in Mainland China Studies Newsletter, no. 3 (June 1994): 17. 12. All these themes were in the KMTs platforms before the 1970s. For reference, see Song Hsi, The Evolution of Kuomintangs Platforms and Policies (Zhongguo Guomintang Zhenggang zhengce de yanjin) (Taipei: Chengchung, 1976). 13. Some go as far as calling the KMT regime a Chinese colonial set-up in Taiwan. According to them, the KMTs call to recover the Mainland serves to disguise their true nature of colonialism; people in Taiwan would eventually see themselves as Chinese, leaving in oblivion their Taiwanese origin. On the other hand, if the KMT is no longer interested in competing in Chinas political arena, and thus separating Taiwan from China politically, this would mean that as a regime immigrating from China, the KMT will be foreign to Taiwan. 14. Martha Cottam, Image Change and Problem Presentations after the Cold War (paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., 29 March-1 April, 1994). 15. For a recent example, see Editorial, Lofty Ideas Gain Strength, The Free China Journal (7 June 1990): 6. 16. China studies in Taiwan have been in a state of shock, see Chou Yang-shan, The Retrospect and Prospect of Taiwans Sinology (Taiwan daluxue zhi huigu yu zhangwang) (paper presented at the Conference on the Retrospect and Prospect of the Forty-year Evolution of Cross-Taiwan Straits Relations, Taipei, 26 May, 1990).
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17. Taiwan experts in China have produced numerous articles on this. For an example, see Zhu Tianshun ed., Studies of Politics in Contemporary Taiwan (Dangdai taiwan zhengzhi yanjiu) (Xiamen: Xiamen University Press, 1990). 18. Lee Teng-hui, The Sorrow of Being Born Taiwanese (Shengwei taiwanren de beiai), Independence Evening (Zili wanbao), 30 April-2 May 1994. 19. The Constitution was revised in 1992 to end the Mobilization Period in which the CCP was a subversive and outlawed regime. 20. See Huang Kun-hui, The Guidelines for National Reunification and Cross-Straits Relations (Guo tong gangling yu liangan guanxi) (Taipei: Council for Mainland Chinese Affairs, 1992). 21. Other code words include Taiwan life community, Taiwan residents, 21 million people, etc., all signaling that China is foreign to Taiwan. 22. This need for an external threat is dictated by the sense of difference and the sense of belonging. For a discussion on the influence of emotion and affection on cognition, see Vernon Hamilton, Gordon Bower, and Nico Frijda, eds., Cognitive Perspectives on Emotion and Motivation (Boston: Klumer Academic Publishers, 1988). 23. The KMTs research institute once informed its contract authors that studies on Chinas competitive elections and their evolution were not welcome topics for they would influence and contradict the impressions of those who read the reports. The spokesman of the Presidential Office once claimed on TV that China never had any elections and that the CCP was ignorant about the conduct of elections. The point here is not just that the spokesman was wrong, but that there existed a collective psychological system underneath which needed, sought, and allowed this type of misinformation. Though this was probably not consciously intended, the misinformation reflected an a-matter-of-course kind of mentality. 24. For a good analysis, see Hua Cheng-shao, Taipei Lost in the Incident of the Thousand Island Lake Boat Disaster (Taibei mishi zai qian dao hu chuan nan shijian zhong), Observation Bi-weekly (Guancha) 5 (25 April 1994): 10-11. 25. Lian Zhans remarks quoted in Central Daily (Zhongyang Ribao), 8 April 1994, 1. 26. Lee Teng-huis remarks quoted in Central Daily, 10 April 1994, 1. 27. Chiao Jen-hos word, see Observation Bi-weekly 5 (25 April 1994): 12-14; he also accused the SEF of acting like a fool (bendan), see China Times (Zhongguo shibao), 11 April 1994, 2. 28. See China Times, 21 April 1994, 3. 29. Lee Teng-huis word, see Central Daily, 10 April 1994, 1. 30. Su Chen-changs (who later served as the premier in 2006) remarks quoted in China Times, 11 April 1994, 2. 31. See Hua Chengshao, Observation Bi-weekly (25 April 1994): 11. 32. Hung Chi-changs remarks quoted in Observation Bi-weekly (25 April 1994): 12-14. 33. Both the Central News Agency, run by the government, and the China Times, one of the two largest newspaper networks in Taiwan, have reporters who complained to me that they were not allowed to write versions deviant from the official tone. 34. Interestingly, Taipei has never officially allowed tours to Mainland China, but tours have continued anyway. This embarrassing situation effectively impeded the
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government from really regulating tourist activities. Therefore, the boycott had to depend on the cooperation of the private sectors, which only lasted for a few weeks. However, the government still threatened to suspend the licenses of those who continued to arrange mainland tours (as if the illegal tour arrangements before the Thousand Island incident had been all right.) 35. Chang Chun-hsiung, a leading DPP legislator, made this statement in a policy debate broadcast on a widely subscribed cable TV Channel. For transcripts, see Observation Bi-weekly (Guancha) 5 (25 April 1994): 36-41. 36. In order to protect their interests, those with overseas Chinese status developed a tendency of exaggerating the difference between themselves and other nonoverseas Chinese Hong Kong people. They especially liked to claim loyalty to the Taipei government and alienate themselves away from the rest of Hong Kong society. In fact, the drafters of the Taiwan-Hong Kong Relations Act anticipated this. A split among Hong Kong people could strengthen the image that there is a pro-Taiwan and a pro-China group, thus reinforcing the impression that Taiwan and China are two completely separate entities. 37. See the discussion in Chih-yu Shih and Nigel Li, Practicing Cross-Straits Relations (Shijian liang-an guanxi) (Taipei: Chengchung, 1994), 108-136. 38. The boats have to drop the Mainland fishermen at the sea hotels before delivering the fishes to their respective destinations. The fishermen stay in these sea hotels, while they wait for the boat to pick them up for another fishing trip. 39. The first official claim that all were rescued appeared on July 12, see China Times, 13 July 1994, 7. 40. Large numbers of Mainland-Chinese smugglers searched for illegal jobs in the Taiwanese labor market. When caught, they are put under house arrest and are sent to a prison camp to wait for the next ship heading China. 41. See China Times, 20 July 1994, 6. 42. See China Times, 20 July 1994, 6. . 43. This bureaucratic farce was recorded in China Times, 19 July 1994, 6. The only aggressive branch of government was the Agency of Sanitation which spoke in the name of the environment, worrying that excrement discharged from the hotels polluted the sea, thus further alienating Taiwans inhabitants from the Mainland fishermen; see China Times, 22 July 1994, 4. 44. See United Daily, 19 July 1994, 3. 45. In fact, even the smugglers camp in Taiwan refused to receive the Shanghao fishermen for a similar reason, see Central Daily, 21 July 1994, 3. 46. Columnists all agreed on this point. For example, see China Times, 18 July 1994, 11. 47. Chang Liwen, Rebuilding the Scene of Massacre on Chinching 12 (jinching 12 hao diexiean xianchang chongjian), China Times, 3 April 1999, 8. 48. For a personal note, the author of this book wrote a criticism, Who Killed the Chinese Fishermen? (shei sha le dalu yumin?) in a Hong Kong-based journal, China Review (zhongguo pinglun) 16 (1 April 1999): 67, the contents of which are similar to the text of this section. A government official called me to ask, Come on Professor, did you really have to write this? Theoretically, this is an infringement on the freedom of speech. Neither the official who called me nor I myself thought of it this way, though.
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49. Long Ying-tai, Please Persuade Me with Civilization, A Open Letter for Mr. Hu Jintao (qing yong wenming lai shuofu wogei hu jintao xiansheng de gongkai xin), China Times (zhongguo shibao), 26 Jan 2006, 9. 50. A useful text in this regard is David Campbell, Writing Security (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992).
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Not about Liberalism
HOW IS TAIWAN A SUCCESSFUL STATE?

If one asks for a country that represents a model of success in the capitalist world and therefore is an anomaly to the neo-Marxist lament of third world failures, which columnists could possibly miss the case of Taiwan? Although one can safely criticize Taiwans nonetheless evident and continuing dependence on the United States for political as well as economic support, there is no denial that Taiwan has effectively taken advantage of its dependent position.1 To the satisfaction of the leadership in more advanced capitalist countries in general and in the United States in particular is Taiwans recent achievement of political democracy in addition to its widely lauded economic liberalization and prosperity.2 The presidential elections held in 1996 and 2000 have further demonstrated that dependency and democracy are not contradictory. Marching into the opposite direction against the critical scholarship which exposes ubiquitous U.S. hegemonic control of the global political economy and raises suspicion toward the discourses on globalization,3 Taiwan seems to be an undisputable archetypal indicator of the correct historical path of market-oriented democracy. To make Taiwans case further subversive to critical scholarship, one can also assert that Taiwans achievement of liberal democracy has rescued itself from the betrayal of U.S. policy makers who seek rapprochement with China by trying to reduce support for Taiwans independent statehood outside of China. The actual choice of a pro-independent president by Taiwans constituency in 2000 is thus not just democratic but also heroic because it was made under Chinas pressing threat against Taiwanese independence
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and the U.S.s promise to come to its rescue at a time of need, which was at best dubious. As a result, the U.S. government loses legitimacy to the extent that it restricts Taiwans pursuit of independent statehood. In fact, perhaps all columnists recognize that democratization in Taiwan has created policy difficulties for great powers such as Washington and Beijing.4 In short, processes toward liberal democracy in a dependent country are not necessarily submissive to hegemony as is often assumed in the critical literature. Despite the discomfort that the pro-independence opposition candidate winning the election may have brought to the U.S. government, one should not miss the equally important fact that all policy makers in Washington welcome Taiwans final entry into the democratic camp. The discomfort comes from the increasing complexity in the U.S.s goal of converting China peacefully into another liberal democracy5 and is caused by the new pro-independence Taiwanese leadership. Since the so-called Taiwan success falls well within the American ideological frame, and the value of this success is continuously assessed against Washingtons global strategy, it is too early to conclude that Taiwans success is really a success of independence from hegemony. In the following discussion, this book will dispute the popular impression that Taiwan has successfully achieved liberal democracy and instead point to the potential of a different success story for Taiwan. This chapter argues that what is widely considered as a success story is really composed of failures understood precisely in the liberal democratic sense. This chapter will first explore the meanings of success in the literature on Taiwan and use these meanings to interpret away the literatures praise of Taiwan. The chapter will examine why Taiwan, embedded in Confucian and post-colonial hybridity, cannot be a success as conceived of by prevailing hegemonic discourses. The chapter will look for the rationale behind the rise of this success image and uncover the global discursive constitution of the so-called Taiwan success. The chapter suggests calling any country in such a position as a failed successful state. Then the chapter will explain how the 9/11 terrorist attack further exacerbated the democratic failure in Taiwan. In the end, however, the chapter will point out why Taiwan is nevertheless a success, but it is a success outside of, and therefore meaningless to liberal democracy. Basically, the Taiwan case expands the meanings of being liberal democratic by strategically performing features of liberal democracy to achieve entirely unrelated or incompatible goals. Performing liberal democracy has changed Taiwans historical path, which simultaneously changes the meaning of liberal democracy. Consequently, the failure becomes a success, since it breaks the closing off of meanings by global hegemonic discourses, hence the successful failed state.
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WHAT DOES THE MEDIA SEE IN TAIWANS SUCCESS?

Taiwans success has several discursive underpinnings. Many a columnist has praised Taiwans democracy, saying it finally matured in the 2000 election.6 This was the first time an opposition candidate won the presidential elections, becoming the first non-KMT President in the Republic of Chinas history. More significant is that the ruling KMT accepted its defeat and turned the regime over to the oppositionthe Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).7 Since a maturing adolescent does not judge what maturity means, the notions of maturing and matured presuppose a set of criteria determined outside of Taiwan. From the writings in the media, one criterion commonly mentioned is that the DPP represents native Taiwanese. In fact, it is probably the same reason that prompted the international media to bestow the title of Mr. Democracy to Lee Tenghui,8 the previous President, who represented the KMT when he won the 1996 presidential election. Lee, the first native Taiwanese president, was handpicked by the late KMT President Chiang Ching-kuo and succeeded him after his death. He forcefully promoted the revision of the constitution to install the popular election of the President despite promising to protect the constitution during his inauguration. He then won the first popular election in 1996. Mr. Democracy was an honor given to him at that time, just before he launched another round of constitutional revisions to expand the power of the President. Native though he is, the KMT to which Lee belongs has a mainland Chinese origin. Next President Chen Shui-bian, Lees successor, is a member of a predominantly native Taiwanese family whose ancestors immigrated from China to Taiwan seven to eight generations ago vis--vis the KMTs two generations ago. That Chen is thought to be more native than Lee is because the DPP is believed to be more native than the KMT. In reality, however, the ruling elite in the KMT under Lees leadership was mostly native too. Nonetheless, Lee himself denounced his own KMT as an alien regime.9 From an alien regime to a native one, the leadership resulting from the 2000 election completed the mission of making Taiwan a polity of its own. In order to praise the process of becoming native, one assumes that the late settlers regimes were usually not democratic. More important is the implied belief that there is potentially a civil society to be emancipated from foreign and typically authoritarian control. As was mentioned earlier, columnists generally note Chens life history to include a short period of political imprisonment in 1986 which is indirectly linked to his sympathy for Taiwanese independence. His running mate, Ms. Annette Lu, was aforementioned also a political prisoner for a much longer period of time and was deemed everywhere to be a determined Taiwanese independence advocate. Now that previous political prisoners and China resisters serve as the
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head and the associate of the state, few observers could miss the atmosphere of emancipation. Chen accordingly received the freedom award from the International Liberal Coalition. This quickly adds to the credit of the claim that a democratic tide is sweeping all over the world.10 Certainly, anyone celebrating emancipation must not doubt that the choice made by polling is truly autonomous, as it is always believed to be in a typical civil society. The sense of becoming native henceforth shows to the capitalist world that Taiwan is developing its own free citizenship and is formally a society of the same kind. No wonder some welcome the arrival of democratic pluralism in Taiwan,11 a term meaningful only to a society that is composed of autonomous individuals pursuing their own interests. This explains why policy concerns about any potential military crisis in the Taiwan Straits are always centered on how to defend Taiwan.12 The construction of a civil-society image such as this leads to the expectation that the DPP will now have a chance to install a rule-of-law system into a basically corrupt KMT regime.13 Some observers believe that corruption has to do with the KMTs authoritarianism. They interpret the DPP victory as the voters decision to punish the epidemic of money politics caused by the KMTs chronic ruling, and to anticipate new standards coming out of an increasingly modern democracy.14 Naturally, a rule-of-law system is conducive to economic freedom and growth, which is allegedly wanted by voters who desire the opportunities of upward mobility.15 Furthermore, ending corruption would also make Taiwan attractive to foreign businesses which seek expansion in the country. With the prospect of an even higher degree of globalization as footnoted by the continuing spread of McDonald chain stores according to the golden arch theory, there exists the belief that Taiwans democracy will be more secure, as China will avoid shooting its own foot by not shooting across the Taiwan Straits.16 The corollary question is: why do many capitalist countries show a lukewarm response to the supposedly obvious victory of democracy? One can hear the calls made to the rest of the free world to give Taiwan comprehensive support.17 Some interpret the vote for pro-independence candidates as showing the wish of voters that they do not want to be enticed by Chinas unification appeal like people in Hong Kong have been.18 The interpretations here are that Chinas one country, two systems design in Hong Kong does not allow true democracy and that Taiwanese voters know, dislike, and fight this potential. The chance for the Taiwanese would be better, accordingly, if Western countries would stand on their feet to show strength versus China.19 Unfortunately, most Western countries do not want Chen to pursue independent statehood for Taiwan, so that they can proceed peacefully with bringing China into the process of globalization. Fearing Taiwan could be in a risky position if it handled China by itself, one report uses the term young to portray Taiwans maturing de-
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mocracy. There is no contradiction, though, as young can mean the formation of vibrant forces as well as the continuing need for help. The double readings of the meaning of being a young democracy can be a double-edged swordto accuse Western countries of insufficient support for the newcomer on one hand, and to complement the heroic rise of an electorate maturing in the face of threat on the other. The existence of such a threat suggests that democracy is young. The accumulation of resolve to readily confront the threat of voters themselves indicates their confidence in becoming independent and mature. The perception of a heroic democracy carries with it the assumption that a strong sense of subjectivity is registered in the voters choice of Chen. Indeed, commentators applauded the election because it manifested confidence among the voters.20 What is never spoken of in all this praise of Taiwans democracy is a reading of an individualist selfhood into Taiwanese constituency. The turnover of the regime is considered native, for example, not because Lian Chan and James Soong, the two other major competitors, were alien or supportive of authoritarianism, but because the politically correct rhetoric of becoming native cultivates an atmosphere of emancipation. In fact, observers note that Lee himself should receive enormous credit in demolishing the previously authoritarian and alien regime.21 Why, then, is there a lingering impression that the KMT is still alien or authoritarian? The perception of the individualist emancipation in the 2000 election facilitated the continued labeling of the KMT to be alien and authoritarian. This perception is necessary so as to preserve the dichotomy of liberal democracy vs. authoritarian communism (or native Taiwan vs. alien China). With such a dichotomy at work, liberalism can be maintained as a dominant discourse and can survive the age of globalization. Similarly, the notions of pluralism, social upward mobility, modern democracy, the rule of law, and so on suggest that political parties are autonomous associations supported by self-interest-pursuing voters. The possibility of confrontation with an antidemocratic, one-party ruled China22 caused by the pro-independence history of Chens and Lus regimes further contributes to the feeling that voters in Taiwan are free. If one believes that the 2000 election is the last stage of democratization, one must also conceptually distinguish the current stage from all the previous ones in order to sustain the feelings of transformation. Often, the identification of the end stage comes first; the designation and the meaning of the previous stages are determined accordingly. This way, subjectivity is denied to the people of Taiwan in the pre-2000 election. As a result, the meaning of the 2000 election is closed off and is no longer subject to interpretation or reinterpretation, as long as one subscribes to the hegemonic discourse of liberal democracy.
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WHY CANNOT CONFUCIAN TAIWAN BE A LIBERAL DEMOCRACY?

Liberal democracy did not enter a cultural or historical void upon its introduction to Taiwan. Local conditions have constrained the understanding as well as the practice of liberal democracy. Two of these conditions are particularly pertinent to the following discussions on the Confucian value system and the Japanese colonial legacy. These two conditions create contradictory orientations toward political power, transforming the institutions of liberal democracy into a discursive strategy in response to the expectation of Western supporters. To the Confucian value system, power is essentially a moral status and can be accrued only through its voluntary submission by the subordinate within the same human relational network. To the postcolonial leadership, power is a need that compensates the deprivation of a pure identity by projecting the unwanted self onto an other that is to be cursed and cleansed. Contrary to these, the assumption of liberal democracy is that though it is necessary, power is bad, and as such, it must be limited and checked. While the government owns resources essential to administrative purposes, the power ultimately lies in the hands of the people or their delegates elected through periodic elections. How then can liberal democracy not undermine the value which Confucianism places on high status or exacerbate the post-colonial fear of deprivation? At the same time, how can the Confucian pretense that power is given and ordered be reconciled with the ever insatiable post-colonial need for more power? In Taiwan, one witnesses the unlikely synergy of the Confucian value system, the Asian-style post-colonialism, and the U.S.-imported ideology of liberal democracy. Their interaction guarantees an abundance of surprises and coincidences, which one must read carefully and repeatedly to appreciate the constantly changing meanings of democracy. To begin with, Chinese residents in Taiwan originally came from China, bringing with them Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist practices. Temple visitors in Taiwan today continue to worship Confucius and Guan Gong, representing the value of nomenclature and propriety. In 1949, the KMT fled to Taiwan, again bringing with it a whole Confucian normative system. Although the KMTs instilling of Confucian values into modern education fit Taiwans cultural heritage easily, one should not miss the important political rationales. For the KMT, to rule a society that was indoctrinated into the Japanese Emperors system (a point to be discussed later) was difficult emotionally as well as administratively. The KMT leadership which fought a bloody eight-year war with Japan adamantly wanted to reeducate residents of the previous colony. Equally important was that in its battle for legitimacy in the Chinese Civil War, which was not officially ended until 1991 for Taiwan authorities and is still ongoing in Beijing in the twenty first cen-
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tury, the defeated KMT needed to adhere to Confucianism vis--vis Beijings foray into Marxism to prove that the KMT represented real China. All Confucian dicta point to one common moral prerequisite for people taking public office: to be selfless. To assert selfhood is anathema in the Confucian system, and so is to promote private interests. What would one need power for if one is selfless? As a result, those in higher status enjoy higher power, and subordinates surrender their decision making to them.23 At the same time, the appearance of expanding power would dramatically hurt those with a high status, for their loss of the selfless pose could incur widespread anxiety in spectators and invite all to struggle for more power. Ironically, those who seemingly wield no power become the most powerful due to their lofty position above mundane business resulting in their words winning the highest respect. With the Confucian hierarchy of heaven, earth, emperor, parents, and teachers, there follows the three dyads of propriety in the honor of the emperor, the father, and the husband by the subject, the son, and the wife. The reciprocity lies in the expectation that the higher one is always selfless, and therefore, the weapon of the weak is to show disrespect in public to force out the selfhood of one of the higher rank, hence the humiliation of the latter. While the central concern of liberal democracy is to limit the necessary evil of government power, there is no such evil force assumed under Confucianism where power is composed of morals. The idea of limited government alarmingly suggests that the government, indeed, has private use of power. To gather evidence regarding the leadership-wielding power for the benefit of a closed circle is the most effective way of destroying its legitimacy. Losing their subjects respect would mean that the person no longer receives voluntary submission of decision making from them. In reality, it is often the subordinate who has difficulties in demonstrating the fact that private interests influence the thinking of the superior. The most cultural solution for anyone in the subordinate position is therefore to take the moral leadership of the superior for granted and adhere to it faithfully. Disrespect toward ones superior is simultaneously a dishonor of ones own. This is why it is psychologically embarrassing, if not impossible, to count on a peoples delegate to interrogate a government minister with a high status, not to mention question the head of the state who represents the highest moral being under heaven. Such embarrassment is felt on both sides. The superior will similarly have some psychological barrier to assert specific policy positions in the legislative process for no one wants to face questioning that denies ones lofty gesture of being selfless. In addition, it is inappropriate for a superior to be specific. Any policy position can create an opposite position or any personnel preference can meet a counter personnel preference. Unfortunately, one cannot have a position in a world that requires heavy government intervention; therefore, one will have to encounter some opposition. The outcome is
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the damage to ones selfless image and the resulting anxiety among the constituency who still embrace Confucian values in their daily lives. Consequently, the government devises all kinds of discursive tools to avoid position taking in public and depends heavily on personal relationships to shun confrontation with legislators, giving the impression of not having accountability at all which the constituency does not anticipate in the first place anyway.24 Once the government is forced into a position, it must give it a moral reason, not a calculated interest for certain social sectors. The government must deny that it is making a choice among competing interests. This moral pretension will probably preoccupy the government and significantly reduce its subsequent rhetoric or room for adjustment to only a matter of reiteration of the previously made moral justification. If the policy has to change later on, officials do not have to resign because their moral performance is sufficient in order to retain their job. There is no definite responsibility linkage between personnel and policy. All these cultural devices are there to reproduce Confucian values that the political leadership has no self interests to promote. Caught between the theory of limited government and the theory of moral superiority, the society can reconcile liberal democracy with Confucian values by looking for a good person whom people think of as being good for the people, instead of a good policy that people think of as being good for them. Whether or not people think that a potential leader is good or bad depends on how closely the candidate can establish himself or herself as a socially related person, how close are his or her policy positions to local leadership, and how well the person demonstrates that he or she has no self-interests to serve. The function of liberal democracy to protect peoples property rights or legislate for special interest groups is yet to become a concern in Taiwan. Private interests typically lobby for legislators not to legislate but to negotiate with the administration for special exemptions. Few find it wise to go through legislative processes which only expose ones violation of the selfless rule. Both the government and the society share the same behavioral pattern. In the end, liberal democracy changes the rule of choosing a leadership but not the rule of making a policy. Although the philosophy of the rule of law is still an impertinent prescription for Taiwanese politics, the spirit of the rule of man, by contrast, continues to guide the play of power.
WHY CANNOT POST-COLONIAL TAIWAN BE A LIBERAL DEMOCRACY?

While Confucianism subdues individual citizens to the rule of man, postcolonialism further transcends the call for emancipation because Japanese
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colonialism effectively destroyed the selfhood essential to start any project toward emancipation. In 1895, the defeated Qing court yielded Taiwan to Japan and began fifty one years of colonial history. Like all colonial powers, Japanese colonial authorities selectively developed the colony of Taiwan, gaining appreciation decades after they had left because of the road building, plantation development, technology innovation, and so on, that were accomplished during the occupation period.25 This has led to the nostalgia of Japanese conservative writers who look to Taiwan for inspirational recovery of the lost pre-war spirit,26 although there is no denial from the appreciating camp that all this work was aimed at the welfare of the motherland and not of the colony. Unlike the British or French occupiers in their colonies, the Japanese not only recruited from the upper echelons in the ruling of the colony, but also planned a massive Japanization campaign toward the end of the colonial period. This sort of campaign failed in Manchuria as well as in Korea, but seriously influenced politics in Taiwan a few generations later. Many a Taiwanese elder maintain a positive memory of Japanese rule. First of all, it was an effective regime, particularly caring about environmental sanitation, which the previous Qing court and the subsequent KMT overlooked. This has been repeatedly mentioned by contemporary Taiwanese independence advocates. Mr. Peng Mingmin, who ran in the presidential election for the DPP in 1996, once made the remark that if Taiwan was going to reunify with some country, it would better be an unsoiled country, obviously referring to Japan. There has been a discussion elsewhere on how the Japanese authorities convinced local residents little by little of the inferiority of their being Chinese.27 Successful acculturation enhanced the power of the Japanization campaign that produced a sense of self-dignity among the more assimilated. Along with the campaign, colonial authorities enlisted hundreds of thousands of naturalized Taiwanese to fight for the honor of the Japanese Emperor on the Southeast Asian battlefronts. They were told that their Chinese enemies were too timid to fight. When welcoming the KMT troops in 1945, the post-colonial society could only judge the Chinese troops from the standards provided by the previous colonial master. The old impression of the corrupt and dirty Chinese soon came back. In an island-wide uprising against the KMT in 1947, the demonstrators (including Pengs father) in Kaohsiung believed that no KMT troops under siege dared fight and call the troops to surrender. Surprisingly, the demonstrators suffered heavy casualties instead. Similarly, soldiers retiring from the Southeast Asian fronts fired sporadic shots on the approaching KMT ships from the Keelung port in the hope that this could intimidate the landing. The troops marched and shot Taipei residents, leaving an enormous trauma that consolidated the image of the KMT as an alien regime.
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The result was another heavy blow to self-dignity. Taiwanese residents first felt inferior under the Japanese rule, then felt superior toward the Chinese, but finally succumbed to the supposedly inferior Chinese who even considered them inferior. Later, independence advocates called Taiwan an Asiatic orphan, longing for the day that the Taiwanese could eventually stick their head out to the sky. Lee once candidly spoke of his feeling to a Japanese writer who accordingly reported Lees self-pity for because Lee was born a Taiwanese.28 Lee said that Taiwan had been suffering of the place impossible, probably referring to the dilemma of being situated between China and Japan. All in all, post-colonial conditions puzzle the Taiwanese as to what identity they should take on. It could have well been the superior colonial identity which, however, was suppressed by the highly alerted KMT just experiencing defeat in the Mainland. The fact that the Japanese colonial authorities participated in an aborted Taiwanese independence movement at the end of colonialism alarmed the KMT. This was a poignant development as it became clear that the communist agents were also involved. Furthermore, Japan was responsible for the Rape of Nanjing where the KMTs capitol is located. All this prompted the KMT into an extremely harsh treatment of Taiwanese independence advocates. Political confrontation, together with Japanese indoctrination, led many Taiwanese, particularly intellectuals, into having anti-Chinese sentiments. They may have felt shame because they joined the welcoming of the KMT in 1945. Once a Chinese, promoted into becoming a Japanese, but briefly retreated to being a Chinese, these wholehearted anti-Chinese advocates of Taiwanese independence found shelter overseas, primarily in Japan and the United States, or they kept silent politically under the KMT. The overseas activists did not return to Taiwan until Lee extended pardons to all of them in 1990. Since then, they and some of their overseas followers have assumed active leadership in either the DPP or the Independence Party.29 They joined the U.S. Congress to exert political pressure on the KMT to engage in democratic reform. The initial call was about the right to return home and the release of political prisoners. These efforts were of no avail during the Cold War, but these later became very troublesome for the KMT, as independence advocates found ears in US President Jimmy Carters human rights diplomacy. Lobbying proved to be useful in pushing Congress as well as the U.S. State Department into forcing some reform out of the KMT. The eventual lifting of martial law and the inauguration of Lee in 1988 completed their 40 years of being a diaspora overseas only to find out that they will remain a diaspora back in Taiwan. In fact, Taiwan itself is a community of diaspora. One important issue was the post-colonial leaders orientation toward power after decades of deprivation, which carried an inferiority-complex effect. The sense of inferiority had much to do with the discursive incapacity to catch an identity that is ones own and not bestowed, or when it is be-
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stowed, is respected and not despised. The colonial authorities adopted a bitter language that belittled whoever was Chinese: the slave of the Qing Nation and their Han lineage. The KMT adopted both a nationalist and an anti-Communist policy, and a renaissance-like Chinese cultural movement, of which colonial legacy was the most convenient and domestic target. As Lee took the supreme power position in 1988, he struggled to devise an identity of Taiwans own. He came up with the idea of a life community30 which was a popular Japanese expression, and the idea of a new central plain31 which has a Chinese origin. He also depicted himself as Moses leading his people to open the Red Sea,32 hence a Christian narration. It is worth noting that all three presentations convey an anti-Chinese sentiment. The life community signals the breaking away of the indigenous from the alien culturally, the new central plain modernity from backwardness temporally, and the Moses analogy, the island from the mainland geographically. He finally came up with a term: new Taiwanese. Not substantiating it with certain symbols or values, he instead asked all Taiwanese not to care about where their ancestors were from.33 The strategy seems to avoid the internal search for soul and, instead, to cleanse the Chinese composition in the selfhood. Chinese inferiority was the first thing the post-colonial Taiwanese recognized about themselves. The KMTs sensitivity toward the Japanese legacy in Taiwan and the subsequent anti-Japan education actually aggravated the wound inflicted by the Japanization campaign. Local residents first being called slave-minded by the Japanese ruler, then, after assimilated into the Japanese identity, being called Japanese and treacherous to the Chinese ancestors and nation after Japan turned Taiwan back to China, were torn between two identities. To respond to the KMT, using an anti-Chinese position was a natural strategy. How far this strategy can go testifies to how much power the post-colonial leadership has gathered. The anti-Chinese process must proceed without an ending for an ending would require one to turn internally for an identity which would be embarrassingly Japanese, Christian, or Chineseanything but Taiwanese. Power struggle with things, values, people, symbols, and so on from China is itself the source of power and therefore a remedy to the inferiority complex or the fear of deprivation. In other words, an anti-China strategy is a power-generating process. The act of being anti-China is itself more pertinent to forming an identity than the result of the action. Cleverly, Lee engineered this anti-China need into a call for democratization of the regime in the late 1980s, which was still then entrapped discursively by its unfulfilled dream of recovering China. Accordingly, Chinese are not worth liberal democracy and those who subscribe to Chinese identities are internal threats to democratization. If one day, democracy no longer serves the function of being anti-China, democratization would be meaningless, if not reversed.
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In short, post-colonial leadership will paradoxically lose selfhood when democracy works to its victory. Emancipation anticipated by liberal democracy is no prescription to the hybrid post-colonial society which makes its living on self-empowerment that relies on a Chinese target.
HOW IS TAIWAN A FAILED LIBERAL DEMOCRACY?

When the international media praise Taiwans democracy, they unanimously refer to the holding of presidential polls but generally overlook the constitutionalist belief in limited government. In historical practices, institutions such as the U.S. Congress or the British Parliament were the first to embody the idea of a limited government; therefore, elections for legislative delegates were more important for the protection of democracy than elections for other posts. Although as compared to the legislative branch, the executive branch often controls real resources and has a higher technical intelligence, the ultimate power of budgeting, personnel, and impeachment invariably lie in the hands of legislators. Even in the case of an administrative head as strong as the U.S. President, he still has to go through Congress for approval on all important nominations as well as bills. It is not difficult to see why the Taiwanese authorities under Confucianism, be it the KMT or the DPP, are culturally incapable of internalizing constitutionalism thus conceived. More relevant recently in Taiwan is the quest for a new national identity. How much power the indigenous leadership can have becomes the most attended indicator of whether or not Taiwan has achieved the new identity. In one of the memoirs he compiled after retiring from the government and the KMT, Lee specifically points out that the strength that had pushed him to launch the democratization movement was the wish to establish an identity.34 It is not coincidental that the co-author of the memoirs is Nakashima Mineo, a Japanese conservative writer known for his aversion toward Chinas backwardness. It is widely known today that the rationale to take the power to elect the President from the National Assembly and give it to popular voters was that popular polling would imply sovereignty. In fact, the National Assembly included 20% of delegates nominated by the parties in accordance with the ratio of the votes each gained to represent the whole country. It was the notion of the whole country that had interfered with the quest for independent statehood, since the whole was intended to include the mainland Chinese. Nevertheless, the National Assembly was annulled completely in 2000. This was the seventh constitutional revision that Lee led. The DPP went along with the revision right from the first round which was back in 1991. The popular electoral mechanism was finally constitutional in 1993 with the cooperation of Lees wing in the KMT
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and the DPP. For the DPP, the popular election was a gift, for in a national competition where the issue was to establish an indigenous identity, the DPP had a much better chance than if it competed in the assembly system. In the first popular election of 1996, Lee rode on his anti-China position, ironically with the help of Beijing authorities who denounced Lee as trash, and fired missiles over the Taiwan Straits, all of which helped Lee defeat Peng dearly. Similarly, when Chen competed with Lees successor, Lian, he similarly benefited from Beijings harsh warning that voters should not choose Chen. Interestingly, in the aforementioned memoir, Lee acknowledged that he no longer considered the KMT useful to him, and in his evaluation, Chen of the opposition was a better choice than Lian, his own successor.35 Lee confesses that he used the KMT as a tool to get rid of the lingering alien (i.e., Chinese) forces in the KMT.36 Here, Lee refers to both Lian, whose mother was a mainlander, and himself who was born in China, as well as Soong, a third candidate whose parents were both mainlanders. Lees self-revelation shocked his party members but was actually consistent with his past remarks which include the famous statement that he would like to be a Washington, handing over the regime while he was still alive.37 From hindsight, one knows why he had preferred Chen. In 1999, he announced that Taiwan and China had a state-to-state relationship.38 In his explanation, this had been true since 1991, the time he succeeded in revising the constitution which the KMT brought with it from China. He precisely mentioned that the 1993 revision which installed popular polling for the President made Taiwan a sovereign state. Lee continued his anti-China rhetoric after his second reelection in 1996. In his inauguration speech, he was straightforward in his diagnosis that Taiwan was no longer trapped by the kind of Chinese legacy, symbolized by despotism, feudalism, poverty, and backwardness.39 The Presidential Office took this part away in its next-morning press issue. In comparison, Chens anti-China gesture was minimal during his campaign because Washington watched and actually coached him closely to avoid provocation across the Taiwan Straits. His inauguration speech nonetheless linked China to fear, threat, suppression, and animosity, although he circumvented direct name calling.40 The quest for national identity and democracy together also primarily directed the campaign strategies of Lee, Chen, and their associates. All of their strategies mainly consisted of painting opponents into China agents ready to sell Taiwan to Beijing. In 1996, Lees major competitor Lin Yangkang was pictured to be under the influence of his running mate, Hao Potsun, a reunification advocate. Throughout the campaign, Lee picked Hao instead of Lin as his opponent. In the 2000 election, the campaign strategies of both the DPP and the KMT were to paint Soong as an alien. Soong lost to Chen by 3%, suggesting that the dichotomy of indigenous vs. alien, or even Taiwan vs. China was not as popular socially as it had been
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politically. When the KMT publicized Soongs and his relatives overseas bank accounts, few looked into the shaky legality of the action or the satisfactory legality of Soongs financial management. What concerned the voters was Soongs image of incorruptibility and not the due process or Soongs property rights. Given that democracy has been an instrument to gain power for indigenous leaders to demonstrate that the indigenous identity is no longer inferior to the Chinese identity, this could still have been democracy anyway. However, if anyone applies the idea of a limited government, this would immediately breed fear that the indigenous identity is likewise limited. Lee then decided to go outside the constitutional process framed by the legislative supremacy. He mobilized the National Affairs Meeting in 1990 where he invited and pardoned overseas dissidents. Together with the DPP activists and the KMT technocrats, they came up with constitutional drafts. This worldwide gathering of social forces gave Lee enormous moral power. He could return to the constitutional process to receive the surrender of decision making, not to be checked, balanced, or limited. Before the 1996 constitutional revision, he similarly summoned the National Development Conference to draft revision proposals. Each revision created more power for the Presidentfrom installing the popular polling, nominating of controllers, institutionalizing the National Security Council under the President, revoking the Premiers co-signature on his retirement, revoking legislative approval on the nomination of the Premier, the power to dissolve the legislature, and so on. During the process, the major rationale that Lees associate came up with to justify the revision was that the Presidents power was mandated by popular polling and should not have been so limited. Endowed with a constitution that renders the Premier accountable for what the President instructs, President Chen still feels a lack of power. This is partly because the DPP is a minority in the Legislature and partly because the limitation of power is psychologically unacceptable to him who considers himself as the son of Taiwan. In the controversial fourth nuclear plant issue, the DPP decided that the legislative resolution had no power over administrative discretion and that the Premier is responsible to the President alone, not to the legislature. The new government should have the power to do what is necessary for reform. Chen accused the legislature of being a gathering of archaic political forces.41 The DPP then engineered a suffrage law hoping to bypass the legislature. Chens misfortune is that as a minority President, he cannot represent the whole. Struggling for more power further discredited his moral leadership. Vice President Lu once made the dramatic complaint about her not being able to do anything in her postthat moving into the Presidential office felt like going to jail.42 For the DPP, gaining institutional power is not much different from losing moral power. Self-empowerment arises from the perception that the DDP is
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being opposed by a lingering archaic regime. In fact, in the first six months of his term, President Chen continued to attend commencements, lectures, and grand openings, and so on scheduled by hours as if the presidential campaign has not actually stopped. Post-colonialism has also affected the political style. Identity building requires one to see the identity in public places. Not seeing it means not having it, since it does not come from within in the first place but from the projection of the inferior self onto public objects and subsequent confrontations with them. Once the power of the indigenous leadership becomes the indicator of the new identity, the leadership unavoidably shows it as frequently as possible. In fact, Lee never restrained himself from demonstrating power. In another writing also co-authored with a Japanese journalist, Lee praised himself as being a military genius and a shrewd politician.43 He never hesitated to show his intellectual leadership in all matters. Without the same level of self-confidence, Chen nonetheless intervenes in all policy processes such as budgeting for an academic organization, working hours for private sectors, taxation, and so on. Since he has no constitutional power to administrate because this belongs to the Premier and to the Executive Branch, he surpasses the constitution and installs a weekly gathering of the DPP, the Premiers Office, and the Presidential Office to make sure that his will goes through the administration. From time to time, the Presidential Office calls national conferences to discuss economic development, human rights, tax, and so on Vice President Lu once called a highly publicized workshop, with three DPP county directors under judicial investigation attending, to accuse the attorney of abusing power. Liberal democracy is no longer liberal to the extent that forming a new national identity occupies participants, and limiting political power is considered either irrelevant or even false. Democracy is no longer democratic to the extent that political practices either disregard or even sabotage legislative sovereignty. Both presidents try to take advantage of their lofty status and receive surrenders of power, but then they want to show their power in public to keep alive the drive toward a new identity. The formation of this new identity relies either on confrontation with China or with imagined domestic China agents, which generates supreme moral power, or on ubiquitous interference in trivial policy processes which consolidate the self-image of having power. There has already been extensive discussion in the previous chapter on how an anti-China human rights policy in Taiwan causes serious violations of human rights, particularly Chinese employees on Taiwanese fishing boats.44 In the public eye, Confucian leadership should wait for power to accrue to its use; post-colonial leadership should aggressively demonstrate that the power is already at hand. The idea of a limited government definitely causes some trouble to both but has yet to liberalize them.
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HOW IS TAIWANS SUCCESS AN EXTERNAL CONSTITUTION?

International observers apparently care little about the due process or the idea of limited government when judging Taiwans democracy. The lowering of standards to the level that regards merely holding Presidential elections as a sign of democracy cannot be universally applicable to cases such as those of Malaysia, Bosnia, or China. There may be several reasons why one comfortably overlooks violations of due process or deviations from the thought of limited government in Taiwan. For one, the Taiwanese themselves are insensitive to liberal principles. Their own inattention can distract international media. Second, international commentators from liberal democracy always welcome signs of democratization, so they deliberately loosen the standards. Third, politicians, intellectuals, as well as journalists in Taiwan are familiar with liberal democracy jargons and are able to clothe political happenings accordingly. Last, but perhaps the most relevant, is the growing anxiety about Chinas nascent entry into the global political economy to the effect that Taiwans democratization may serve as a harbinger for China, soothing the sense of uncertainty that facing China has generated. This last point alludes to the global constitution of Taiwans success. Facing the mainland Chinese, Taiwan used to serve as a checkpoint on the containment chain during the Cold War. There was no dispute from the United States about Taiwans self-claimed democracy under the early KMT rule. It could not be otherwise as long as the KMT vehemently opposed communist totalitarianism on the Chinese mainland. For the United States, communism was a sufficient evil to acquiesce to political practices incompatible with liberalism in Taiwan. Taiwans function to counter China declined as U.S. President Richard Nixon and his successors began to accept a marriage of convenience with China for the purpose of balancing the former Soviet Union. President Jimmy Carters human rights diplomacy was what formally brought the issue of liberalization to Taiwan. In the island, President Chiang Ching-kuo decided that it was time to democratize and localize the ruling KMT. Independence advocates overseas began to be very active. After Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law, the ulterior connections between overseas activists and the newly established CCP surfaced. The English literature on Taiwans democratization focuses on Chiang Ching-kuos decision to loosen up the formation and the development of the DPP, as well as the emerging identity politics.45 Doctoral dissertations on the subject likewise increased. From a model of economic miracle, Taiwan has appeared to be a political miracle of a peaceful democratization in the 1990s and of a peaceful transition of power in 2000. To the credit of the American liberal market, Taiwans economy grew fast and steady indeed. However, the economic miracle was not at all achieved through liberalism but through the violation of both free market principles and intellectual
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property rights, both practices watched, warned, and penalized by the U.S. authorities in and since the aftermath of the Cold War. On the political front, the understanding has been the opposite. The breakdown of the communist bloc has led the Western media to attend to Taiwans political development more closely.46 While the Fever over the Taiwan miracle faded, reports on democratization have risen to discursively distinguish Taiwan from China. Amidst the rhetoric on the third wave of democracy and the spread of new journals on post-socialist transition,47 a success story about Taiwan as the earlier construction of the Taiwan miracle that signaled the failure of the communist path is too attractive to ignore. In this regard, Taiwan was ironically never separate from China conceptually. The demise of the Soviet Union suddenly pushed China to the forefront to the effect that neither Washington nor Beijing knew how to deal with each other. In Washington, two perspectives primarily contend for attention. One continues to see China as a threat to the United States,48 while the other sees opportunities to open and transform China.49 Both find Taiwans democratization useful. For the Chinese threat image to make sense, the threat to a democratized Taiwan is perhaps the most convenient evidence that such a threat exists.50 Without a democratic Taiwan, the Chinese threat does not appear credible anywhere in the world, including the United Nations, the Balkans, or the Middle East. On the contrary, Beijings pacifying performance in the Korean Peninsula, the South China Sea, and currently across the Taiwan Straits could even suggest the opposite.51 If Taiwan is considered a Western type of democracy, a threat to Taiwan would be a threat to the West. Similarly, the engagement school has a good reason to recognize Taiwans democratization, for if Taiwan can democratize, one can reasonably argue that a similar culture such as China can democratize too.52 To laud Taiwans democracy can even enlighten Chinese leaders on their future path.53 Either treating Taiwan as a weapon or as a harbinger, the new U.S. strategic thinking is in line with the current trend in Taiwans domestic politics. Political identity in Taiwan has an anti-China theme, and the political leadership has engineered the rise of the new identity in the name of democratization. Not motivated to understand Taiwans democracy, U.S. observers seem to assume that Taiwan now has a government that can genuinely speak for its people, and this is believed to be leverage for Taiwan in negotiating a legitimate solution with China in the future.54 To what degree the United States should help defend Taiwan is a controversial topic. The United States would lose global leadership, if it would just sit and watch Beijing take over Taiwan. However, the United States would risk a prolonged and seemingly endless confrontation with China if it chooses to militarily get involved. The sensible solution is for Taiwan not to go independent, but this would be against what Lee and Chen stand for. Both the Chinese threat and the
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engagement schools appear to want to persuade the leadership in Taiwan to lessen the intensity of its pursuit of independent statehood.55 The assumption of this policy is that there is no worry that Taiwan could go for reunification. In other words, the U.S. government is quite comfortable with the scenario that Taiwan and China would sit on the negotiation table because it has confidence that Taiwan authorities can legitimately resist unification and thus maintain the distinction the United States wishes. Accordingly, from the U.S. perspective, it must be democracy that has created the new identity, instead of Lees revelation that it was identity that has utilized democracy. In the unlikely event that the U.S. government realizes that democracy has yet to take roots in Taiwan, it will no longer feel comfortable with letting Taiwan and China meet officially because the new identity does not enjoy the level of legitimacy assumed by the U.S. government, and cannot guarantee that Taiwan will endure the pressure or refuse the seduction from Beijing. However, it is precisely this blind spot which results in the misperception that democracy is maturing in Taiwan. This has allowed Lee and the DPP to clothe identity politics in democratic terms. Praises given by those friendly U.S. visitors are almost always preceded by calls for Taiwan to calm down and act cautiously against any independence claim. For the visitors, it does not seem to be a possible development that the Taiwanese may cease to be anti-Chinese some day, if not today. The false confidence thus created and reproduced through U.S.-Taiwan dialogues on their common anti-China sentiment actually paves an opening to which this chapter will turn briefly. Adding to the U.S.s China policy concerns are the thriving globalization discourse. Globalization is against the use of force by any non-hegemonic force, not even of retaliation to the inappropriate use of force such as the case of the misfiring by the American fighters on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. In addition, talks about globalization often celebrate cultural pluralism and localism that call for respect toward indigenous identities. Both themes, peace and identity, flow smoothly in Taiwan but abruptly in China. Chinese authorities crackdown on the Falongong, the Chinese Democratic Party, and so on serves as cases in point. Taiwan appears to be so attractive that American diplomats in Taiwan could not help but praise Chens performance,56 while his approval rating sank from over 70% to barely 40% in six months, and further to less than 20% in 2006. They were impressed with Chens low-level policy of enhancing exchanges across the Taiwan Straits in the areas of tourism, journalism, and direct transportation among offshore islands, with the possible extension to include student exchange, direct shipping, and direct investments in the future. Again, however, the assumption behind the globalization talks is that there is a distinction between Taiwan and China in terms of the formers liberal democracy and the latters failure to achieve it.57 If China eventually glob-
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alized and democratized, it is argued that there would be no more threat, and reunification could be a viable option.58
HOW HAS THE 9/11 TERRORIST ATTACK EXACERBATED THE DEMOCRATIC FAILURE IN TAIWAN?
Democracy theorists come up with terms such as populist democracy, illiberal democracy, and electoral democracy to deal with the sort of democratic insufficiency or alternative models of democracy described above.59 For Taiwan, a more synoptic denotation is perhaps unconstitutional democracy. As mentioned earlier, constitutionalism that seeks to limit the power of the government is historically as well as culturally counterproductive in Taiwan. This has become increasingly clear since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In numerous occasions, the authorities in Taipei, including Chen, the First Lady, the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of the Presidential Office, the Foreign Minister, and so on, have reiterated their unreserved support for whatever actions Washington takes to deal with terrorism. The total support that the Bush Doctrine and the U.S. unilateral invasion of Iraq enjoy in Taiwan has a price, though, for Taipeis anti-terrorism refers to an anti-China ideology.60 Right from the beginning, Taipei saw an opportunity to squeeze the antiChina sentiment into U.S. anti-terrorism. Behind its rhetoric support was the definitional extension of terrorism to include Chinas deployment of missiles along its coast, presumably targeting Taiwan. Chen organized a number of national security meetings which, though constitutional in name, were completely unconstitutional to the extent that party leaders unrelated to national security positions were among the participants. Each time during these conferences, President Chen summarized his instructions regarding anti-terrorism primarily around the cross-Strait security issues.61 In fact, in their polemics with anti-war intellectuals, Chens secretary and party associates specifically state that the whole reason for supporting Washington without any reservation is that Taipei needs Washington in its own rivalry with Beijing.62 In the same vein, the National Security Advisor expresses that Taiwan cannot help but embrace the thigh of the Americans to show loyalty to Washington.63 For Taipei, opportunities for independence rose after 9/11. A research faculty member of the National Security Conference, who is also a member of Chens closest circle, reports that after 9/11, China was in trouble because the formation of a U.S. anti-terrorist front has encircled China from Central Asia64 despite academic analysis pointing to the likely amelioration of Sino-U.S. relations.65 Accordingly, Taiwans future in world politics should have supposedly loomed optimistic after 9/11, and Chen was determined not to allow the opportunity to slip away.
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Indeed, it took only ten months after 9/11 for Chen to denounce in August 2002 the One China principle and advocate loudly that there is one country on each side of the Taiwan Strait. This statement was tantamount to announcing Taiwanese independence. This was at the moment that Washington was seeking support from Beijing for the forthcoming invasion of Iraq. It was also the time that Beijings role in mediating the quickly worsening Pyongyang-Washington relationship became clearer. There came the suspicion in the Washington circle that Taipei intended to cash in on anti-terrorism, hoping to wedge off Beijing from Washington.66 With the Presidential election approaching, Chens plan has been to induce Beijing into some sort of drastic confrontation that will prove Beijings terrorist nature. In Taipeis calculation, the contrast of a democratic Taipei embedded in consecutive elections for legislators in 2001, city mayors in 2002, and President in 2004, and a threatening Beijing is politically useful. This contrast was the major theme during and after the 2000 election. In fact, Chen has been appealing to Taiwanese independence in all the subsequent elections. Muddling through political upheavals concerning the Taiwan issue, however, Beijing and Washington have developed teamwork, with Beijing restraining its reaction to Chens provocation, and with Washington disciplining Taipeis recalcitrance and reiterating the principle of one China. This teamwork has compelled Taipei to find other means in order to expose Beijings non-democratic intention over Taiwan. Chen has thus decided to promote a system of referendum for Taiwanese citizens to express their wish to join the international society as an independent country. There is unfortunately no such procedure provided by law to execute the referendum. The opposition party campaigns for a referendum law, hoping to restrict the referendum to issues other than national identities. Chen and his party have been severely critical of this position, arguing that the referendum is the highest form of democracy, the execution of continuous reform, and a constitutional right which needs no law.67 Believing that this is a weak point of the opposition, Chen pursues the referendum issue. He wants to have some sort of referendum held simultaneously with the Presidential election, thereby ignoring the Electoral Law which forbids any political activity near the voting booth during an election. For Chen, to vote on any issue would do as long as the referendum occurs simultaneously. In September 2003, Chen further proclaims his intention to write a new constitution in 2006. In his plan, the new constitution will go through the referendum. In his interview with the Washington Post,68 he denounces the current constitution for never being practiced and Taiwan for not being a normal country. In the same interview, he is also quoted as saying that Taiwan is not a state of another federation, presumably referring to the United States, and will promote the referendum and pursue the
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new constitution no matter what. He also says that the United States will not oppose a democratic Taiwan. Chen may have a hidden message for Beijing herethat the United States will not stop Taipei from pursuing independent statehood, so Beijing should come out to stop Taipei if it does not want to see an independent Taiwan. If Beijing did respond with military means, Taipei could break through the Washington-Beijing teamwork on the issue of Taiwanese independence. What is interesting in all this political rhetoric and maneuvering is the fact that the meaning of democracy in Taiwan has become more and more dubious. First of all, it is not a constitutional system, and the leaders of the country are aware of this but are at the same time comfortable with this lack of constitutionality. Second, it is a political identity to differentiate Taipei from Beijing. Third, it is a strategic means to sabotage Sino-U.S. relations. Fourth, it is the foundation upon which Taipei redefines terrorism to exclusively mean Beijing. Fifth, it is the base of confidence that Washington will support Taipeis own anti-terrorist concept with regard to the cross-Taiwan Strait relations, and sixth, it is the source of legitimacy for Taiwanese independence. It is not, on the other hand, a limited government, a system of delegate, or anything beyond polling. As a result, concerns for rights are not strong in Taiwan. The pro-independence government can feel legitimate in treating the opposition as a China walker who enjoys no constitutional rights. Anything clothed with an anti-China advocacy is morally higher than constitutionalism, and any institutional base for democracy fails accordingly.
HOW IS FAILED LIBERAL DEMOCRACY A SUCCESS?

My argument is that Taiwan as a success story of liberal democracy is a construction of the international media which reflects the U.S. global strategic need rather than the actual liberal democratic development occurring in Taiwan. Democratization in Taiwan has its own logic to be separately appreciated from the U.S.s perspective. If one strictly follows the idea of a limited government, the emphasis on due process, and the protection of property rights to check on the level of democracy of any country, it should be clear that democratizing practices in Taiwan have very little to do with any of these ideals. Confucian values have shaped the style of leadership into a show of selfless ruling which abhors power-seeking behavior. On the other hand, Taiwans post-colonial condition in which political leaders suffered deprivation and inferiority prompted an anti-China disposition which can only be satisfied by democratic self-empowerment. This is to the extent that democracy becomes a vehicle for expressing an anti-China identity; it is not about liberal democracy.
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The question worth exploring is whether there is a definite meaning of liberal democracy. Liberal democracy has historically and periodically been an alternative to many different things, including absolute monarchy, fascism, communism, and most recently, in the clich of the clash of civilizations, Islamic fundamentalism and Confucian nationalism. What defines individuality or autonomous subjectivity has been constantly changing in all this development. In Taiwan, in addition, the meaning of liberal democracy is no longer opposite to the pursuit of collective identity, which is not determined by individual rational choices but by a political leadership carrying colonial Japans anti-China legacy. Confucian values that highlight the importance of being selfless and the moral supremacy of leadership are part of democratic life in Taiwan. Indubitably, liberal democratic institutions such as popular polling, legislative sovereignty, human rights, and so on have significantly changed the style of Confucian leadership. Heredity does not determine leaders anymore. Democracy means voting for ones own leaders. Since leaders in Taiwan are still trapped in post-colonial conditions, policy positions are irrelevant, while they struggle to resolve their identity puzzles. Accordingly, the idea of a limited government lacks appreciation. In sum, the practices in Taiwan have conducted the hegemonic discourse into something other than liberal democracy. There are already developments that should be welcome. Not only do the meanings of liberal democracy receive multiple readings and practices, but the meanings of being Taiwanese were opened up after Chen took office in 2000. It is interesting to note that previous followers of Lee who disregarded his denunciation of anything Chinese have, one after another, visited China frequently. Widespread globalization rhetoric which provides a forceful push for international enterprises to march toward the Chinese market is also becoming a legitimate reason why Taiwanese businessmen demand the lifting of restrictions on investments in China. In other words, at the moment when Taiwanese independence advocates take office, the anti-China sentiment in the quest for national identity temporarily and yet quickly diminishes. The KMT joins the reunification forces to urge Chen to openly acknowledge that he is Chinese. The China Fever, in general, and the Shanghai Fever, in particular, alarm not just independent advocates but also American observers who criticize the KMT and others of undermining Chens position in the face of the so-called Chinese threat.69 This is why mistaking Taiwans democratization for liberal democracy should be held responsible for the misperception that when Taiwan meets China, Chen would have the legitimacy to speak on behalf of the people. He is losing this legitimacy. An opened Taiwan cannot be legitimately represented as a whole through the institution of liberal democracy. Taiwans post-colonial conditions together with Confucian values do not commemorate notions of individualism, autonomy, or subjectivity.
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Without democratization, the dichotomies of Taiwan vs. China on the surface, Japan vs. China under the surface, and even Chinese Taiwan vs. Japanese Taiwan in Taiwans hybrid history will not break down. People will have to continue fighting against themselves. They will remain split inside and seek outlets by continuously looking for scapegoats. This took place in the 1996, 2000, and 2004 elections when candidates pointed fingers at one another for being a Chinese alien or agent. The opportunities for further opening up are gradually emerging nonetheless. Popular polling, for example, enables the Taiwanese to distinguish themselves from China. Enhanced exchanges across the Taiwan Straits desensitize the recognition of ones self as being Chinese culturally. How these two strings of identity combine is above the head of the international liberal democracy watchers. The meaning of liberal democracy itself is now opened to democratic reinterpretation, and the meaning of being Taiwanese is also not always antiChinese. Eventually, this may be the core of the successful story of the failed liberal democracy in Taiwan.
NOTES
1. For example, see Thomas B. Gold, State and Society in the Taiwan Miracle (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1985); Stephen Haggard and Tun-jen Cheng, eds., Political Change in Taiwan (Boulder: Lynne Rienner 1991). 2. For example, see Linda Chao and Ramon Myers, The First Chinese Democracy: The Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan (Lindon: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Christopher Achen, The Timing of Political Liberalization: Taiwan as the Canonical Case (paper presented to the American Political Science Association annual meeting, Chicago, Illinois, September 1996, Preliminary publication in the paper series of the Conference Group on Taiwan Studies, 1997). 3. Mustapha Kamal Pasha and David Blaney, Elusive Paradise: The Promise and Peril of Global Civil Society, Alternatives 25 (1988): 417450; Lily Ling, Hegemony and the Internationalizing State: A Postcolonial Analysis of Chinas Integration into Asian Corporatism, Review of International Political Economy 3, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 126; David Campbell, The Deterritorialization of Responsitiblity: Levinas, derrida, and Ethics after the End of Philosophy, in Moral Spaces: Rethinking Ethics and World Politics, ed. D. Campbell and M. J. Shapiro (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 2956. 4. For example, see Editorial, Two Chinas? Newsday, 21 March 2000, A34; Joseph Kahn, China Indicating Caution on Taiwan, New York Times, 2 April 2000, A1; Editorial, China, Taiwan and Democracy, Chicago Tribune, 22 March 2000, 18. 5. The complexity of the Taiwan policy shows in Alan M. Wachman, Challenges and Opportunities in the Taiwan Strait: Defining Americas Role, (Conference Report, China Policy Series 17. New York, National Committee on United States China Relations, January 2001).
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6. Review and Outlook, Maturing Democracies, The Wall Street Journal, 17 April 2000, A34. 7. For a detailed account along the mainstream thinking, see Shelley Rigger, Taiwans Democratic Progressive Party from Opposition to Power (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2001). 8. Tony Emerson, Making of a Democrat, Newsweek (20 May 1996): 1015. 9. Lee Tenghui, Sheng wei taiwanren de beiai (The Sorrow of Being Born Taiwanese), Zili Wanbao (Independent Evening), 30 April2 May 1994, 2. 10. Jau Tang, In the Drama of Democracy, Taiwans Star Turn, New York Times, 22 March 2000, A26. 11. Comment, A New Era Taiwan Celebrates the Victory of Democratic Pluralism, The Times, 20 March 2000, A19. 12. See Pentagons Report to Congress Pursuant to Public Law 106113, mimeo; also Bill Gertz, Pentagon Supports Arms Sales to Taiwan, The Washington Times, 19 December 2000, at <http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2000nn/0012nn/001219nn .htm>. 13. Editorial, Chens Victory, The Wall Street Journal, 20 March 2000, 19. 14. A New Era. 15. Maturing Democracies. 16. Thomas L. Friedman, This Is a Test, New York Times, 21 March 2000, A23. 17. Donald Shih, A Vote in Taiwan and a New Era, New York Times, 21 March 2000, A22. 18. Editorial, Lautre Chine, Le Monde, 21 March 2000, 19. 19. Lautre Chine. 20. A New Era. 21. See his coauthor Nakashima in their Yazhou de Zhilyue (Asias Wise Choices) (Taipei: yuanliu, 2000). 22. See Harvey Feldman, Chinas Elucive Democracy, The World & I 13 (July 2000): 2027. 23. Lucian Pye, Asian Power and Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 47. 24. Lily Ling and Chih-yu Shih, Confucianism with a Liberal Face: The Meaning of Democratic Politics in Postcolonial Taiwan. (coauthor) Review of Politics 60, no. 1 (1998): 5582. 25. Nicholas D.Kristof, The Murky Tale of Taiwan: Island with an Unruly Past, New York Times, 21 March 2000, A8; Tai-sheng Wang, Legal Reform in Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule: 18951945, The Reception of Western Law (Seattle: Washington University Press, 2000), 170173, 186. 26. Their writings aroused deep sympathy among Taiwanese independence advocates who ironically discover self-respect from previous colonial masters praise, since they generally suffer a feeling of no position in the anti-Japanese animosity of China. Interested readers should browse the February and March issues of Tseyou Shipao (liberal times) (Taipei), especially the opinion section. 27. Chih-yu Shih, A Postcolonial Reading of the State Question in China, Journal of Contemporary China 17, no. 7 (1998): 125139. 28. Lee Tenghui, The Sorrow of Being Born Taiwanese.
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29. Most are legislators and county directors. See also Erik Eckholm, Why a Victory in Taiwan Wasnt Enough for Some, New York Times, 22 March 2000, A16. 30. Lee Tenghui, Chuangzao xinde ren he xinde shehui (Creating New People and New Society), a speech given in 1994 collected in his Jingying Da Taiwan (running taiwan the great) (Taipei:Yuanliu, 1995), 189194. 31. Lee Tenghui, Jianshe wenhua xin zhongyuan (Building a Culturally New Central Plain), a speech given in 1995 collected in Running Taiwan the Great, 19200. 32. Lee, The Sorrow of Being Born Taiwanese. 33. Lee Teng-hui, Understanding Taiwan, Foreign Affairs 78, no. 6 (Nov/Dec 1999): 9. 34. Asias Wise Choice, 36, 221. 35. Asias Wise Choice, 23. 36. Asias Wise Choice, 249. 37. Asias Wise Choice, 223. 38. News release of the Presidential Office (9 July 1999). 39. For the full text of the speech, see Chungkuo Shipao (China Times), 20 May 1996, 2. 40. Chens inauguration speech, United Evening (Liange wanbao), 20 May 2000, 7. 41. Chen Shuibain: xin zhengfu shou jiu guohui qianzhi (Chen Shuibian: The new government is under the old legislatures boycotting), Lianhe Bao (united daily), 16 July 2000, 1. 42. Hui-liang Chuang, Annette Lu: Entering the Presidential Office is like entering jail, Ming Pao, 19 May 2000, as of <http//ofind.sina.com.tw/cgi-bin/news/ mkNews.cgi?ID=1104160&Loc=TW/> (25 March 2001). 43. The Sorrow of Being Born Taiwanese. 44. Chih-yu Shih, Human Rights as Identities, in Debating Human Rights, ed. P. Van Ness (London: Routledge, 1999). 45. Among the most noticeable and published, in addition to those produced by Taiwanese overseas students, are Shelly Rigger, Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (London: Routledge, 1999) ; Alan Wachman, Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1994); for a case of unpublished dissertation, see Mathew Towner, Political Leaders and Democratic Change: A Comparative Case Study of the Republic of China and Singapore, University of Denver doctoral dissertation (August 1997). 46. William Safire, Contrasting Elections, New York Times, 20 March 2000, A23. 47. For example, Democratization and Journal of Democracy. Journal of Communist Studies is renamed into Journal of Communism and Transition Politics. 48. See, for example, the report on Helms Calls for Abolishing AID, Increasing Support for Taiwan, Washington Post, 12 January 2001, A6; James H. Anderson, Tensions across the Strait, The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder 1328 (28 September 1999). 49. For example, Raymond F. Burghardt, U.S.-PRC-Taiwan Relations (remarks to the U.S.-ROC(Taiwan) Business Council 24th Annual Joint Business conference on U.S.-Taiwan-China Relations Special Seminar, Taipei, 16 June 2000); Murray Weidenbaum, United States-China-Taiwan a Precarious Triangle (address delivered to the Conference on the Greater China Economy, St. Louis, 25 March 2000).
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50. See for example, Editorial, Political Earthquake in Taiwan, New York Times, 20 March 2000, A22; Editorial, Taiwans Way of the Future, Washington Times, 20 March 2000, A18. 51. Almost all observers take note that China has adopted a calm wait-and-see attitude toward the Chen government. 52. Sin-ming Shaw, Big China, Little China, Time (27 March 2000): 21. 53. Chens victory; A New Era. 54. Arthur Waldron, Taiwans Democratization Dilemma, AEI On the Issues 15 (June 2000). 55. The engagement school is particularly against Taiwanese independence; see David Shambaugh, Facing Reality in China Policy. Foreign Affairs 80, no. 1 (January/ February 2001). 56. These remarks were given in several off-the-record occasions. 57. For China unable to achieve liberal reform, see Larry M. Wortzel, Challenges as Chinas Communist Leaders Ride the Tiger of Liberalization, Heritage Lectures 669 (13 June 2000). 58. Robert J. Christensen, A Vote in Taiwan, and a New Era, New York Times, 21 March 2000, A22; H. C. Huang, In the drama of Democracy, Taiwans Star Turn, New York Times, 22 March 2000, A26. 59. Daniel Bell, East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); Larry Diamond, Is the Third Wave Over? Journal of Democracy 7 (July 1996): 2037; Larry Diamond, Introduction, in Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies, ed. L. Diamond, M Plattner, Y. Chu and H. Tien (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), xvxlix; Carlos De la Torre, Populist Seduction in Latin America (Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 2000). 60. Chan Sanyuan, Would Communist China Find the Excuse to Invade Taiwan? (zhong gong huibuhui jiekou fantai), United Daily, 24 March 2003, 12. 61. Yang Yu-wen, Antiterrorism: The President Accuses Communist China of Developing Unlimited Warfare (fankong: zongtong qianze zhonggong fazhan chaoxian zhan), United Daily, 9 Sep. 2002, 2; Editorial, Antiterrorism Should not Be Enlisted for the Extreme (fankong zhi ming buyi wuxian shang gang), Minsheng Daily, 13 Sep. 2002, A2. 62. Wu Chao-hsie, Anti-War Guarantees no Peace, Anti-America Contradicts Taiwans Interests (fan zhan weibi heping, fan mei bufu taiwan liyi), United Daily, 18 March 2003, 15. 63. Editorial, The Art of Embracing the Thigh (bao datui de yishu) United Daily, 11 Aug. 2003, A2. 64. Lin Chia-long and Lai Yi-chung, The Security Challenge that Taiwan Faces after the 911 Incident and the Strategic Choice (taiwan zai 911 shijian hou mianlin de anquan tiaozhan yu zhanlyue jueze), Strategy and International Studies Quarterly (zhanlyue yu guoji yanjiu jikan) 4, no. 2 April 2002. 65. Hou Hanchun, To See Armed Invasion of Taiwan as Terrorist Act Ignores International Reality (shi wuli fantaiwei kongbu huodong hushi zhengzhi xianshi), United Daily, 12 Jan. 2002, 15. 66. Chang Tsong-chi, Swine: Conflict across the Taiwan Strait Will Escalate in Five to Seven Years (shiwen: liangan wu zhi qi nian nei chongtu shenggao), United
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Daily, 5 Feb. 2003, 7; Telegram, President Visiting Washington This Year, US Congressmen Holding a Pessimisitic View (chen zongtong jinnian fang hua, mei yiyuan yanpan buleguan), United Daily, 11 Jan. 2003, 13. 67. Yang Sheng-lu, Hsu Chi-hsiung: The Referendum Needs no New Law to Provide (hsu chi-hsiung: gongtou bu xuyao falyu ling ding), United Daily, 18 Sep. 2003, 3; Chung Lian-fang, Chen Criticizes the Oppossition for Suffering Fear for Democray (bian pi zaiye de le minzhu kongju zheng), United Daily, 28 Sep. 2003, A2. 68. Taiwanese Leaders Condemns Beijing One China Policy, Washington Post, 7 October 2003, A18. 69. Monique Chu, Chen Sees Benefit in Interim Agreement, Taipei Times, 16 February 2001, 1; Monique Chu, Roth Presses Direct Talks with Beijing, Taipei Times, 18 February 2001, 2 ;Hsu, Hsiao-tse, Liangan zhengce wo yinghui pei he mei yatai buju (our cross-strait policy should comply with the USs Asia-Pacific strategy), Chungkuo Shipao (China times), 26 March 2001, 2.
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II
THE RATIONAL ACTOR BACKFIRE
Successfully clothing both the human rights violations and the insatiate need for power in the 1990s with liberal political theory distracts Taiwan watchers from the actual practice in the political daily life. As the new century began, these theories have exerted increasing influence in politics, in addition to cosmetic functions. In general, political advisors learn how to imagine rationalism into political action in Taiwan. To be rational appears to attest to the maturation of democracy. Treating their subject in Taiwan as rational actors is therefore intrinsic to differentiate Taiwan from its Chinese rivalry. Consequently, advisors who celebrate this rise of political culture above the Confucian past practice rationalism in their policy agenda. It is imperative that they treat Taiwanese voters as rational actors in a liberal arena while viewing the Taiwanese state also as a rational actor in international relations. They make recommendations accordingly. This section tells alternative approaches to the rational actor discourse, however. In Chapter 3, the campaign strategies informed by the rational actor theory lead to the defeat of its practitioner and, in Chapter 4, the dominant realist paradigm embedded in the strategic triangle witnesses the reversal of power metrics in favor of the supposedly dependent side, which is Taiwan. The use of the rational actor paradigm results in political meanings completely unrelated to the rational actor presumption.
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The Loss of the Median Voter
POLITICAL SCIENCE AT THE DOOR OF TAIWAN

Democracy is at the heart of American political science, and elections are perhaps the most important research subject in the discipline. In this context, the spatial theory has established a number of propositions, the most basic of which is probably the median voter theorem. For Taiwan to succeed in democratization, elections should also attract the most attention. In fact, Taiwans National Science Council and Ministry of Education grant more funding to the field of voting behavior than any other field, and the leading scholar in this field, Hu Fu, is the only political scientist holding the honor of Academician from the Academia Sinica. His major achievement has been to link Taiwans electoral experiences with the various democracy barometers (e.g., Eurobarometer, Afrobarometer) around the world. In the world of real politics, however, the institutionalization of the national elections for President was complete in Taiwan in 1996, and a quasi-two-party system has emerged since the 2004 presidential electoral campaign. The chance for Taiwan to become a normal state characterized by the spatial theory of voting seems promising. Applying the median voter theorem to Taiwan would constitute both a scientific achievement for Political Science and an increased prestige for Taiwan from the category of political underdevelopment to one conforming to a universal pattern of political behavior. It is thus more than reasonable to begin the re-examination of the rhetoric of Taiwan as a successful state in terms of this particular research agenda. As readers will see in the following discussion, however, the median voter theorem does not apply to Taiwan without some post-colonial qualification.
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Given the structure of the policy preference of the constituency, both the spatial theory of voting and the median voter theorem provide explanations on how competing parties maximize the vote received.1 Basically, the median voter theorem proposes that a median voter always casts his/her vote for the winning policy. Furthermore, in a one-on-one campaign, the median voters most preferred policy always wins. Recently, the spatial theory of voting has been applied to the case of Taiwans election and has been confirmed.2 Despite the difference in political culture (as well as the factor of campaign issues), once candidates identify the issue space created from the combination of the voters policy preferences, they tend to adjust their respective policy positions to compete for the support of the median voter. However, the 2004 presidential campaign in Taiwan witnessed a seeming anomaly. While the campaign took place as defined in the archetypal oneon-one model with only one salient issue (Taiwan independence vs. reunification of China),3 the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was able to win by running under a style of campaigning that most commentators considered to be radical. There was no apparent attempt by the DPP to win over the median voter. Instead, the DPPs strategy to dichotomize the constituency to the extremity was counter-intuitive from the vantage point of the spatial theory. The dominant issue in the campaign was about Taiwans identityits future relationship with China. The incumbent DPP or the supporting pangreen coalition favored an independent identity in comparison with that of the opposition, as the Kuomintang (KMT) or the supporting pan-blue coalition preferred to keep the future settlement with China open. Other issues vanished as the campaign continued. Most observers regarded the pangreens pro-independence campaign as being extremely radical because it focused on the identity issue, posed a loyalty challenge to the opposition, and contradicted the understanding that most voters in Taiwan would like to avoid confrontation with Beijing leaders who threatened to stop Taiwans independence at any cost. Previous polls had continuously indicated that the constituency favored the keeping of the status quo, in which Taiwan stopped short of claiming formal sovereign independence. The pan-blue coalition thus accused the DPP candidates, incumbent Chen Shui-bian and Annetta [AU: Annette?] Lu, of sacrificing national security for the unrealistic goal of independence. However, the pan-green coalition was able to gain considerable ground despite an initially poor showing in the poll. The widespread impression that the DPP was incompetent in governing national affairs became increasingly marginal, forcing the pan-blue coalition to adjust its identity position by conceding that independence will become a legitimate option for future generations, and that the current status of Taiwan vis--vis China is a state-to-state relationship. In actuality, this conforms to the position long
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held by the DPP. Spatial theorists of voting are eager to solve the mystery of how and why the incumbent candidates were able to win through a strategy that should have alienated the median voter.
THE IN-BETWEEN VOTERS

The spatial theory of voting predicts that voters cast votes for the candidate whose policy position is closest to theirs. There can be many different policy dimensions in the mind of the constituency, e.g., eagle vs. dove in foreign policy, liberal vs. conservative in social welfare, degree of federalism in the central-local division of power, and so on. Whether or not the issues debated on can be narrowed down to a single dimension determines the complexity of the policy space. In many developed countries, association among issues is so strong that they can be narrowed down to the fault line of liberalism vs. conservatism. For one-on-one campaigns, the strongest support for each party should group at the two ends of the policy space. This is especially for issues that can be narrowed down to a single dimension. Voters are distributed among the single-dimensioned space according to their policy preferences. The median voter is the voter whose choice becomes the threshold of winning. A weak version of the median voter theorem proposes that the winning policy position is always the position chosen by the median voter. When the competition takes place exclusively between two candidates, both sides strive to win over median voters support. As a result, the strong version of the median voter theorem predicts that in such a competition, the median voters initial policy preference will likely define the winning position. The spatial theory of voting makes one important assumption about voters policy preference. It assumes that voters form their policy preferences independently, so that the structure and dimension of the policy space are fixed constraints that all competing candidates face together. Voters preferences are exogenous and are already formed prior to the candidates campaigning activity. Candidates choose their policy positions afterwards.4 Today, cognitive psychologists challenge this assumption.5 The theory of cognitive dissonance predicts that voters want to maintain a balanced relationship between affective attitude and policy preference. This means that either the voters will read the favored candidates policy position as being much closer to their own than it actually is, or that they would shift their policy preferences toward the favored candidates. Maintaining such a balance motivates voters to perceive the candidates policy positions in ways that can avoid cognitive dissonance. In other words, the motivation thus derived is a more fundamental drive than the previous policy preference voters have. It is possible that voters would form a policy preference to adhere
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to the preferred candidates policy position. This proposition reduces the median voters choice to a result of the candidates campaign strategy. The theory of cognitive dissonance and the spatial theory of voting are supplemental to each other if one treats both voters and candidates as endogenous to the explanation of voting behavior. In other words, voters and candidates adapt to each others policy preferences. For voters, they want to resolve the dissonance between liking and policy preference. For candidates, they want to shorten the distance between the voters preference and their own policy position. Between cognitive dissonance and policy preference, the ultimate factor that ends up determining voters choice may vary on a case-to-case basis. Regardless of this, both the median voter and the median voters policy preference are susceptible to change, making the spatial theory decreasingly relevant. The revised version of the spatial theory should acknowledge that the candidates have some influence over where or who the median voter is. The changeable median voter position implies that any potential median voter is in an embarrassing rather than a privileged position, since the preferred candidates position may not be perfectly matched, or the disliked candidates position occasionally moves closer, so there is usually some dissonance present. The theory of cognitive dissonance is further questioned by the cultural theory which sees dissonance as the nature of life. For both the spatial theory and the cognitive theory, the voters always want to maintain internal balance. Although the cognitive theory conceives of liking as a more fundamental drive so that individual candidates policy position is an explaining as opposed to an explained variable, the arguments are similarly premised upon an internally balanced condition in which greater liking implies shorter distance. Yet, the cultural theory has no such premise. Rather, the cultural theory holds that it is possible that cognitive dissonance does not trigger defensive reaction in certain cultures. For example, there is the observation that Chinese political culture is capable of tolerating cognitive dissonance.6 Likewise, there can be hybrid juxtaposition between modern and traditional values rather than the resolution of inconsistent needs.7 Post-colonial writers are especially sensitive to an identity strategy that enables the local community to move back and forth comfortably between colonial and indigenous values.8 Finally, there is also the feminist epistemology that justifies the widespread androgynous phenomena in which actors abide by completely different gender rules contingent upon the situation.9 In short, the cultural theory finds no need to cope with dissonance on various occasions. The implication for the spatial theory is that the median voter who is theoretically in between the two ends can shift to either side whenever an appropriate clue appears. The cultural theory adds an uncertain element to both the spatial and cognitive theories. If, in a post-colonial society, those voters not grouping at
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the two ends are culturally hybrid, their adjustment in accordance with the liked candidates position can be drastic. This is because a hybrid voter is culturally accustomed to adjusting according to the situation. Since they can take a position at both ends, they should not be conceptualized as located between the two ends. The spatial theory, which portrays a single-dimensional space, is not appropriate for describing these voters. Even though the candidates see the campaign issues debated on as being highly associated with one another, the voters space can still be two dimensional and acceptable to both sides claim. The possibility that the voters space differs from the candidates space gives the spatial theory a powerful locus of application. When applied together, the spatial theory explains how the candidates manage the distance between voters and their own policy preferences, thus privileging the voters preference. The cognitive theory analyzes how the voters manage dissonance between liking and policy preferences, thus allowing the candidates to influence the voters preferences. Finally, the cultural theory discovers how voters communicate between different spaces in ways that candidates who subscribe only to the issue space cannot. Consequently, voters remaining in the second, nameless space possibly feel alienated from candidates who thought they were moving closer in the issue space.
THE ISSUE SPACE OF THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN IN TAIWAN

There were two major issues at the beginning of the presidential campaign. One of the issues raised by the opposition candidates questioned the competence of the incumbent party. The incumbent DPP responded with a call for in-depth reform. This was an issue related to governing capacity. This issue lost intensity as the other issue which the incumbent raised dominated the headlinesthe issue about Taiwans relationship with China. From the Taiwan-China issue, one can derive many subcategories. These may include whether or not Taiwan should hold a national referendum to assert its sovereignty separate from China, write a new constitution to indicate that Taiwan is independent from the Chinese state, or delay direct traveling between Taiwan and China to avoid too much economic and cultural involvement of Taiwan with China. The incumbent DPP engineered these debates primarily for the purpose of promoting a distinctive Taiwanese identity and sovereign jurisdiction vis--vis China. The issue is invariably how to choose between independence for Taiwan and reunification with China. In the face of the independence vs. reunification argument, no other major policy differences can attract media attention, with the exception of sporadic negative campaigning aimed at the candidates personalities.
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Figure 3.1.
The independence-reunification spectrum
The issue on Taiwanese independence has always played a significant role in Taiwans electoral history.10 For example, during the 2000 presidential election, the issue was intensively debated. In that campaign, pro-independence candidates often charged competitors as traitors of Taiwan in order to paint this idea into the pro-unification camp. Indeed, three major runners were divided by their more radical supporters on the independence issue: the opposition stereotyped as pro-independence, the non-aligned runner as pro-unification, and the incumbent as the status quo. None of the candidates were willing to present a clear-cut position on Taiwans future status. Polls consistently showed that the majority of voters preferred no change to the status quo. While avoiding taking a specific position themselves, the running candidates attempted to accuse their opponents of trying to upset the status quo. The incumbent KMT, for example, accused the opposition DPP of being war-prone, suggesting that its pro-independence position would cause armed conflict with Beijing. Likewise, the DPP labeled the non-aligned frontrunner as a China walker, suggesting that the latter would betray Taiwan. However, since no one dared to take a position on this topic, the other issue on reform vs. stability became hotly debated. Here, the DPP and the non-aligned runner were allies in denouncing the KMT as a corrupt force. In any case, the issue space in 2000 was multidimensional, with three major running candidates. In comparison, the 2004 campaign was archetypal for the spatial theory. In 2004, the poll showed no significant change concerning the majority voters preference for the status quo, which meant no support for a quick resolution on the independence issue. Arguably, there could have been a slight move toward the pro-independence end of the dimension, but overall, the median voters should have sat somewhere in the middle. The spatial theory pointed out that both candidates should have carried out a moderate campaign on the independence-reunification issue and should have forced the other side to take the more radical stand. The incumbent DPP did not adopt such a moderate strategy. On the contrary, they raised all controversial matters that were traditionally associated with radical pro-independence candidates when they ran for a slot in the multi-seated campaign. For those in such a multi-seated campaign, the extreme approach could well be a rational strategy, since they only required the support of a minimal portion of the constituency to win a seat. In comparison, running a national campaign by making assertions on radical issues is not. However, incumbent candidates were able to catch up quickly
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from being over 20% behind, after they adopted the pro-independence stance.11 The strategy did not meet the expectation of the spatial theory. The voters did not also respond in ways that confirmed the spatial theory. In fact, the spatial theory failed to analyze the campaign of 2000. None of the three major candidates that year tried to distinguish themselves from their opponents on the independence issue as a rational campaigner should have done. In 2000, the victorious DPP candidates also failed to distinguish themselves from the non-aligned runner on the reform issue, or from the KMT, on the independence issue. The DPP campaign strategy appeared extremely radical in 2004 as compared to that in 2000. The DPP candidates used the term the middle way to characterize their China policy in 2000, hoping to persuade voters that they were, at most, moderate on the independence issue. In 2004, they no longer stressed the importance of reform. They did not even bother to have a policy platform. It is true that voters do not usually read these platforms, but having a platform is traditionally considered as an important part of image competition. The DPP claimed that their candidates needed no platform because the governments annual budget was their platform. This ran the risk of alienating middle-class voters who wanted to know the specifics. It might be more convincing if one explains the situation as the DPP deliberately bypassing platform competition in order to avoid distraction from the independence issue. As early as 2002, Chen Shuibian commented on the radical independence proposition in which he said that each side of the Taiwan Straits was a state by itself. To prevent angry Beijing from resorting to military means, Washington intervened and pressured Chen to tone down his proposition. Chen reiterated that he had no intention to declare Taiwanese independence or change the status quo. During the campaign, however, he repeatedly appealed to the same each side a state (yi bian yi guo) proposition. Both the opposition and Washington considered this a move toward independence. The DPP candidates denied this charge. They claimed that the each side a state proposition was a correct statement that described the status quo. Since it was a statement describing the status quo, it was not an active statement on Taiwanese independence. Rather, it simply consolidated the status quo. In response, Washington announced that it would judge for itself what the status quo meant without counting campaign remarks in Taiwan, and the status quo was that Taiwan was not an independent country. In any case, the DPPs proposition is anything but a moderate strategy. Consequently, related discussion and debates made daily headlines during the campaign period. A second radical move taken by the DPP was to push for a new constitution despite repeated warnings from Beijing which promised military retaliation should the drafting of a new constitution occur. Under the pressure
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of a changing campaign atmosphere, opposition candidates responded by proposing an agenda of constitutional amendment. The contents of the proposed changes to the constitutional frame were never the focus of either party. They wanted to know whether the DPP wanted to add amendments or draft a new constitution. Chen later took the clear position that he wanted a new constitution and not just an amendment.12 He suggested that there should be the birth of a new country under the new constitution.13 Chen said to the Washington Post during an interview that the current constitution was never enforced in actuality, and that Taiwan needed a new constitution in order to be a normal country. To make it clear that this was a new constitution, the DPP concentrated its efforts to push for a national referendum. This proved to be the final highlight of the 2004 campaign. The DPP decided that a national referendum should be called to approve the new constitution. This would happen presumably in 2008, the same year that Lee Teng-hui, Chens predecessor, proposed for Taiwan to declare independence. The DPPs calendar for the new constitution echoed Lees independence timetable. It would be the year for the Beijing Olympic Games, hoping that they would not ruin the occasion with a war in the Taiwan Straits. Lee argues that the Games as well as the investment opportunities associated with the preparation for the Games could become a lethal attraction to Taiwan. Therefore, the chance for independence would vanish after 2008. In order to prepare for independence in 2008, the Taiwan constituency should begin to practice referendum as early as possible. Moreover, holding a referendum would be a significant move itself toward independence. Chen would like to hold a national referendum on the date of the Presidential election. He hoped that doing so would strengthen the image of national unity. At first, the DPP insisted that this should be arranged outside the current legal frame to signal that this was some sort of self-determination for a new state. Chen argued that referendum was a natural right; therefore, it needed no constitutional or legal clause to provide for it. This argument purported to insinuate that presently Taiwan was under no state and is thus outside of China. Nevertheless, upon the insistence of the opposition, the legislature passed the Referendum Law which had the authority to forbid the holding of a referendum on the day of the presidential election. Meanwhile, Washington opposed the holding of this referendum for obvious reasons; this was too much like a declaration of independence. Nevertheless, these did not stop Chen. In fact, the DPP candidates wanted the referendum so much that they were willing to pay any price, as long as the national referendum could be executed on the day of the presidential election. The pan-green camp never concealed their real intention behind the holding of a referendum, which was effectively a step toward independence.
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DPP spokesmen accused those who opposed the referendum of being proChina. Moreover, they repeated the assertion that the election was about the choice between Taiwan and Chinavoting for the opposition would be tantamount to voting for China and hence a move of defection. Chen then declared that he would rather not run for the Presidency if he could not hold the referendum on election day.14 In response to Washingtons fear that pro-independence activities were getting out of control, Chen assured them that the referendum was an attempt to maintain the status quo which was one country on each side. Those who could destroy the status quo, Chen charged, were those who pointed missiles at Taiwan. This insinuation referred to the Beijing authorities.
A CULTURAL THEORY PROPOSITION

The DPPs campaign strategy was entirely opposite to the expectation of the spatial theory. When compared with the opposition candidates who refused to take a side on the issue of independence vs. reunification, the DPP appeared radical and extreme. On several occasions, the DPP even suggested that its candidates were running against China. Washington feared possible military escalation throughout the campaign. The opposition denounced the DPP for provoking Beijing recklessly. Strangely, toward the end of the campaign and upon witnessing a drop in their popularity, the opposition candidates also began to talk about independence. During the final stage, opposition parties acknowledged that independence could be a legitimate choice in the future. At one point, the opposition candidates even agreed that the current situation was one country on each side. All these adjustments made by the opposition angered Beijing because there were no longer anti-independence candidates in Taiwan. The voters position on the independence-reunification dimension showed a fast shift toward independence, following the DPPs policy position taking and followed by the oppositions policy position taking. The spatial theory could not have successfully anticipated the radical independence strategy that assisted the DPP candidates in catching up. Opposition candidates adapted to the rising support for the incumbent by also moving toward the independence end of the spectrum, hoping to maintain its seemingly median position. The incumbent party, instead of the voters, became the force that defined the structure of the issue space. The implication is that the voters policy preference was either absent in the first place, or was vulnerable to the persuasion of the incumbent candidates. The situation in which the candidates are the leaders and the voters are the followers is not what the spatial theory intends to explain. The theory of cognitive dissonance can give supplemental explanation here.15
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It states that voters want to shorten the policy distance between the liked candidates and their own. If voters like Chen, they may want to move closer to Chens policy position. However, not everyone adapted to the radical independence campaign. Both strong pro-independence and pro-reunification voters did not have to shift their position. The pro-reunification voters who found the pan-green policy position further away from theirs felt certainty and hence no need to adapt. On the other hand, pro-independence voters had no reason not to support Chen. Those who made adjustments had to be those in the middle of the independence-reunification spectrum. However, it was not possible that these voters became DPP supporters because they were in the middle of the spectrum and the DPP was moving away from the middle. In other words, these are the voters to whom the theory of cognitive dissonance can apply. When the DPPs position turned radical, they wanted to balance their liking of the DPP candidates by adapting to the new DPP policy position. However, one problem was still left in this supplemented explanation: if voters preferred the DPP candidates in the first place, why had they not expressed support for them before the DPP turned radical? To explain this emerging support for the DPP candidates, one suspects that it was the more radical policy that made the voters prefer the DPP candidates. They then wanted to keep abreast with the new radical policy in order to maintain cognitive consonance. In brief, the radical policy generated a positive attitude toward the DPP, and the pressure to defend against cognitive dissonance led to the shift of policy preference toward a pro-independence policy. Neither the spatial theory nor the cognitive dissonance theory can explain the increased preference for Chen once he turned radical. The reason why a radical policy generates acceptance and popularity has something to do with Taiwans uncertain identity. The Chinese civil war that split China into two separate jurisdictions in 1949 contextualizes contemporary Taiwans identity complex. The complex was inherited through Taiwans fifty years of colonization under Japan before the defeated KMT fled to Taiwan. On one hand, the Japanese post-colonial legacy convinced the local elite, who once lived through colonial modernity, to see the Chinese origin of the immigrant KMT as inferior and backward. On the other hand, the KMTs Chinese legacy treated anything associated with the Japanese in local elite stratum as shameful. With the KMT losing the civil war and, fifty five years later, the presidential campaign, the identity enigma has resurfaced once again. The puzzle concerning the relationship with China is particularly poignant. If Taiwan continues to regard itself as part of China (as depicted by the KMTs Chinese historiography), post-colonial Taiwan could only be an inferior peripheral province of China. Further, if the pro-independence identity prevails, the self-image of the Chinese Han-immigrants in Taiwan would have no respectful treatment. In fact, this Chinese self-image of theirs
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has prompted reinstallation of relations in all aspects between Taiwan and China since the 1980s. Consequently, the typical post-colonial indeterminacy in the areas of cultural and political identity registers markedly in Taiwan. Voters feel the lowering of their self-esteem, being either Chinese or anti-Chinese. Therefore, they prefer the choice of both or neither. Some maintain strong emotional ties with China while being extremely critical of the Chinese way of governing; others feel alienated from the Chinese identity, yet are intensively connected with China economically and socially. It is possible for an individual in Taiwan to feel comfortable with both independence and reunification, whichever works for the time being or the particular situation. By contrast, a person who is alienated from the uncertainty associated with either cause may want to avoid any shifts away from the status quo, which appears less risky in comparison with any other proposed solution. The issue space composed of the spectrum between independence and reunification is not adequate in placing these ambivalent yet flexible voters. The post-colonial voters ready to embrace either of independence and reunification experienced an internal split when external conditions compelled them to choose sides. In the 2004 presidential election, the DPPs campaign strategy served as this external pressure that threw the voters into endless loops of self-doubt. When the DPP candidates appeared to be firm, this could have become the solution. At least it was a better answer than the deliberate indecision of the opposition candidates who refused to take sides, having followed the spatial theory. The opposition, therefore, aroused anxiety among voters to the extent that the opposition strategy reflected and exposed the embarrassing position of voters who desired but received only ambiguous response. In contrast, the firm stand offered by the DPP touched a nerve because independence was among the acceptable options for those in the middle of the independence-reunification spectrum. In other words, the oppositions strategy to show the voters that the opposition candidates were equally uncertain about Taiwans future fell upon deaf ears. The incumbent candidates named the status quo as one country each side. By naming the status quo as one version of Taiwanese independence, they could follow up with the claim that they were neither changing the status quo nor promoting Taiwanese independence. Even though this appeared to be a move toward independence in the eyes of Washington, Beijing, and of opposition leaders, this claim sounds reasonable to those voters who felt alienated from any platform of change. In comparison, the opposition accepts both independence and reunification as a possible future solution but refused to name the status quo or even honor its maintenance. The contrast between naming the status quo as independence and not naming it for the sake of future possibilities could easily push those voters who are suspicious of any platform of change toward the incumbent.
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Clearly, the cultural theory qualifies to the spatial theory. The spatial theory identifies the issue space in the Presidential campaign. In the middle of this space, there are voters who are either alienated from both ends or simultaneously susceptible to the two ends. The cultural theory explains why these middle voters are undetermined voters. Their positions in the spectrum are not fixed or prior to the candidates side taking and are hence not the same median voter that the spatial theory would have expected. Furthermore, some of these voters felt anxious and needed a solution. The cognitive theory helps in explaining how these middle voters moved with the candidates who were willing to offer a firm solution, thereby changing the position of the so-called median voter.
THE ISSUE SPACE FOR HYBRID VOTERS

How many hybrid voters are there in the independence-reunification spectrum? The result of polls provides a clue as to how voters feel about changing the status quo and how cost-benefit calculation would affect their feelings toward change. Regarding the feeling toward change, when asked if changing the name of the country from the Republic of China to the Republic of Taiwan or accepting Beijings reunification model of one country with two systems would endanger Taiwan, the number of those who answered possibly yes or definitely yes to both questions amounts to 814 among a total of 1,674 respondents. Eighty-eight answered possibly no or definitely no to both questions. The presence of both categories of both are acceptable and neither is acceptable is a clue to the existence of hybrid voters. Hybridity in terms of identity can be mediated by cost-benefit concerns. Regarding the relevance of cost-benefit calculation, two questions that lower the cost of change were proposed. When asked whether or not reunification could be accepted if Taiwan and China reach similar levels of development in all aspects, and whether or not independence could be accepted if Taiwan could maintain peace with China, 365 answered agree and strongly agree to both questions, while 267 answered strongly disagree and disagree to both. For those who answered positively and negatively to both questions, the single dimension of independence vs. reunification does not accommodate well. A two-dimensioned space can resolve this, with the horizontal axis representing independence, and the vertical axis representing reunification, resulting in four logical categories: independence is acceptable but reunification is not, reunification is acceptable but independence is not, both are acceptable, and neither is acceptable. Table 3.1. suggests that nearly half of the respondents find change toward any direction to be unacceptable. However, Table 3.2. further indicates that a change toward a certain and low-cost
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Table 3.1. The attitudes toward identity change in abstraction
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Some people say Taiwan could accept the Chinese Communist Party's model of one country two system. Do you think this would cause damage to our society? Definitely Possibly Some People think that we should change the Republic of China into the Republic of Taiwan. Do you think it wouldcause damage to our society?
Definitely Possibly Possibly not Definitively not Missing Total 188 156 73 61 19 497 148 322 102 19 50 641
Possibly Definitively not not Missing Total

86 111 61 10 19 287 21 7 8 9 1 46 21 29 18 32 132 203 464 625 262 102 221 1674
Source: National Science Council TEDS 2003.
future is acceptable to over 20% (i.e., 365) of the respondents. The two-dimensional space addresses the concerns of the cultural theory in conceptualizing voters in the middle to be hybrid voters. Cultural theorists would consider them to be expressing anxiety about the uncertain identity in the status quo. For those who belong to the category of either is acceptable, the cultural interpretation would be that they are anxious about the potentially inferior position caused by a single-directional change as measured by either axis. Hybrid voters from both categories demonstrate that pro-independence is not the same as anti-reunification, or vice versa. In order to anticipate where a voter would fall on one axis by his position on another axis, a third
Table 3.2. The attitudes toward identity change with a low cost
Some people say that if Mainland China reaches the same economic, social, and political conditions, the two sides of the Taiwan Straits should be reunified. Do you agree or disagree? Strongly agree Some people say that if Taiwan can declare independence and yet maintain a peaceful relationship with the Chinese Communist, Taiwan should become a new country. Do you agree or disagree?
Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree Missing Total 15 8 12 22 2 59
Agree
35 307 219 46 26 633
Disagree
41 326 220 23 25 635
Strongly disagree Missing Total

54 24 7 17 1 103 7 39 37 4 157 224 152 704 495 112 211 1674
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Figure 3.2.
The two-dimensioned space of independence vs. reunification
dimension should be introduced. This is the dimension between the status quo and change. If a voter does not support independence or reunification, his or her attitude toward the status quo is necessarily positive. On the other hand, if a voter is in agreement with both independence and reunification as long as the cost is low, his attitude toward the status quo should be negative. If a voter is pro-independence but anti-reunification, or vice versa, his attitude toward the status quo is partially positive and partially negative. In other words, the attitude toward the status quo could be equally relevant as compared with the attitude measured by the conventional independencereunification spectrum to the determination of the voters choice. The opposition candidates refusal to name the status quo and the deliberate keeping of the status quo open to uncertain future changes could not address the voters concern for certainty. For the DPP candidates, the status quo had the name of one country on each side. This was minimally acceptable to those who supported independence as well as the hybrid voters, whether they desire certainty in the certain state of independence or in the relative certainty that the status quo could provide. At the time of the polling, the DPP was behind the opposition by a large gap. There were 323 respondents who expressed their choice for the DPP, compared with 492 for the opposition. Note that the majority of undecided voters came from the two hybrid categories. Judging from the result of the election in which each side garnered roughly 50% of the total votes, the majority of the hybrid voters who remained undecided or silent at the time of the polling backed the opposition. Indeed, as the DPP turned radical on the independence-reunification spectrum, the partys rating increased. This is in line with the cultural theorys interpretation that the rad-
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Table 3.3.
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The attitudes toward identity change in abstraction and vote preferences
Neither identities
KMT DPP Undecided Absent Abstaining Missing No reply Don't know Total 325 152 251 38 1 0 19 28 814
Independence
22 123 91 14 1 0 2 2 255
Reunification
120 22 56 13 0 1 5 8 225
Both identities
240 26 28 7 0 0 1 2 88
Total
491 323 426 72 2 1 27 40 1382
Source: National Science Council TEDS 2003. Neither is the sum of those who answered definitely or possibly to both questions in Table 3.1. Both is the sum of those who answered definitely not or possibly not to both questions in Table 3.1. Independence is the sum of those who answered definitely and possibly only to the question in the column but not to that in the row. Unification is the sum of those who answered definitely and possibly only to the question in the row but not to the question in the column.
ical campaign for the cause of independence provided a sense of certainty to the hybrid voters. The major reason for the DPPs gains should have been the increase in support among the hybrid categories. In fact, those who remained suspicious of both the formula of one country, two systems and the renaming of the Republic of China into the Republic of Taiwan comprised the largest number of undecided voters at the time of the polling which amounted to 251, as compared with the 325 who expressed support for the opposition, and 152 for the incumbent. It is safe to infer that those who later narrowed the gap for the incumbent candidates came primarily from the hybrid voters. For those in the minority who belonged to the category of reunification is acceptable but independence is not but said they would support the DPP, must have made their decisions on grounds unrelated to the identity issue at hand. This is why a radical pro-independence adjustment of the DPP did not alienate this group of voters. Similarly, those who accepted both peaceful independence and democratic reunification, and were wary of both, witnessed a higher ratio of undecided voters. They accounted for the shift toward the DPP. To further test the cultural interpretation, six other questions measuring the attitude toward independence and reunification were added to make a total of 10 questions to which a factor analysis is applied. Two major factors are obtained from the principal component analysis of these 10 questions. The first one is related to the strength of the attitude toward independence and reunification. The second one is the attitude toward change and the status quo. The new two-factored (or two-dimensioned) space is
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The attitudes toward identity change with a low cost and vote preference
Neither identities
KMT DPP Undecided Absent Abstaining Missing No reply Don't know Total 106 39 87 19 1 1 3 11 267
Reunification
183 21 66 11 0 0 12 6 299
Independence
80 179 148 24 1 0 6 7 445
Both identities
117 90 124 17 0 0 6 11 365
Total
486 329 425 71 2 1 27 35 1376
Source: National Science Council TEDS 2003. Neither is the sum of those who answered strongly disagree or disagree to both questions in Table 3.1. Both is the sum of those who answered strongly agree or agree to both questions in Table 3.2. Independence is the sum of those who answered strongly agree and agree only to the question in the row but not to that in the column. Unification is the sum of those who answered strongly agree and agree only to the question in the column but not to the question in the row.
not the same as the two-dimensioned space composed of the independence and reunification axis of Figure 3.2.. Interestingly, the second factor, which is concerned with the attitude toward change and the status quo, is positively associated with both pro-independence and pro-unification attitudes. This suggests that at one end of this dimension, both are acceptable, and at the other end, neither is acceptable. The two non-hybrid categoriesindependence is acceptable but reunification is not, and reunification is acceptable but independence is notwhich compose the independence-reunification spectrum according to the campaigners issue space appears distinctive. As for the second dimension concerning the attitude toward change and the status quo, the attitude precisely points to the post-colonial kind of choice, reflecting the indecision of voters hybrid identity. The attachment to the status quo at one end implies a suspicious attitude toward any change; at the other end, the desire for change reveals a preference for any change that might work. Those in the middle who are neither in the position of both acceptable nor neither acceptable accept just one direction of change. However, the middle voters in the second dimension are comparatively moderate in their attitude toward independence or reunification because the stronger beliefs should be located in the first dimension. The DPP candidates were successful because their advocacy for radical independence in the name of the status quo could attract the attention of a large number of voters in both dimensions. The oppositions campaign strategy avoided taking sides on the independence-reunification spectrum. This puts its candidates at a disadvantage, perhaps even denying them any position, in the second issue space. These candidates provided no clue to
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Figure 3.3.
The second issue dimension of the constituency
voters as to the direction of change, nor did they commit themselves to the maintenance of the status quo. The strategy of deliberate ambiguity could not resolve the anxiety of either the status quo voters who were suspicious of any potential change, or the change voters who disliked the uncertainty of the status quo. In contrast, although the DPPs radical policy contradicted the positive attitude toward reunification, it nonetheless satisfied the hybrid attitudes revealed by the second dimension. According to the candidates issue space, voters with hybrid attitudes would be placed in the middle of the independence-reunification spectrum. Presumably, the median voters belong here, yet in actuality, they are subject to the persuasion of firm DPP campaigning. Contrary to the prediction of the spatial theory, the median voter on the campaigned issue space was probably among those who were most vulnerable to the seemingly radical policy. The shooting incident on the day before the election, which slightly injured the incumbent candidates, resulted in the shift of a significant number of votes to the DPP.16 This is plausible given the statistics shown in the tables. The statistics suggested that voters were anxious about the unsustainability of the status quo or the inaccessibility of a certain future. The gunshot incident apparently increased the anxiety and the desire for some
Figure 3.4.
The two-dimensional space of the constituency
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form of certainty. Given the independence-reunification being the only issue space during the campaign, it is natural that voters would want to assign meaning to the incident on the same issue space. The incumbents solution to the identity crisis in Taiwan appears much more attractive than the oppositions evasive answer to the voters who are under the pressure of uncertainty. In fact, after the shooting incident took place, it was suspected to be the work of Beijing. This was in line with the DPP campaign discourse. In contrast, the opposition did not have any ready narrative available. If the DPP had taken a moderate attitude toward independence, it would be very difficult to know how the shooting incident would have been interpreted. Institutionally, the incumbent was the representative of the status quo; the DPP reinforced this image through discursive means. The shooting, which symbolized a degree of destruction of certainty, could have raised the concern over the status quo and the support for the incumbent accordingly.
THE MEDIAN VOTER THAT DISAPPEARS

The voters attitudes for the 2004 presidential election in Taiwan can be broken down into four categories. While two of these attitudes appear apart on both ends of the independence-reunification spectrum, the two other categories are actually composed of a second issue dimension, the one measuring the attitude toward change and the status quo. This explains why the oppositions strategy to win the median voter through a deliberately ambiguous identity position did not work well. There was no median voter to be attracted on the independence-reunification spectrum. The hybrid voters, instead of the median voter, were those with the decisive votes in this particular election. They decided to follow the incumbent candidates because the latters determined campaign style provided a relatively more certain solution to the hybrid voters indecision on their identities, which are torn between Taiwan and China. The sense of certainty, which might have improved trust or liking toward the incumbent candidates, may further explain the movement of hybrid voters toward the independence end of the spectrum. The cultural theory qualifies the spatial theory by pointing out the difference between the voters issue space and the candidates issue space. The hybrid voters can empower themselves by making a decision that is faithful to their own issue space, and where there are no candidates competing. The cognitive theory contributes to the spatial theory by showing how the candidates could lead, intentionally or otherwise, the voters into a certain policy preference not taken in the beginning. With the supplement of both the cultural theory and the cognitive theory, a status quo change dimension has been discovered and interpreted. This dimension explains why the median
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Table 3.5. Factor analysis of issue space-Two Factors
89
Component 1 2
Some People think that we should change the Republic of China into the Republic of Taiwan. Do you think this would cause damage to our society? Some people say that Taiwan could accept the Chinese Communist Party's model of one country two system. Do you think this would cause damage to our society? Some people say that if Taiwan can declare independence and yet maintain a peaceful relationship with the Chinese Communist, Taiwan should become a new country. Do you agree or disagree? Some people say that if Mainland China reaches the same economic, social, and political conditions, the two sides of the Taiwan Straits should be reunified. Do you agree or disagree? However backward China is, I feel most proud to be a Chinese. To control Taiwan's own fate is to sever relations with China and establish a life community for the 23 million people of Taiwan. We must patiently overcome the difference in the way of life Between Taiwan and Mainland China in order to achieve reunification of the country. China being China and Taiwan being Taiwan, China has no reason to intervene in Taiwan's quest for autonomous independence. Taiwan must join China in order to have a future. The Chinese history belongs to China; we ought to create Taiwan's own history. -.542 .493
.364 .604
.589 .303
-.551
.354
.602 .718
.144 .176
-.589 .701
.314 .061
-.708 .681
.176 .222
voter on the independence-reunification spectrum did not exist, and why a radical policy won a single-issue, one-on-one campaign.
NOTES
1. For more discussion, refer to the frequently cited work by Duncan Black, On the Rationale of Group Decision-making, Journal of Political Economy 56 (1948): 2334; Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper Collins, 1957). 2. Wang Dingming, The Voting Effect and the Vote Choice of Policy Identification (zhengce rentong xia de toupiao xiaoyong yu xuanze), Xuanju Yaniu 10, no. 1
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(May 2003): 131166; Wang Dingming, The Impacts of Policy Issues on the Voting Behavior in Taiwan (zhengce yiti dui Taiwan xuanju xingwei zhi yingxiang), Xuanju Yanjiu 82 (Nov. 2001): 95123; John Hsieh, Emerson Niou and Lin Huiping, Issue Voting in the 1994 Gubernatorial and Municipal Elections (minguo bashisan nian shengshizhang xuanju zhogn zhi yiti toupiao) Xuanju Yanjiu (Electoral Studies) 2, no. 1 (May 1995): 7791. 3. More precisely, it has been pro-independence vs. anti-independence. Few in Taiwan advocate reunification at the present time. 4. Both neo-Marxist and cultural studies critics reject the assumption that the society and the state are separate, or the process of policy making moves from the society to the state. This is the assumption long held by system theorists/structural function theorists such as Sydney Verba, David Easton, Gabriel Almond, and so on. 5. Donald Kinder, Political Person Perception: The Asymmetrical Influence of Sentiment and Choice on Perceptions of Presidential Candidates, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36 (1978): 859871; Edward Brent and Donald Granberg, Subjective Agreement with the Presidential Candidates of 1976 and 1980, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 42 (1982): 393403; Victor C. Ottati, Martin Fishbein and Susan E. Middlestadt, Determinants of Voters Beliefs about the Candidates Stands on the Issues: The Role of Evaluative Bias Heuristics and the Candidates Expressed Message, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 55 (1988): 517529. 6. Lucian Pye, The Mandarin and the Cadre: Chinas Political Culture (Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan, 1988); Tani Barlow, ed., Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997). 7. David Der-wei Wang, Fin-de-sicle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 18491911 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997); Daniel Bell, When the East Meets the West (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). 8. Lily H. M. Ling, Postcolonial Learning between Asia and the West: Conquest of Desire (London: Palgrave, 2001); Chih-yu Shih, Navigating Sovereignty: World Politics Lost in China (London: Palgrave, 2003). 9. Rey Chow, Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995); Aihwa Ong and Michael G. Peletz, eds., Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia (Berkeley: Uniersity of California Press, 1995). 10. Chen Yiyan and Sheng Xingyuan, Political Cleavage and Party Competition (zhengzhi fenqi yu zhengdang jingzheng) , Xuanju Yanjiu (Electoral Studies) 10, no. 1(May 2003): 739; Sheng Xingyuan, The Reunificaiton-Independence Issue and the Voting Behavior of Taiwanese Voters (tong du yiti yu Taiwan xuanmin de toupiao xingwei) Xuanju Yanjiu 9, no. 1 (May 2002): 4179; Chen Wenjun, The Reunificaiton-Independence Issue and the Voting Behavior of Voters (tong du yiti yu xuanmin de toupiao xingwei), Xuanju Yanjiu 2, no. 2 (May 1995): 99135. 11. See TVBS poll Center <http://www.tvbs.com.tw/news/poll_center/default .asp> for the change of support at polling a year before the elections. From trailing 20% behind, Chen was able to move within 16% after the announcement of pursuing a new Constitution, within 10% after the referendum became the most debated issue, and within 5% after the public debates on referendum were held.
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12. Liu Baojie, Bian: A Plebiscite for New Constitution in 2006 (Bian: 2006 nian gongtou zhi xian), United Daily, 12 Nov. 2003, A1. 13. Chen Minfeng, Bian: Problematic Constitutionality, Taiwan Not a Normal Country (Bian: xianzheng youwenti, Taiwan shi bu wanzheng guo jia), United Daily, 7 Oct. 2003, A11. 14. Liu Baojie, Bian: Rather Referendum than Reelection (Bian: gongtou lianren ningxuan gongtou), United Daily, 16 Jan. 2004, A1. 15. Robert Zajonc, Feeling and Thinking: Preferences need no Inferences, American Psychologist 35 (1980): 151175; George Marcus, The Structure of Emotional Response: 1984 Presidential Candidates, American Political Science Review 82 (1988): 737761; Victor C. Ottati, Determinants of Political Judgments: The Joint Influence of Normative and Heuristic Rules, Political Behavior 12 (1990): 159179; Donald Granberg and Edward Brent, Perceptions of Issue Positions of Presidential Candidates, American Scientist 68 (1980): 617625. 16. Assume that the median voter belongs to the category of non-partisan voters or middle class voters. The impact of the gunshot incident on the voting decision on these two groups was significant. Chen trailed by 9% from 24% in the non-partisan category before the incident, to lead 3% from 30% afterwards. Similarly, Chen trailed significantly from behind in the age cohort of 30 to 39 of the middleclass category before the incident, but led 3% from 42% immediately after. TVBS Polling Center at <http://www.tvbs.com.tw/FILE_DB/files/osaka/200404/osaka20040427193847.pdf> (18:3022:30, 19 Mar. 2004), with a valid sample of 1055, a confidence level of 95%, and a range of error between 3% and -3%).
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The Loss of an Ally
TAIWAN MATTERS, UNWITTINGLY

The Bush Doctrine, now widely circulated, discussed, and practiced, may mean different things to those of different ideology, gender, citizenship, class, ethnicity, occupation, and religionall of whom may respond in their own particular way. Some of these responses will incur different readings from the Bush Administration, and because these interactions cannot be determined in advance, the Bush Administration may lose its monopoly over the interpretation of its own strategic design. For example, the Bush Doctrine as implemented in Iraq may suggest to some people in the Middle East the likelihood of an enhanced confrontation between the Israelis and Palestinians. Those who would want to see stronger U.S. pressure on Israel may have worried that this would destroy the atmosphere of compromise required for a settlement.1 On the other hand, they may have wanted to seize the opportunity after the U.S. invasion in Iraq to push the Bush Administration to demonstrate its good will toward the Islamic world by making concessions on the Palestinian question. Neither is directly related to the origin of the Bush Doctrine which is embedded in the 9/11 tragedy.2 Both, however, would distract the Bush Doctrine from its next target in Tehran, Pyongyang, or Damascus. One of the most noted items in the Bush Doctrine is the claimed right of the United States to take unilateral action for the purpose of preempting a potential attack. However, if American unilateralism is interpreted by an ally out of a motivation unrelated to Bushs war against Saddam Hussein, unilateralism will no longer be just unilateral. Many countries joining U.S. unilateralism makes the future of the Bush Doctrine more unpredictable,
93
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since it incorporates many hidden agendas not easily detectable. In the case of Taiwan, the unreserved support given to the Bush Administration by the authorities in Taipei may have more substantial repercussions than can be anticipated today. A Taiwan that the Bush Administration can take for granted today is not the same Taiwan that existed in the eyes of earlier strategic thinkers such as Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and Zbigniew Brzezinski. The earlier authorities in Taipei displayed too strong an agency to be useful to Washingtons China policy, embedded first in containment and then in rapprochement. However, the new, useful Taipei that has emerged in the 1990s might drag an eager Washington unwillingly into a premature showdown with the PRC. Taipei has never been just a passive ally waiting for instructions. From Washingtons point of view, a small player such as Taipei is unimportant, if not totally nonexistent, in considerations of world politics as well as in the determination of U.S. global strategy. Taipei authorities must agree on this, as it is supported by all available information.3 What is missing in this great-power perspective is an understanding that how the Bush Doctrine is read or misread in Taipei can affect future U.S. strategic thinking on China. Underneath an apparently complete compliance with the U.S. global strategy remains Taipeis little war against China. Along with the evolving politics of identity in Taiwan, the nature of this little war has changed greatly in the past, followed by Washingtons reevaluation of Taiwans strategic value to the United States. Equally important is Taipeis own agenda that may sometimes catch Washington by surprise. In other words, the full-fledged support from Taipei that Washington currently enjoys does not mean control over the evolution of the situation in Taiwan. In short, through some incidental connections, Taiwans identity politics can lead to a change in the United States China strategy, the result of which cannot be fully anticipated by Washington. Washington has made the mistake of overlooking Taipeis dual identities, an internal conflict which has almost completely engrossed Taipeis policy thinking. With both Chinese and Japanese post-colonial identities surfacing in Taiwanese politics since the early 1990s, to affirm Taiwans national identity requires that one be either anti-Chinese or pro-Chinese. In this context, Taipeis attitude toward China and its U.S. policy become, in essence, identity statements. To assert its independence, Taipei views its pro-U.S. gestures as an anti-China demonstration. As a result, Taipei rarely attends to Washingtons strategic need to cooperate with Beijing. Ironically, this lack of sensitivity toward Washingtons real interests comes with Taipeis claim of total support for the Bush Doctrine. On the other hand, in order to avoid a psychological split, a Taiwanese needs to be alternatively Chinese and anti-Chinese in accordance with the situation. The fact that Taiwanese citizens are moving between Taiwan and China freely, in large numbers, and without a
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fixed political loyalty renders the governments support for the Bush Doctrine almost an irrelevant commitment. The governments national identity strategy together with the peoples self-therapeutic response has thus given the Bush Doctrine meanings that are incomprehensible for Washington. This chapter will discuss how Taipeis quest for independent statehood has successfully enticed at least some Washingtonians into an assessment of the advantage of supporting the pro-independence authorities in Taipei, and how this experience subsequently inspires their responses to the Bush Doctrine. Meanwhile, the chapter will explain why taking Taipeis cooperation at face value may backfire due to other hidden transcripts that Taipei authorities refrain from mentioning when dealing with Washington. Lastly, the chapter will suggest a reason why Taipeis total compliance with the Bush Doctrine may create an unwanted burden for Washington. The chapter will specifically dispute the view that Taipei is vulnerable to the U.S.China relationship not by arguing that Taipei is sufficiently autonomous but by uncovering the weapon of the weak unrecognized by all sides, including Taipei. The chapter will also question the wisdom of Taipeis strategy of total dependency which will reduce its agency in reinterpreting the Bush Doctrine. Ironically, Taiwans agency in coping with high politics may undermine the realpolitik assumption shared among Washington, Beijing, and Taipei that only power and interests matter.
ONE REALISM, SEVERAL INTERPRETATIONS

In Taiwan, the realist approach dominates the official as well as academic literature on Taiwans U.S. policy. The triangular relations game theory particularly attracts writers within the policy circle. There is a good reason for this. Since Taiwan is unable to compete with Beijing globally for diplomatic recognition, the Taiwanese like the triangular perspective which at face value gives Taiwan nominal equal status.4 In reality, many recognize that Taiwan is an unequal or asymmetric partner in the triangular formula.5 Taiwans policy behavior is a product of the actual triangular relationship, responding to the existing power structure in which the two other players dominate.6 There is in fact very little room left for Taipei to maneuver after Beijing and Washington each decide their respective strategies. Taipei is in no position to influence Washingtons assessment of Taipeis strategic value at any given moment. Even the literature promoting Taiwanese independence and Taiwanese nationalism assigns the agency to Washington, leaving Taiwan with a secondary role and deciding only the timing and pace in its quest for independence.7 In other words, the best that Taipei can do is to sneak toward independence as a spin-off after executing the role that Washington has assigned to it.
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If one looks from within Taipei, the story is much more complicated. One critical view sees Washington as a realist actor treating Taipei as no more than a pawn on the chessboard, ready to be sacrificed when necessary. The only question is whether this happens sooner or later. But, according to the same view, if Taipei should choose to deal with Beijing, it would fare much better because Beijing would consider Taiwan as part of China, and there would be no thought of sacrificing Taiwan. The policy implication of this line of thinking is that Taipei should resolutely oppose the Taiwanese independence movement. Only then would Washington stop treating Taiwan as a check on Chinaleaving Taiwan in peace.8 The other side has a completely different assessment, as it sees Washington as a realist actor who definitely wants to contain the rise of China. They see it as impossible that Washington would sacrifice Taipei or even allow Taiwan to become a part of China;9 thus, Taipei should be a loyal follower of Washington. Obviously, the supporters of the two approaches differ fundamentally in their national identification; the former conceives of Taiwan as a Chinese state, while the latter sees Taiwan as a sovereign state independent of China. Interestingly, both claim to be realists. Decisions about national identity affect how realism is interpreted and practiced. More specifically, whether or not Taiwan is Washingtons pawn is a matter of choice for Taipei. If power distribution in the triangle were equal, the change in Taipei authorities conceptualization of Taiwans identity alone could lead to a strategic reappraisal on all sides. Even during the Cold War, Taiwan had a choice, though this was not clear until later on in the 1990s when Taipei authorities decided to transform Taiwans identity. The Cold War in East Asia could have taken a different path if the Taiwanese independence movement had risen 40 years earlier. That there was no such movement was probably because Chiang Kai-sheks unification-oriented KMT suppressed it and not because there was no political foundation for it. The political foundations for many post-Cold War developments, including the Taiwanese independence movement, existed almost everywhere during the Cold War. For example, the Iraqi military threat to which the Bush Doctrine was supposedly applied was partly produced by previous U.S. military support for Saddam Hussein during the Cold War. Another example is the fact that the peace movement in 2004 during the war on Iraq recruited supporters largely from the Cold War generation. In addition, the Cold Wars international system was never as monochromatic as realists would want to believe, let alone the post-Cold War world.10 The Middle East often did not fit, and even in Taiwan, there could be rebellion like the Quemoy crisis in 1958 in which Chiang Kaishek, against advice from Washington, stationed heavy concentrations of troops in offshore Quemoy to demonstrate his determination to reunite China. When Mao Zedong ordered shelling to cut off
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Quemoy supplies, Washington came to the rescue, prompting the authors of strategy textbooks to wonder how Chiang had managed to drag an unwilling Washington into such a confrontation.11 In 1958, Mao could not prevail over the military superiority of the U.S. superpower. He decided instead to continue the Chinese Civil War by symbolically shelling the island of Quemoy. This action was exactly what Chiang wanted, as it discouraged the U.S. from using pressure to persuade him to abandon his dreams of reunification. Thus, the legacy of the Civil War meant that Washington had to take sides, instead of sitting on the fence. Although it was essential to Chiangs legitimacy in Taiwan, the Civil War mentality jeopardized the KMT when Washington was later forced to jettison its commitment to Taiwans security, switching sides in order to bring about its rapprochement with Beijing. The result was the famous Shanghai Communiqu in which Washington went along with the Civil War discourse that there is only one China. Accordingly, Washington had to choose sides, jettisoning its former KMT partner. The U.S. failed the realist test for a superpowerit could not effectively discipline Chiangs desire for reunification, and it only found new room to maneuver, after Taipei, on its own initiative, decided to go for independent statehood. Previously, Washington would have had to act against both Taipei and Beijing, if it had wanted to use an independent Taiwan for its own strategic purposes. In contrast, Washington can intervene with legitimacy today merely by acting as a passive defender on behalf of pro-independence Taiwan. This legitimacy to intervene gives Washington a new leverage in its China policy. Taipeis pro-independence stance entices Washington to use Taiwan as a pawn. The superpower faces an increasing constraint, since the two societies on opposite sides of the Taiwan Straits remain connected, although indirectly, as they were even during the Cold War. This indirect connection was not reported at that time because people in Taiwan who made contact with the Mainland risked imprisonment by Chiangs anti-Communist regime. A family reunion was such a strong motivation, however, that it reemerged in the 1980s to have a marked influence on the continuing political confrontation between Beijing and Taipei. As Washington increased its pressure on Chiang Ching-kuo (Chiang Kai-sheks son) to democratize, he formally opened up channels for family reunions to balance the expected surge of pro-independence forces tapped by the process of democratization.12 Old soldiers among the anti-Communist troops were ironically the major beneficiaries of the family reunion policy. Even oppositions went to China for pilgrimage, shaming the KMT that claimed to represent China. Business investments, tourism, and more recently, the establishment of new families as well as the migration of college students followed the wave of family reunions. If neither the Cold War experience nor Civil War education could prevent new generations from reconnecting, there could hardly be any
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meaningful superpower influence on these contacts, as they operated beneath the surface of a military deadlock. In other words, some key elements that have shaped superpower realism since the 1950s include at a minimum Chiang Kaisheks dedication to reunification, Chiang Ching-kuos family reunion policy, Taipeis quest for independent statehood, and now, Taipeis complete compliance with the Bush Doctrine. All have been motivated by concerns outside of the U.S. worldview, but each has affected Washingtons evaluation of the situation and its strategic thinking.
FROM RAPPROCHEMENT TO CONGAGEMENT

If not for the Korean War, the United States would not have given its unreserved support to the Chiang Kaishek regime, and the seventh fleet might never have been ordered to patrol the Taiwan Straits.13 Taiwan then was not valuable to the U.S. because it was not even clear that the Chiang Kaishek regime could survive defeat by the Chinese Communist Party. Later, Taiwan dragged Washington into its reunification game in 1958, and once Taipei had locked itself into opposition with China. Washingtons China policy automatically determined its Taiwan policy. However, after Kissinger introduced the idea of a five-power balance of world politics, rapprochement between Washington and Beijing made increasing sense, rendering Taipei insignificant. Indeed, from Nixon to Reagan, realist advisors such as Kissinger, Brzezinski, and Haig saw Taiwan as a burden, ignoring it strategically out of the necessity to facilitate the U.S.-China coalition against the Kremlin. From Taipeis point of view, Carters final decision to de-recognize Taipei in 1979 was treacherous, and Reagans agreement to reduce arms sales to Taiwan in 1982 was unfaithful. Taipeis spokesman tried in vain to appeal to the old Cold War partnership14 which may have inadvertently recalled Dwight Eisenhowers nightmare over the Quemoy crisis. The problem was that the lingering legacy of the Civil War for Taipei blocked Washington from treating Taipei as an important player. Realism appears less rational than expected when one notes Kissingers failure to consider Taiwan as a check on China. Remember 1954? That was the year when Eisenhower used Taipei to check Beijing from moving into Vietnam.15 Taiwan should have been an equally useful strategic check on China especially during the process of rapprochement. However, Kissinger was convinced that nothing serious would immediately happen to Taiwan. This may or may not have been true, but his insensitivity toward the possibility of using Taiwan as a bargaining chip is an indicator of realism constrained. This insensitivity is particularly conspicuous in light of his obsession with the politics of the balance of power. He preferred to ignore the Taiwan issue rather than cash in on it. After all, Taiwan, as part of China,
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was of diminished usefulness. Without Taipeis own initiative toward independence, Washington would have no clue to Taiwans strategic value under rapprochement. In the end, the Taiwan issue became a moral issue instead of a strategic one, and a realist usually omits the moral issue and does not engage it. In fact, Washington reiterated the Civil War clich in its acknowledgement of the One China policy in its 1979 Communiqu. As a result, an awareness of Taipeis strategic value did not reemerge until 1995.16 In 1995, Lee Teng-hui, Taiwans first popularly-elected and native president, successfully planned a homecoming trip to Cornell University, his alma mater. The major rationale for the visit was to break out of Beijings diplomatic blockade so as to assert Taiwans independent statehood. Beijing retaliated in the form of missile exercises across the Taiwan Straits.17 As in 1958, Washington was dragged into the incident to face a potential showdown with Beijing. However, the implications were dramatically different from those in 1958. In the earlier case, the confrontation resulted from the unfinished Chinese Civil War, while in 19951996, the cause was Taiwans quest for independence. In the latter case, U.S. intervention appeared to be quite legitimate in the pursuit of peace, unlike in the earlier case in which the issue was to support one party of the Civil War in opposition to the other. The U.S. approval of Lees visit was announced just before a scheduled meeting between Taipei and Beijing, one that carried the expectation of some sort of breakthrough in cross-Straits social and economic exchanges. Some Chinese observers read this as a deliberate move by the U.S. in order to manipulate cross-Straits relations for the sake of strategic balance.18 In other words, Lees pro-independence policy improved Taiwans role as a player.19 From then on, Washington could use its approved level of arms sales to Taiwan and the length of transit stays in the U.S. territory that it allowed for Taiwans presidents as a check on Beijing. Since 1996, U.S. officials have made it increasingly clear that the One China policy no longer means support for a united China. This means that the U.S. insists that the question of Taiwans future be resolved peacefully, and that Taiwan should not unilaterally declare independence.20 Again and again, Washington has conveyed to Beijing that a peaceful resolution is the guiding principle. This principle is the reason why pro-independence realists believe that Washington is unlikely to give up Taiwan. Taiwans de facto independence is secure now from the pro-independence point of view despite the fact that some pro-independence fundamentalists, Lee included, want to establish de jure independence. Lees offensive realism in 1999, when describing the relationship between Taiwan and China as a state-tostate relationship, incurred another strong reaction from China. Washington considered his initiative to be no more than trouble-making. However, pro-independence fundamentalists in Taiwan believe that what Washington did not like was the timing and style of Lees offensive, not his pursuit of
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it.21 Their observations seem accurate, judging from the fact that a U.S. delegate in Taiwan openly praised the electoral victory in 2000 of Chen Shuibian who is widely known as an assertive pro-independence politician.22 Unfortunately, Chen faced a serious political challenge upon taking office. For reasons too complicated to elaborate in this book, his inauguration witnessed a resurgence of the China Fever in Taiwan. In 2001, the State Department sent an analyst to Taiwan to study the nature of this China Fever and concluded that it was a serious phenomenon.23 In June 2001, Chen was allowed a transit stay in the United States for a record-breaking length of three nights on his way both to and from a decoy Central American trip. He was able to meet many politicians during both stays and kept his exposure in the States technically private. The U.S. support for Chens leadership was very obvious but not very effective. In 2002, in an international occasion, Chen announced a one-side-one-country (OSOC) understanding of the Taiwan-PRC relationship which was quite similar to Lees, without any prior notice to Washington. Later on, his aides paid visits to high officials in Washington to explain the statement. This self-belittling gesture actually brought Taipei and Washington closer together than before because in the past, both sides high officials did not get to meet lest this should give Beijing the impression that Washington had encouraged official contacts with Chinas renegade province. Although the OSOC statement appeared to be a mistaken move by Chen, there was no talk about troublemaking from the U.S. side. Interestingly, Beijing was satisfied with Washingtons disciplining of Taipei and Washingtons explanation on behalf of Taipei, apparently failing to notice that Washington, now positioned in between Beijing and Taipei, had adopted a role that blocked reunification.24 Each time, U.S. disciplining works for only a very short period. Not too long after the OSOC incident, Chen declared in 2003 that he would run a referendum on an issue that has no controversy. The U.S. correctly understood that this was a move toward Taiwan independence, since Chen made it clear that holding a referendum was more important than the issue at referendum. After repeatedly trying to persuade Chen to back out, Chen still refused, forcing the U.S. officials to make public statements of disapproval. Chen held it anyway in 2004, and surprisingly, the issue of no controversy was rejected by a turnout rate which was lower than the legal requirement for approval. In 2005, Chen declared that he would push for constitutional reform to make Taiwan a normal country. In 2006, again catching the U.S. in complete surprise, Chen decided to forego one of his inauguration promises about not to abolish the National Reunification Guidelines and the National Reunification Council during his term. He did this less than two months before the PRC President Hu Jintao was expected to visit Washington D.C. The U.S. worked extremely hard to deny Chens move and insisted that from the U.S.s point of view, both the Guidelines and the Council were merely put into abeyance.
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The U.S. administration, caught between a strategy of both engaging and containing China, had implemented a mixed strategy of congagement. Within this strategic context, Taiwans pursuit of independent statehood could be used to control the degree of pressure that the U.S. placed on China (Another divisive issue that the U.S. could similarly use is human rights). Lip service on the Taiwan issue is more than enough when trading with China on matters that the U.S. administration perceives to be important because reiteration of the One China policy gives the Chinese a feeling of being respected. This feeling compensates for the sense of loss, as Beijing cooperates or even concedes on other matters. However, affirming the One China policy is valuable only if there is the potential threat that Washington may decide not to honor it. Indeed, Washington plays around with the wording every time the One China policy is restated in order to give the impression that it is Washingtons own One China policy that the U.S. is committed to, and not the version provided by China. This rhetorical manipulation is possible because of Taipeis drive for independent statehood. Taipeis status as a player is established under the conditions of the congagement policy of the U.S. and Taipeis pro-independence policy.
FROM CONGAGEMENT TO UNILATERALISM

Taipeis self-confidence is increasing over time, even though its two opportunistic declarations of statehood received severe scolding from Washington. It is interesting that Taipei finds these experiences rewarding. This is because Beijing is unable to participate in these behind-closed-doors disciplinary sessions but instead has to listen to the United States warnings against brinkmanship. In short, being punished can be strategically rewarding. Taiwans sense of family is so pronounced that Chen once pointed to Clintons Air Force One aircraft, coincidentally stationed two slots away from his own, to demonstrate how close the two countries are. Chens administration gives any number of public signals to show how much Taipei depends on the U.S. for peace and democracy. This terminology is welcomed in Washington not only because it suits Washingtons self-image as the leading democratic country but also because it serves as a reminder to China that the time is not yet ripe for reunification, and perhaps will never be.25 Similarly, Chens wife remarked during her visit to the U.S. that Taiwan supports anything the U.S. does.26 Hers was only one minor show of loyalty. Before and during the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Taipei officials more than once confirmed their total support to the U.S. war plan. Taipeis Foreign Ministry, for example, supports any plan that the U.S. has for the war as well as for post-war rehabilitation. Chens spokesman wrote newspaper columns criticizing local anti-war activists for forgetting U.S. support (its bequest or righteousness) during Taiwans 1996 missile-test crisis.27
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Chen himself puts the question bluntly to the press: if we do not take the U.S.s side, are we not then taking the Iraqi side?28 Accordingly, he argues, supporting the United States is the same as supporting our own country, and is an act of defending our national security and dignity.29 Gradually, Washington has lost respect for Chen not only because of his inability to win respect from his own countrymen but also because he is not able to mobilize votes in the legislature even to approve the purchase of U.S. submarines. The U.S. representative in Taipei has often been so outspoken that many in Taipei felt insulted.30 When a news report during the initial stages of the Iraqi war mistakenly underestimated the rate of successful interception of attacking missiles by U.S. Patriot missiles which were on the top of Taipeis weapons purchase list, the U.S. representatives protest came immediately and publicly. The U.S. political attach personally attended the legislature to mobilize support for the U.S. war effort and questioned those anti-war legislators, who then had to explain that they were not anti-U.S. at all. No opposition leader, even those who normally disagree with anything Chen says, has come out on the anti-war side either. If reaction to the Iraq war is any guide, there is no doubt that Washington can take Taipei for granted. For Taipei authorities, Washington is indispensable for Taipeis eventual achievement of independent statehood. All the officials and pro-independence forces in Taipei make this point crystal clear when defending the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The government and the pro-independence forces support extend to the Bush Doctrine. Various reasons for this can be found on the Internet as submitted by anonymous writers.31 First of all, there is the feeling that Taiwan is too weak to make any difference in international politics, so the best thing to do is to follow the United States in whatever they do. However, the supporters of this view do not want to offend the Islamic world either. In the second view, Taiwan would have to depend on the U.S. to cope with the military threat from China. Government officials have often used this argument in their debate with anti-war intellectuals.32 Since Beijing has reiterated that no military action will be considered unless Taiwan declares independence, government officials must have independence as their ultimate goal in order to justify their worry. The third line of argument is that Beijing does not support the invasion, and Taipei must not take the same side that Beijing takes.33 The fourth view is that the Taiwanese owe Americans a debt for sending two carrier battle groups to protect Taiwan in the 1996 crisis. Thus, now is the time for Taiwan to return the favor and support Washington when support is most needed.34 Government officials similarly questioned the usefulness of stripping off clothes for peace because no one stripped off their clothes when Beijing conducted its threatening missile exercises across the Taiwan Straits in 1996. The fifth view is that Taiwan must support whatever Washington
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does, so that Washington will be sympathetic toward Taiwans confrontation with China. Most important is perhaps the view that U.S. unilateralism is the only effective deterrent to Beijing. If the U.S. defeated Iraq, U.S. unilateralism would become an international law. Beijing would then be convinced that it had no hope of taking over Taiwan. That would be the time when Taiwan would gain total freedom. An interesting point regarding the aforementioned Internet postings is that most people support Washington not for antiterrorism, antiproliferation, or democratic peace reasons but because of their own little war against China. China has just witnessed the conclusion of the sixteenth Party Congress and the ninth Peoples Congress endorsing the slogan of stability and development. The new president, Hu Jintao, disclosed his intention to focus on poverty. At the same time, officials in charge of Taiwanese affairs have been making peace overtures, beginning in 2001, without even responding to Chens OSOC provocation. In light of the relaxation of tension on the China side, the enhanced sense of crisis in Taiwan is disproportionate. This suggests that the sense of crisis comes from within Taiwan and not from any heightened war preparation in China. Having observed the unstoppable China Fever, pro-independence fundamentalists in Taiwan launched a series of street demonstrations but to no avail. In his retirement, Lee is particularly worried about the China Fever. Pro-independence forces regard building psychological defenses against Chinese identity as the most important task of the government. The U.S. invasion in Iraq and the Bush Doctrine together provide a hands-on opportunity to improvise, at least discursively, an atmosphere of war with China. However, a recalcitrant Taipei is more useful to Washington than a completely dependent Taipei. A recalcitrant Taipei receiving periodical discipline from Washington demonstrates to Beijing that Washington is not promoting Taiwanese independence. Instead, Washington now appears to be acting on Beijings behalf to curb this possibility. It is Washington that is standing between Beijing and Taipei to prevent any potential confrontation from breaking out. This mediating position actually protects Taiwans de facto independence, which in turn enables Taipei to seem to act irresponsibly without worrying that Beijing may retaliate. In this way, Taiwan continues to be a useful pawn that Washington can unleash as it chooses to check Beijing.35 Since Chen took office, however, and more so since the announcement of the Bush Doctrine, Taipei has acted like a total dependent on Washington. The political distance between Taipei and Washington has disappeared. This causes problems for the patron because any recalcitrant move taken by Taipei in the future would be understood by Beijing as an initiative approved by Washington. The loss of agency in Taipei reduces the negotiating space that Washington needs in which to play its role as mediator. It is this jettisoning of agency that may compel Washington to watch
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Taipei closely, lest another opportunistic move by Taipei lead to an escalation of tensions between Washington and Beijing. In fact, Washington felt compelled to intervene in Taiwans domestic politics in both 2006 and 2007 to persuade Chen, unsuccessfully, away from his renouncement of National Reunification Guidelines or his push for a referendum of applying UN membership for Taiwan in the name of independent Taiwan. Washington cannot pretend innocence apart from its role as mediator, but Taipei now takes actions independent of Washington, while acting as if it were a dependent puppy. Taipei misinterprets US unilateralism to be total dependence and performs accordingly. This will force a reappraisal of the Bush Doctrine from Beijings side.
THE UNNOTICEABLE CHALLENGE TO THE BUSH DOCTRINE

To cope with U.S.-China rapprochement which completely exposed the absurdity of the two Chiangs sovereignty claim over the Chinese mainland, Chiang Ching-kuo began a series of changes during the 1980s. First of all, the legitimacy of his leadership could no longer rely on an anti-Communist illusion. More importantly, however, he could not simply cut off the linkage between the mainland Chinese and Taiwan, lest this suggest that the regime his father had moved to Taiwan in 1949 had no reason to continue in power. He had managed a similar crisis during the early 1970s when the Republic of China was expelled from the United Nations, followed by another blow when the Shanghai Communiqu was announced. At that time, Chiang Kaishek decided to enlarge the scope of democratic elections to win popularity.36 Chiang Ching-kuos problem was a matter of life and death for his government, since he needed to cope not only with the legitimacy crisis but also with the rising pro-independence forces inside and outside the island country. In 1987, he opted for a two-handed strategy, legalizing the formation of an opposition political party as well as permitting home visits to the Chinese mainland by those who had migrated to Taiwan within his fathers regime. Most studies on Taiwanese politics note the significance of the lifting of Martial Law and the subsequent rise of the Democratic Progress Party (DPP) which finally took over the presidency in 2000.37 Little attention is given to the impact of the early granting of permission to visit the homeland. For Chiang Ching-kuo, the problem was simply using the visit to the homeland to balance pro-independence forces. Since the DPP was, in the beginning, supported by and connected with pro-independence forces, Chiang intended to have his homeland visit policy maintain the Chinese identity of Taiwanese society. For the next thirteen years, Chiang Ching-kuos plan did not seem successful both because his successor, Lee Tenghui,
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turned himself into the most important pro-independence leader and because his regime was taken over by the pro-independence DPP. Chiangs hope for the China linkage did not actually show any promise until after Chen was elected. As mentioned before, the China Fever has been rising since 2000. A harbinger for this development was present in 1996 when Lee was stunned by how quickly investment and tourism in China by the Taiwanese immediately bounced back after the missile crisis. It was this crisis that sent angry Taiwanese voters to his side, but their anger soon evaporated after his election. The reason that Taiwanese businesspeople as well as tourists wanted to go to China after they had just elected a pro-independence president in Taiwan is closely related to Chiang Ching-kuos home-visit policy, which had encouraged businessmen as well as tourists to pour into China, however illegally. The 1989 Tiananmen Incident had scared away businesspeople and tourists from all over the world, except those from Taiwan. Since home visits had to transit through Hong Kong, all other illegal visitors (e.g., businessmen and tourists) took the same route and left their record clean as far as the Taiwanese immigration authorities could tell. Going through Hong Kong, these trips did not all officially exist, according to official Taipei. As a result, Taipei had no leverage whatsoever to control travel to China. Indirect trips to China became such a popular activity that the government could develop no effective way to stop it. Statistics show that up to the year 2002, over a quarter of the population in Taiwan had been to the Mainland. Polls also suggest that people who visit the Mainland more often hold a less hostile attitude toward China.38 Since 1992, Chinas economy has taken off steadily, with a corresponding increase in the number of Taiwanese who have taken up regular residence in the Mainland. In other words, the homevisit policy prepared the Taiwanese society to be able to go in and out of China freely in both a physical and psychological sense. For the pro-independence leadership who had neither the intention of moving in and out of China nor the chance of doing it, the minds of the people they lead are no longer comprehensible or even friendly.39 It is not only the Taiwanese government which finds the China Fever among Taiwanese people incomprehensible; the U.S. government is equally bewildered. Most observers expected that Chens coming to office would close off any hope for reunification, so the returning or more precisely, the resurfacing of the China Fever has puzzled both Taipei and Washington.40 A post-colonial analysis can explain it. The Taiwanese have been torn between their Chinese and anti-Chinese identities. Chinese identity was belittled by the Japanese colonial authorities as a slave identity, and a further humiliation came in the post-colonial era, after Chiang Kaisheks regime arrived from the mainland, when the Taiwanese were called Huangmin (subjects of the Japanese Emperor). Anti-Chinese identification was well
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preserved in the name of anti-Communism during the Cold War. It reemerged in the formation of pro-U.S. or pro-Japanese, as well as pro-independence, attitudes after the Cold War. Lee and Chens confrontation with China reproduces this feeling from time to time. On the other hand, peoples lives are full of Chinese cultural practices. Reestablishing connections with the Mainland through the home visit route allowed people to cash in on their Chinese identities both culturally and economically. It was the first time in modern Taiwanese history that Chinese and anti-Chinese identities did not contradict each other.41 People could display either one or both at the time and place of their choosing. However, both pro-independence fundamentalists and Chinese nationalists are appalled, and paradoxically, they jointly threatened to take away this ability to move between identities. For the government and for Washington, the Chinese and the Taiwanese are not compatible. For Washington, these are two quite different polities, each monopolizing the loyalty of its citizens, especially in Taiwan where the democratic election process supposedly grants Chens leadership with exclusive legitimacy. Double identities are not comprehensible. However, the post-colonial strategy of identity in Taiwan has matured. People are very practiced today in shifting sides, socially as well as politically. Voting for pro-independence candidates and residing in China are not necessarily incompatible choices for them. The authorities in Taipei are anxious about this development and continually warn against identity erosion. Since Washington worries about the China Fever in Taiwan too, anxious authorities in Taipei have begun to interpret any deviation in Taiwanese society from Washingtons policy as a pro-China move. Taipei wants to make sure that Washington does not doubt Taipeis strategic value, and to this end, it goes to great lengths to demonstrate that Taipei is firmly on the U.S.s side. For example, when the national security sector invested heavily in establishing a link with Pyongyang, the government gave up the whole venture after Washington decided that Pyongyang belonged to the Axis of Evil, even though this move indirectly enhanced Beijings leverage in Pyongyang.42 The seeming unpredictability of the China Fever in Taiwan thus reduces the agency of the government in interpreting and supporting the Bush Doctrine. Consequently, Washington also loses agency in using Taiwan for its own strategic purposes.
UNCONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY
In addition to its agency in reinterpreting the meaning of the Bush Doctrine, there is similarly an agency in Taipei to redefine democratization in ways unnoticeable to Washington. Indeed, Taiwan is not at all the kind of democracy that many U.S. politicians or academics have wanted to see.
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When Chen Shuibian won the presidential election in 2000, the U.S. media reported with optimism that nowadays, Taiwan could not ever be a part of China. For U.S. watchers, the voters choice signaled their rejection of Beijings call for unification.43 Two years after Chens inauguration, however, few U.S. commentators were still sanguine about Taiwans separation from China. Taiwans investors, emigrants, and students flocked to China. This has forced the White House to reevaluate its Taiwan policy. Beginning in Spring 2001, the White House carefully geared up its support for Taipeis independent status by, for example, engineering publicity in the United States, while Chen was en route to Central America, probably hoping to curb the levels of the China Fever in Taiwan. The result was lukewarm. Nonetheless, Washington seemed to believe that a Taiwan prevented from merging too soon with China is strategically beneficial.44 Washingtons reappraisal of Chens ruling capability has two serious pitfalls. First of all, Taiwanese watchers in the U.S. failed to recognize that after fifty one years of colonization by Japan, Taiwanese views of China are always ambivalent. Japans anti-Chinese cultural campaign was so effective that being Chinese-Taiwanese was considered inferior during the colonial period. As previously mentioned, identities in contemporary Taiwan are thus both Chinese and anti-Chinese. This is a completely unfamiliar psychology to U.S. analysts who assume that people must have a consistent self-identity. The Taiwanese are protective of their need to preserve Chinese and anti-Chinese alternative identities. When their Chinese side appears too strong, people run to rescue their threatened anti-Chinese element. Accordingly, we witnessed the rise of an anti-Chinese tide in the 19951996 missile crisis. The opposite also applies, as we have seen since Chens election. Washingtons rescuing of Chens independent proclivity before 9/11 has backfired. U.S. support for an independence stand gave the Taiwanese enough security about their anti-Chinese identities to feel confident in increasing their involvement in Chinas social life; in fact, the Taiwanese are led to insist more on being Chinese by the strength of anti-Chinese policies. A year after Chens second, though controversial, victory which was in 2004, a reorientation toward the Mainland Chinese appeared to be so strong in Taiwan that Washington came out in his support to call him the duly elected President, despite the fact that the misery gunshot event that led to his election has been controversially unresolved. The second pitfall is that Washington is hurting Taiwans democracy by using Taiwan as a check on China. To avoid weakening Chens legitimacy or Taiwans position as a check on China, some U.S. members of Congress chose to perceive whatever Chen does as democratic and whoever criticizes him as conservative. This is like a blank check for Chen to resort to undemocratic and unconstitutional means in domestic politics. In fact, Chens government has several times searched, harassed, and sued news reporters
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for writing on scandals in the intelligence sectors. The government repeatedly asserts that the premier does not have to abide by the legislatures resolutions.45 Chen himself intervenes in both policy and personnel decisions that belong exclusively to other branches. He meets military generals on a regular but nonconstitutional basis. His cabinet members refuse to attend questioning in the legislature. Having sworn to safeguard democracy and the constitution at his inauguration, he now wants to restructure the legislative system and rewrite the constitution. Chen is safe in all this antidemocratic manipulation because his independence gestures are enough for international watchers to see him as a liberal democrat.46 This is why this book argues that Washingtons support for Taiwanese independence only further splits Taiwanese society, now recovering the Chinese element in its identity as well as in Chens government, which thought it had U.S. support for whatever it took to curb the countrys China Fever. This unrestrained mood, together with the widening split between the government and the society in their orientation toward China, explains the ban on Mainland Chinese books and TV channels. It probably also prompted the racist comment made by Chens personal secretary, saying that anyone who thinks the Taiwanese are Chinese is immoral.47 When U.S. analysts mistake Taiwans democracy for Taiwans independence from China, the hope for democratic consolidation in Taiwan becomes faint.
WAR ON TERRORISMA FIASCO

The latest developments in Iraq suggest that the U.S.-British allied forces have been unable to transform Iraq into what they would consider a normal state. As the threat of terrorism continues, the allied invasion into Iraq has become a fiasco. Terrorist attacks have spread to all corners of the world. In the Middle East, incidents of truck and car bombings have continued with noticeable frequency as well as in the publicity they generate, blocking any significant progress on the road map to peace that was once considered as the solution to Palestinian state building. From the realist point of view familiar to Washington, the unexpected perpetuation of its adventure in the Middle East calls for a better relationship with Beijing, whose leaders have willingly accommodated Washingtons needs in the hope of accumulating credits that can be cashed in on the Taiwan issue in due time. Beijings cooperation is most clearly demonstrated in its willingness to co-opt Pyongyang into multilateral talks concerning the latters nuclear build-up. These latest developments illustrate Washingtons rule-of-thumb in dealing with Taipei: keep things as they are. However, Taipei leaders do not think like their U.S. counterparts. The political agenda in Taipei is concentrated on just two domestic issues: one is
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winning the reelection for the DPP, and the other is creating windows of opportunity for Taiwanese independence. Washingtons international concerns are seen differently through their eyes. Consequently, during the sixnation talks in Beijing on the nuclear crisis in the Korean peninsula, Chen, with advice from Lee, was concerned not about the rise of Beijings influence but about how to escalate their own appeals to Taiwanese independence. The two presidents met twice in private in August of 2003, each time for hours, days before the large rally for independence in early September,48 thus giving the impression of a close cooperation despite Chens denials. Lee calculates that since Beijing is going to host the Olympic Games in 2008, and with its fast growing economy absorbing Taiwanese investments as well as social interests, China would suffice just to shut down possible windows of opportunity for Taiwanese independence, and not take any further action, certainly not military, at the present time.49 According to this view, Taiwan must act quickly to gain its total independence before 2008. Naturally, since President Chen has to face mounting challenges from the opposition in his bid for a reelection in 2004, the best strategy in order to win is to turn the election into a plebiscite for independence. In fact, during its first term beginning in 2000, the ruling pro-independence DPP has been unable to show any convincing achievements. Knowing that most Taiwanese do not want immediate reunification with China, Chens strategy is to set up a scenario of immediate reunification in order to divide the voting constituency into pro-unification (i.e., Chinese) and anti-unification (i.e., anti-Chinese) camps, with Chen himself on the far side of the anti-unification camp.50 This strategy aims to overwhelm all other dimensions of the election campaign where Chen is disadvantaged. If he could successfully label the opposition as pro-unification, the DPP would still have a chance of staying in office. For this reason, he needs a confrontation across the Taiwan Straits, despite warnings from the U.S. against employing any such strategy. In July 2003, his national security advisor had to visit Washington to listen to its very specific and straightforward concerns about escalation over the Taiwan Straits. However, Washingtons warning has been responded to with only superficial adjustments at best. In August, Chen advanced his OSOC position by linking it with a plebiscite, which he calls the soul of the DPP.51 In the September rally for independence, Lee announced that the Republic of China had never existed in Taiwan. Chen, like his predecessor Lee, adopts the tactic of one giant step forward and an immediate small step back. With Taipei always retreating after each provocation, Beijing is unable to seize the right moment to justify any military action. For Lee, the small step back that he took after announcing his state-to-state theory in 1999 was to promise that there would be no subsequent constitutional amendment. In the same vein, after Chen
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announced his OSOC in 2002, he sent his Minister of Mainland Chinese Affairs to Washington, promising that his remark would remain unofficial. Further adventurism in August of 2003 was similarly followed by Chens proposal to open direct flights to Mainland China a year after his reelection. This was enough of a step back that Beijing, reluctant to resort to force amidst the atmosphere of domestic reform, responded in a positive fashion while continuing to insist that any talk of direct flights was meaningless when Chen identifies Taiwan as a separate state. Both presidents seem certain that Beijing is not ready to impose any real sanctions. Little by little, they believe that independence will soon be realized. If re-election and a plebiscite for independence are conceptually linked, and the constituency is effectively divided into Chinese and anti-Chinese camps, their future will certainly look promising both politically and in terms of creating a unitary Taiwanese identity. However, their judgment that Beijing will do no more than bluff will not be appreciated by either Beijing or Washington.52 It is doubtful whether Washington could eventually develop a monitoring or a disciplinary system to cope with Taipei. It is nonetheless ironic that Washingtons most faithful ally which claims that it fully supports the Bush Doctrine is intellectually incapable of comprehending and acting in accordance with Washingtons interests. Taipei has failed to become alert to the fiasco of the war on terrorism and the fact that Beijings significance in Washingtons worldview is rising quickly.53 Taipei is almost completely engrossed in its own pursuit of independence, making its support of the Bush Doctrine at best an instrumental decision.54 When Taiwans dependence on the U.S. becomes no more than a strategic choice, the U.S. hegemonic power could find itself in an awkward position, if it assumes that Taiwans dependency could be relied upon.
TAIWANS HIDDEN AGENCIES

There are two kinds of historical agencies hidden in Taiwans compliance with the Bush Doctrine. The first is Taipei authorities change of attitude toward Mainland China which resulted in Taiwans rise from a position of no strategic significance to that of a plausible player. As Washington left containment behind and pursued rapprochement with Beijing, Taipeis anticommunism lost value. Only after Lees new leadership substituted pro-independence for reunification could Washington, then asserting congagement with Beijing, seriously use Taiwan as a check on Beijing again. Due to the rise of the China Fever in Taiwan, the pro-independence Chen Administration now reacts with a gesture of total dependence on and support for the Bush Doctrine. This gesture damages Washingtons role as a mediator between China and Taiwan and will eventually reduce Taipeis
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freedom of action as well as its pursuit of independent statehood. What is missing in the literature on the Washington-Beijing-Taipei triangular relationship is Chiang Ching-kuos opening up for home visits by Chinese military migrants in Taiwan. This policy effectively prepared the society for indirect contact with the Mainland Chinese and made possible the phenomenon of China Fever 10 years later. The second kind of agency lies in the fluidity of the Taiwanese society in being able to change sides socially, politically, and psychologically between China and Taiwan. This is by far the most powerful subversive undercurrent in Taipeis unreserved support of the Bush Doctrine in exchange for Washingtons pro-independence policy. One can imagine a very different history in Taiwan, if Washington had not engaged in rapprochement with Beijing. Chiangs reunification policy would not have lost credit, the pro-independence movement would not have incurred serious repression in Taipei, and Chiang Ching-kuo would not have adopted the two-handed policy. Without Chiang Ching-kuos twohanded policy, the opposition would not have developed as it did overnight in Taiwan, Taiwan would not have installed a democratic election for the Presidency as early as it did, and pro-independence forces would not have come to power as quickly. However, if not for the two-handed policy, Taiwan would not have practiced and normalized an indirect connection with the mainland Chinese, the Taipei authorities would not have been marginalized in the cross-Taiwan Straits exchanges, and the China Fever would not have evolved with such unanticipated speed. If the pro-independence forces had not gained power, Washington would not have been attracted again by Taipeis plausible strategic value, Taipei would not have perceived Washington to be the sole determining factor in its little war against China, and it would not have needed to show its total reliance by supporting the Bush Doctrine so unreservedly. If Taipei had not attracted Washingtons attention by taking a pro-independence orientation, Taipei would not have used Washington in its little war against Beijing, Washington would not have gotten involved as a mediator in the first place, and it would not have lost its mediating position because of Taipeis total dependence. The Bush Doctrine is about U.S. unilateral, preemptive action against a potential enemy. For pro-independence forces in Taiwan, China represents this potential enemy. To support the Bush Doctrine means to deter Chinas use of military means to stop Taiwanese independence. Without the Bush Doctrine or Taipeis repeated show of total loyalty to Washington, it would have not been possible for Washington to mediate, or pretend to mediate, between China and Taiwan so as to keep Taiwan from reunifying with Mainland China. The Bush Doctrines unilateralism and Taipeis total reliance together destroy the credit that a mediator would need. Taipei always had its own reasons from the defiant Chiang Kaisheks reunification game
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in Quemoy in the beginning, through Chiang Ching-kuos two-handed policy to curb pro-independence, Lees use of Washington to promote the cause of independence, and finally to Chens total reliance to preserve Washingtons sympathy for Taiwans pursuit of independence. Taipei has always tried to sneak its own reasons into its total support of Washington, and Washington has been caught either by surprise or by ignorance each time. The support the Bush Doctrine enjoys in Taipei is no exception. Although the Bush Administration has publicly thanked the Chen Administration a number of times for supporting Washington, Bushs staff will know eventually that things are not what they seem.
NOTES
1. See the discussion of this mood and the counter-mood in Martin Peretz, Son Shine: The New Bush Doctrine, The New Republic 227, no. 11/12 (916 September 2002): 2123. 2. Norman Podhorotz, In Praise of the Bush Doctrine, Commentary 114, no. 2 (September 2002): 1928. 3. Although never saying that Taiwan is unimportant, some analysts detail how each American commentator speaks on behalf of Taiwan, as if all the initiatives must come from the United States; see the summaries of the internal seminar on The New US Governments Asia-Pacific Policy and Our Adaptation, held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 22 March 2001, accessible at the following site: <http://www.mofa.gov.tw/newmofa/faa/faa-5.htm> (7 Apr. 2003). 4. Scholars in official positions tend to focus on this equalizing function; see Lin Cheng-yi (now National Security Advisor), The Triangular Exercise for Taiwan: The Impacts of Communist China and the United States (Chinese) (Taipei: kuikuan, 1989); Wu Yu-shan (now National Science Council Coordinator for Political Science), Balance or Bandwagon: A New Interpretation of the Cross-Taiwan Straits Relationship (Chinese) (Taipei: Chengchung, 1997); Luo Chi-cheng (former Director of Research and Design, Ministry of Foreign Affairs), The Role of the United States between the Two Sides of the Taiwan StraitsA Balancer (Chinese), America and Europe Quarterly 10, no. 1 (January 1995): 3754. 5. Civilian or overseas writers tend to note this, see, for example, Liu Chih-kung, The Taipei-Washington-Peiping Triangle (Chinese), Issues & Studies 25, no. 5 (1986): 115; Hu Weixing, China-USA-Taiwan Triangular Interaction and Its Impacts (Chinese) in Win-Win or Lose-Lose? ed. C. Ming, (Taipei: Chihliang, 1996): 2342. 6. Ming Chucheng, The 911 Incident and Our Countrys Policy of Antiterrorism (Chinese), (paper presented at the Conference on Global Antiterrorist Strategy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Taipei, 12 December 2002). 7. See Lin Cheng-yi (now National Security Advisor), The Meaning of Wolfowitzs Remarks (Chinese), Commentary on Current Affairs, The Global Information Net, Kuomintang, <http://www.youngkmt.org.tw/Content/HTML/Statement/ShortComment/20020603_14_3861.html>.
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8. See, for example, Sun Yang-ming, The One-Side-One-Country Statement Sends Taipei to the Sacrifice Stand (Chinese), Straits Review 142 (October 2002): 1418. 9. See, for example, Lin Chuo-shui (DPP Legislator), From Clinton to Bush, The US Taiwan Policy under the Framework of Globalization and Post-Cold War Responding to the Shaky One China Policy (Chinese), Policy Notes on National Affairs 19 (September 2001): 24; Lin Cheng-yi, Exploring Bushs Taiwan Straits Policy (Chinese), Chinese Affairs Quarterly 7 (January 2002): 6781. 10. Jeffrey W. Legro and Andrew Moravcsik, Faux Realism: Spin versus Substance in the Bush Foreign Policy Doctrine, Foreign Policy 125 (July/August 2001): 8082. 11. SeeThomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 43; Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), 363389; Thomas Stolper, China, Taiwan, and the offshore islands: Together with an Implication for Outer Mongolia and Sino-Soviet Relations (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1985). 12. For Chiang Ching-kuos policy rationale, see Yu-shan Wu, Economic Integration vs. Political Divergence between Taiwan and Mainland China, (paper presented at the 1993 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D. C., 25 September 1993). 13. See Robert Jervis, The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War, Journal of Conflict Resolution 24, no. 4 (December 1980): 563592. 14. Facing the camera, the government spokesman James Soong asked the American audience in August 1982, Where do you stand? a question reflecting the lingering Civil War perspective. 15. Chen I-Hsin (former New Party legislator), Sino-US Relations After De-recognition, 19791994 (Chinese) (Taipei, Wunan, 1995), 101102. 16. Under the China Threat theme which became popular in the early 1990s, Taiwans strategic value should have loomed large. Realists expectations that the dissolution of the Soviet bloc would make Taiwan relevant again were not borne out. Taipei had to first move out of the Civil War before Washington could use it without risking direct confrontation with Beijing and probably also irritating Taipei. For the abortive realist analysis, see Nancy Bernkopt Tucker, China and America: 19491991, Foreign Affairs 70, no. 5 (1991): 75. 17. In addition, there was a propaganda war on Lee. 18. Remarks made by a number of Chinese speakers in August 1995 at a conference held in Beijing attended by scholars from both sides of the Taiwan Straits. 19. Lin Chia-lung (a former National Security Advisor, now the government spokesman), Lee Teng-hui and Cross-Strait Relations: A Two-Level Game Perspective, (paper presented at the 29th Sino-American Conference on Contemporary China, Taipei, 2830 May 2000). 20. This is the famous U.S. wording with regard to our One China policy, as distinguished from Chinas One China policy. See Bill Clinton, I support the One China policy. But part of our One China policy is that the differences between China and Taiwan must be resolved by dialogue, and I feel very strongly about it. President Bill Clintons Press Conference, distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, <http://usinfo.state.gov> (29 March 2000).
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21. Chia-lung Lin, 29. 22. According to Parris Changs personal interviews with the U.S. experts on Taiwan, the United States is uncomfortable with the weak position on sovereignty taken by the opposition leaders, and it is very clear in their mind and bosom that underneath its alleged neutrality, the US will support the candidates of the ruling party during the next presidential campaign. Parris Chang, Taiwanese Politics Viewed from the Washington D. C. (Chinese), Liberty Times, 14 Apr. 2003, 15. Earlier, in an invited-only breakfast meeting at Taipeis Lincoln Society which was held three days after Chens election in 2000, an official of the American Institute in Taiwan, in an atmosphere of uncertainty, assured his audience that everything would be just fine. A few months later, he confirmed his previous judgment. Ironically, this second occasion was about the same time as the fiasco of the 4th Nuclear Power Plant policy during which period Chen sacked his first premier. Apparently, the AIT official meant that China could not do anything with Taiwans separatist ideology, not that the quality of governance would be improving. 23. I was personally interviewed three times by this analyst. 24. See Jacques DeLisle, U.S. Policy toward Taiwan: Sustaining the Status Quo, E-notes on A Catalyst for Ideas, Philadelphia: Foreign Policy Research Institute, http://www.fpri.org/enotes/asia.20010727.delisle.taiwanpolicy.html> ( 27 July 2001). 25. For example, Editorial, Political Earthquake in Taiwan, New York Times, 20 March 2000, A22; Editorial, Taiwans Way of the Future, The Washington Times, 20 March 2000, A18; James H. Anderson, Tensions across the Strait, The Heritage Foundation Backgrounder 1328 (28 September 1999); Raymond F. Burghardt, U.S.PRC-Taiwan Relations (paper presented at the U. S.- ROC (Taiwan) Business Council 24th Annual Joint Business Conference on U. S.-Taiwan-China Relations Special Seminar, Taipei, 16 June 2000); Murray Weidenbaum, United States-China-Taiwan a Precarious Triangle (paper presented at the Conference on the Greater China Economy, St. Louis, 25 March 2000). 26. Wu Shu-chen, the First Lady, made the remarks while visiting the US. See I Support All the Antiterrorist Activities by the United States, United Daily, 21 September 2002, 2; see also Taiwan Will Stand on the American side Forever, China Times, 27 September 2002; Vice President Lu Hsiu-lien was quoted as saying that Taiwans support of the US war effort in Iraq was the best testimony to Taiwans loyalty to the United States, see Central News Agency (telegram), Vice President Lu: The US Should Have Complete Trust Its Most Loyal Ally, Taiwan (Chinese), 21: 13, 20 March 2003. 27. Wu Chao-hsieh (Vice Secretary General of the Presidential Office), Anti-War Is Not Peace, Anti-US Contradicts Taiwan Interests, (Chinese) United Daily, 18 March 2003, 15. 28. Chen made this widely reported and debated remark on 22 March 2003. 29. Central News Agency (telegram), President Chen Explains the ROCs Reason for Supporting US Antiterrorism (Chinese), 15:42, 12 April 2003. 30. For the Defense Departments rebuttal of the Ministry of Defenses questioning of the effectiveness of the Patriot Missile, see The US Says the Patriot Interception Rate Is 100% (Chinese), United Daily, 29 March 2003, 11.
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31. These comments are accessible at <http://udn.com/NEWS/>; for similar perspectives, also consult the daily letters to the editor session (called Liberty Bridge) of the Liberty Times. 32. Chiu Yi-jen (Secretary General of the Presidential Office) believes that Taiwan is too weak to refuse its support for the Iraqi war, in Taiwan Has No Room for Not Showing Support (Chinese), United Daily, 26 March 2003, 13. 33. Chen himself takes this line of argument in the aforementioned 22 March 2003 remark. 34. Also an argument strongly felt by Wu Chao-hsieh (Secretary of the Presidential Office), see Central News Agency (telegram), Wu Chao-hsieh: Once the US Launches War on Iraq, Taiwan Should Never Forget Benevolence or Betray Righteousness (Chinese), 23: 13, 17 March 2003. 35. See, for example, Lin Chuo-shui (DPP legislator), China, the United States and Taiwan Double the Chips (Chinese) Chinese Affairs Quarterly 2 (January 2002): 2133; Chen Long-chih (Advisor to the President), Breaking through Chinas Containment of TaiwanTaiwans Way of Adaptation After the Clinton-Jiang Summit (Chinese), Forum, New Century Think Tank 1 (February 1998): 3940; Lin Cheng-yi, The Constraints and the Improvement of Taiwan-US Relations (Chinese), Forum, New Century Think Tank 9 (April 2000): 2831. 36. John P. Copper, Taiwans Elections, Occasional Papers Reprints Series in Contemporary Asian Studies 5 (School of Law, University of Maryland, 1984), 4852. 37. Shelly Rigger, Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (London: Routledge, 1999); Alan Wachman, Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1994); Linda Chao and Ramon Myers, The First Chinese Democracy: The Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan (London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Stephen Haggard and Tun-jen Cheng, eds., Political Change in Taiwan (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1991); Christopher Achen, The Timing of Political Liberalization: Taiwan as the Canonical Case (APSA Conference Group on Taiwan Studies, 1996). 38. See Yung Wei, State, Nation, and Autonomy: Conflict Resolution and the Linkage Communities, (paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, 27 March 2002). 39. The Administration has decided that those whose relatives or who themselves have stayed in China since 1987 for over a year should not be allowed to take certain government positions: Over One Thousand Officials Must Take Loyalty Check (Chinese) China Times, 27 March 2003. For another example, Taiwan Solidarity suspects that there is a Fifth Column hidden in Taiwans Legislature and in certain committees; see Central News Agency (telegram), Taiwan Solidarity: Legislators Studying or Investing in China Are Not Allowed in the Defense Committee (Chinese), 18: 33, 4 April 2003. 40. Monique, Chu, Chen Sees Benefit in Interim Agreement, Taipei Times, 16 February 2001, 1; Monique Chu, Roth Presses Direct Talks with Beijing, Taipei Times, 18 February 2001. 41. According to a poll conducted in 2002, 97% of the population conceive themselves to be Taiwanese, while 72% see themselves as Chinese at the same time. See Yung Wei.
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42. Rumors of US interference relating to the Abortion of the US$5 Million Trade Project with North Korea, United Daily, 7 March 2003, 4. 43. For example, see Editorial, Two Chinas? Newsday, 21 March 2000, A34; Joseph Kahn, China Indicating Caution on Taiwan, New York Times, 2 April 2000, A1; Editorial, China, Taiwan and Democracy, Chicago Tribune, 22 March 2000, 18; Thomas L. Friedman, This Is a Test, New York Times, 21 March 2000, A23; Editorial, Lautre Chine, Le Monde, 21 March 2000, 19. 44. Ross Terrill, The One China Fiction and Its Danger, AEI Online, 1 September 1999; For an analysis of how Washington should face the possibility of a reunited China, see Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, If Taiwan Chooses Unification, Should the United States Care? Washington Quarterly 25, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 1528. 45. Indeed, the Executive branch cannot agree that it has to accept the resolution of the Legislature. See Chiu Chinlan, The Executive Yuan: There Is a Chance to Announce the Reopening of the Construction of the Fourth Nuclear Plant This Week (zheng yuan: ben zhou you jihui xuanbu he si fu gong), Economics Daily, 12 Feb. 2001, 2. 46. See, for instance, Arthur Waldron, Taiwans Democratization Dilemma, AEI Online, 1 June 2000. 47. Yang Yuwen, President Chen: Ethnicity Is Not an Issue (chen zongtong: zuqun bushi wenti) United Daily, 26 April 2002, 4. 48. Liu Paochie and Lin Heming, Three Meetings in Two Days, (liangtian nei san huiman) United Daily, 21 Aug. 2003, A2. 49. Lin Heming, Lee Tenghui Raises the Issue of Establishing the New State in 2008 (li denghui ti 2008 jianguo lun) United Daily, 25 July 2002, 2. 50. Li Chaoyang, How Much Independence Is Enough? (yao duo du cai gou?), New News Weekly, 410 Sep. 2003, 2829. 51. Chen Minfeng, Bian: OSOC and Plebiscite are the Soul of the Party (bian: yibian yiguo he gongtou jiushi dang huen), United Daily, 13 Aug. 2003, A2; Chen Yongshuen, Bian: There Is Absolutely No Room for Concession concerning OSOC (bian: yibian yiguo juewu rangbu kongjian) United Daily, 11 Aug. 2003, A4. 52. Chang Tsongchi, Bians Move Could Create Troubles for the United States (bian de dongzuo keneng gei meiguo tian mafan), United Daily, 5 Aug. 2002, 3; Lin Paoching, The American Side Is Worried about Escalation of Tension (mei fang danxin jinzhang shengao), United Daily, 5 Aug. 2002, A2; Wen Hsianshen, Tang Jiaxuan: Promoting OSOC Makes Things difficult (tang jiaxuan: gao yibian yiguo jiu buhaoban), United Daily, 8 Aug. 2002, 13. 53. The Secretary of State Colin L. Powell remarked that Beijing and Washington were in their best relationship of a decade when interviewed by the Washington Posts editorial board on 22 July 2003, which was released on the 24th at <http://www .state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/22687.htm>. 54. Note the claim by President Chen that Taipei and Washington relations were at their best, since the break of diplomatic relations, Liu Paochie, Chang Pofu, Yang Yuwen, and Hsu Chinglong, Taiwan-US Relations Now Best Since 1979 (tai mei guanxi 1979 nian hou zuihao de shihou), United Daily, 14 Aug. 2003, A3.
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III
POLITICAL THEORY IN PRACTICE
After demonstrating that political theory is not external to Taiwans democracy, but a constituting part of it, the previous sections contends how Taiwan is not what political theorists think they know what it is. This section will engage in a couple of probably very controversial exercises by reducing political theory to merely an object to be disintegrated and selected by local actors for their own expediency, instead of a neutral analytical vehicle to truth about local actors. In other words, political theory is an aspect of political development, interacting with other variables such as convention, ecology, world politics, leadership, etc. No longer being studied by political theory, Taiwanese in this section respond to political theory as if they have a choice, which is not regulated by the theory, concerning what to do with political theory. Again, the book does this bottom-up soul searching in two arenas: how Taiwanese have accommodated political theory oriented toward liberal democracy in understanding their own conditions and how they have maneuvered their international representation for the consumption of those who carry a different national identity. Chapter 5 reports how modernity in terms of liberalization and democratization have entered the Taiwanese mindset but evolve into multiple possibilities that point to no teleology. Chapter 6 recollects the political-theory-laden historical contingencies that have made Taiwan a separate identity for the rest of the world.
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5
Back from the Future
DEMOCRACY AS A CONTESTED FIELD OF MEANING

Echoing the modernization theory of earlier periods, studies on democratic transition as well as democratic consolidation implicitly consider indigenous political culture as a hindrance to democracy.1 The whole notion of transition presupposes that a local legacy should be transcended. Similarly, the nascent attention to consolidation alludes to the threat of democracy, which is posed by the lingering local legacy. Even though the literature in some way recognizes the contribution of local cultural traits to the institutionalization of a democratic government,2 which is defined first in terms of periodic, competitive, and fair elections, and second, as a constitutionally limited government, local traits are generally understood to be in need of transformation. While it is true that institutional democratization demands the adjustment of local political culture, which typically honors some hierarchical order, studies on transition and consolidation together close off the possibilities that the meaning of democracy can be opened for reinterpretation. In other words, democracy becomes a future destiny and therefore presumes a fixed and shared meaning among those countries where leaders and intellectuals designate each other as democratic. Given democracys status of destiny in the political discourse on democracy, transition and consolidation are almost unavoidable premises of ones research agenda. This is why when democratization runs into practical difficulties, it is always the local condition, instead of democracy, to which democracy scholars assign responsibility. This chapter addresses the issue of democracy in Taiwan by looking at it from the vantage point of local conditions, rather than viewing the local
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conditions from a universal democracys perspective. It does not take democracy as a definite destiny for Taiwans political future to the extent that democratization creates different meanings. Democracy as a destiny is increasingly obscure.3 In Taiwan, political development has witnessed a process of deconstitutionalization in which popularly elected political leaders openly denounce constitutional structures, refuse to abide by legislative sovereignty, and expand presidential power through extra-constitutional mechanisms, particularly populist mobilization. Theoretically, Taiwan appears to be a perfect place for scholars of democratic consolidation.4 By studying which lingering cultural traits continue to drag democratization, presumably one should be able to diagnose the problems and prescribe institutional solutions. Accordingly, one should also study which cultural traits cause the problems by correlating the traits with lack of efficacy, authoritarian personality, or poor democratic performance. Identifying the problematic factors is the core of consolidation scholarship. The consolidation scholarship commits the same fallacy shared by proponents of the spatial theory of voting and local Taiwanese narrators. The position takes for granted the fact that political modernityrepresented by the substitution of democratic values for authoritarian values, the rational prioritization of policy preference, the pursuit of sovereign independence, and so onhas been irrevocable. In chapter 3, the reason why rational assumption fails to work is as follows: democracy in Taiwan is not about substitution or consistency, but is about adding the nascent layer of modernity to the long-existing Confucianism and post-coloniality. For younger Taiwanese generations, schools expose them to both modernity and Confucianism. As a result, contemporary Taiwanese are largely bilingual, and are capable of pursuing contradicting concepts: modernity and Confucianism, pro-independence and pro-unification, and status quo pitted against an accessible future. It is more than reasonable for a local Taiwanese to speak against his or her own heart. This is because contexts determine the proper language to be used while banishing the other language temporarily into the subconscious. Those who alternate between the two languages and disconnect thought from speech or deed from word are seen as problematic people by those who speak just one language. However, these problematic people are the ones that open up democracy for reinterpretation, as well as problematize democratic theories.
CLUSTERING OF PROBLEMATIC PEOPLE

This chapter adopts a less commonly used methodology, cluster analysis, in order to identify the kinds of people who answer the call of democratization with ambivalence. In contrast with the more popular factor analysis
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which sorts out the probable fields of problems, cluster analysis introduces problematic people. This is the key to turning around the methodology of democratization. Only when problematic people are represented can one understand the nascent meanings that democratization has created for them. The democratic transitional experience and the local culture mix interact differently in each person. Asking them how they view democratization, both individually and in groups, allows one to treat democratization as a contested concept, thereby acknowledging that democratization has no fixed destiny. As a result, democratization becomes an independent variable which is responsible for the change of local cultural traits embodied in each respondent, and it is not considered as a destiny, the achievement of which demands a one-sided cultural transformation en bloc. This chapter also chooses cluster analysis in light of Taiwans post-colonial experiences which witnessed the quick and unplanned values implantation. These are imposed by the intruding Japanese colonial forces and by the more contemporary cold war/anti-communist/modernist discourses. The resulting traits are like transplanted genes; they do not move Taiwanese political culture toward one future destiny, but instead open up a wide range of possibilities that are not within the lieu of democratic theory.5 Taiwan could be a society permanently locked in transition. Due to the unexpected combination of values and traits, the respondents have to learn and adapt through trial and error. This means that in the long run, one would not expect any massive movement toward a democratic destiny or any stable attitudinal pattern, given the likelihood of triggering alternative trait patterns. Personal factors, not structurally derived outcomes, determine how a specific trait within this pattern has an impact on behavior. Without a systematic discourse or indoctrination coping with Taiwans post-colonial conditions, individual decisions are in constant demand. Therefore, momentary changes in patterns are likely to occur, making any patterns ephemeral at best, and entirely false at worst. Cluster analysis is important in the reinterpretation of Taiwans success story. The conventional method treats all questions with equal weight: it gives each respondent a total score by adding up his or her score on each individual question, and correlates each total score with the independent variables (presumably for the purpose of controlling social and economic variables). This methodology rests on the assumption that factors of modernity, democratic value, efficacy, and democratic style (these measurements are to be discussed later) are all matters of degree. In comparison, cluster analysis enables readers to explore these factors as matters of kind. By grouping the respondents according to their similarities in poll question replies, one is able to judge (with the help of statistically significant clustering) if there are different patterns emerging to adapt to the demand of modernity, democratic value, efficacy, and democratic style. As long as these
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remain as statistically significant patterns, any sign of movement toward an end on any particular scale is either temporary or incomplete. Once local culture is subjected to changes with no fixed end, the meaning of democracy becomes open to reinterpretation. This is perhaps a higher form of democracy which is at the ontological level and which welcomes democratic reinterpretations.
TRADITIONAL VALUES
Cultural traits conceptually carry tradition. Contemporary studies on cultural traits are necessarily influenced by modernization.6 This is especially true in the case of Taiwan which has long been regarded worldwide as a model of modernization.7 The modernization theory, unlike the democratization theory, has discursively placed Taiwan in a dimension to be judged by its degree of modernization. Modernization and democratization supposedly move the Taiwanese in the same direction as the former emancipates people from immobile villages and social roles to give them more freedom and resources to rationally pursue their individual goals, while the latter frees them from subjugation by lords, strongmen, or revolutionary leaders in order for them to become participatory citizens. The modernization of culture contributes to democratization by fostering a sense of individuality which is essential to the operation of a democratic polity. Citizens who adhere rigidly to traditional social norms lack the psychological independence from political leadership necessary to make political judgments. For democratization scholars, it is useful to examine whether or not the masses in the society are able to overcome traditional attitudes toward hierarchy and social relational bondage. While a simple factor analysis may highlight the longitudinal trend (defined in terms of a modernization scale) toward forming modern attitudes on a number of dimensions, it misses the bifurcation or multiple possibilities within the trend. Instead of a single, unidirectional trend, there are actually two smaller trends working in opposing directions.8 Rather than a simple evolution from traditionalism to modernism, there are simultaneous movements toward more traditional and more modern attitudes. There could also be cyclical or dialectical movements in between. As a result of these trends, new meanings of traditionalism and modernism are constantly evolving, while old meanings are continually being reinterpreted.9 Exploring multiple trends, a cluster analysis using the survey result of a modernization scale divided the respondents into four clusters (Table 5.1.). Note that all clusters converge on two dimensions, namely, family interest and gender equality. All clusters tended to accept the wisdom that for the sake of the family, the individual should put his (or her) personal interest
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as secondary. This attests to a universal traditional attitude. On the other hand, all clusters tended to disagree that a man will lose face if he works under a female supervisor and hence testifying to a universal modern attitude. The universal presence of this familialism-gender equality mix suggests that modern values and traditional values can and do coexist in real survey respondents. Although the mix may or may not change in the future, the message is unambiguous: modernization is not just a matter of degree. Rather, modernization can be separated into several trajectories, with one advancing and the others remaining constant. The four clusters shown here reveal a variety of combinations of modernity and traditionalism. The attitudes of people in the first cluster were modern almost across the board, except on the family and seniority dimensions. This means that it is not impossible for a Taiwanese to feel comfortable with hybrid values. Most, nonetheless, preferred to stay traditional in one way or another. Their differences in terms of combination of modern and traditional traits are of particular interest in this book. In the second cluster, the respondents retained most of the traditional values. These values do not deprive them of some transformation, though. Note that they would not feel embarrassed working under the supervision of a woman. One can call the respondents belonging to this cluster as gender-neutral conservatives. In the third cluster, one finds a slightly narrower extent of acceptance of traditional values, as the respondents tended to avoid both nepotism and conflict resolution through an elders intervention. The respondents, thus, display an instrumentality that enables them to avoid the potential abuse of the cultural tradition as a form of social capital. This can be either an asset for promoting professionalism, as in the case of avoiding nepotism, or a liability during conflict resolution, as in the case of reluctance to enlist seniority. One can call this group of respondents as neo-traditionalists. The fourth cluster exhibits slightly less independence from tradition than the first cluster by extending the traditional imperative of social harmony to co-workers, indicating a drop of professionalism. In other words, the respondents in this cluster are interestingly still obliged to harmonious social relations only when they step outside of their immediate social circles. One can call them as small-family actors. Only in the first cluster to which modest modernists belong do most of the traditional values cease to exist. The four clusters demonstrate how diversified a society can be in between modernity and tradition. If one looks at the cluster analysis of the mainland Chinese survey which also results in four clusters, the mix of tradition and modernity in these four groups is additionally different from all the identified clusters of Taiwanese respondents (Table 5.2.). Interestingly, the Chinese clusters converge in the same way in the family-individual interest and gender equality. In addition, there is a third widely held attitude. All Chinese
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Table 5.1.
Traditional Value Clusters (Taiwan)
Cluster Modest modernist

Q064 Even if parents demands are unreasonable, the children still should do what they ask Q065 When hiring someone, even if a stranger is more qualified, the opportunity should still be given to relatives and friends. Q066 When one has a conflict with a neighbor, the best way to deal with it is to accommodate the other person. Q067 Wealth and poverty, success and failure are all determined by fate. Q068 A person should not insist on his own opinion if his co-workers disagree with him. Q069 For the sake of the family, the individual should put his personal interests second. Q070 A man will lose face if he works under a female supervisor. Q071 If there is a quarrel, we should ask an elder to resolve the dispute. disagree
Gender neutral conservative

agree
Upright Confucian
agree
Small family
disagree
disagree
agree
disagree
disagree
disagree
agree
agree
disagree
disagree
agree
agree
disagree
disagree
agree
agree
agree
agree
agree
agree
agree
disagree
disagree
disagree
disagree
agree
agree
disagree
agree
Number of Cases in each Cluster Unweighted

Cluster 1 2 3 4 612.000 244.000 130.000 424.000 1410.000 5.000
Weighted
591.900 276.610 130.020 411.570 1410.100 5.390
Valid Missing
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clusters are prone to involving an elder in conflict resolution. The first Chinese cluster, one of unsure modernists, shows a relatively narrower range of modern attitudinal traits. Harmonious relations with neighbors are valued here in contrast with the modest modernists in Taiwan. The second Chinese cluster is exactly the opposite of the Taiwanese neo-traditionalist group. For the second category in which one can call those falling under it as socially mediated actors, people accept nepotism while refusing all other traditional values, denoting a certain traditional legacy. In the third cluster, nepotism and fatalism are denied, while other traditional values are accepted. One can call this cluster as one of disciplined actors. The respondents in the final category, the pseudo-conservatives, have stopped demanding filial piety in the family and harmony among colleagues in the work place while complying with traditional attitudes when outside of the
Table 5.2.
Traditional Value Clusters (China)
Cluster Unsure modernist

disagree disagree agree disagree agree agree disagree agree
Final Cluster Centers

Q064 Children obey parents Q065 First hire relative/ friend Q066 Accommodate other people/neighbors Q067 Success determined by fate Q068 Accommodate other people/co-workers Q069 The interest of family are superior Q070 Shameful to work under female leaders Q071 Senior people resolve conflict
Socially mediated actor

disagree agree disagree disagree disagree agree disagree agree
Disciplined actor
agree disagree agree disagree agree agree disagree agree
Pseudoconservative
disagree agree agree agree disagree agree disagree agree
Number of Cases in each Cluster Cluster 1 2206.000 2 224.000 3 432.000 4 302.000 Valid 3164.000 Missing 19.000
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family and the workplace. This alludes to a post-Cultural Revolution environment in which a desire for self-assertion is still constrained by secondary social relationships. What this book wants to argue is that there is no set track as to how to mediate between tradition and modernity, nor is there a guarantee of the latter replacing the former in due time. Each of the eight clusters has its own internal logic. Second, the notion of tradition has evolved into new dimensions such that the socially mediated actor can treat the tradition both as an asset and as a liability. This recalls a famous formula that the late Qing intellectuals used in coping with the introduction of Western modernitythe Chinese being the body and the Western being the instrument. Third, paralleling the changing meanings of tradition, the meanings of modernity also evolve. For example, in both Taiwan and Mainland China, the modern attitude is useful in distinguishing in-circle from out-circle relations. People in both the Taiwanese small family cluster and the Chinese unsure modernist cluster seem unable to transcend traditional values in a larger social setting. One enjoys modernity only within a close circle. If this is true, the modern attitude is no longer an independent variable which explains behavior or other attitudes but is a dependent variable to reflect and, therefore, be explained by the need to distinguish different relationships. Fourth, the juxtaposition of eight possibilities does not exclude the emergence of new clusters in the future. The message is that people may shift to a different cluster without worrying about social suppression, and this opens up the potential for a stronger agency to use modernity as an attitudinal instrument rather than as a fixed ideal destination. This last message is particularly provocative in the extent to which resorting to different ways of performing modernity always enables one to fit in and shift among particular contexts, such as those involving polling agencies, party apparatuses, activist relatives, and others. Lastly, most observers would probably think of Taiwan as a more modern society than Mainland China. However, the higher number of people with modern attitudinal traits does not necessarily mean that Taiwan is more modern. The two societies seem to maintain their traditional traits in different manners. A majority of Chinese could be doing this by strangely applying modern values to a closer circle. Perhaps, this is a reaction to the damage to traditional values that regulate the in-circle relationships attacked during the Cultural Revolution. A relative majority of the Taiwanese practices modern attitudes in a wider scope. The epistemological point of difference is that traditional values can be long-existing and hence are independent variables explaining democratic performance, while modernist values are emerging and hence are dependent variables meeting the need for social transformation. These are two separate scales. If this should be the case, modernist values should have been functional in sustaining the sur-
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vival of core traditional values upon the arrival of capitalism; likewise, it should fade away as capitalism declines in the future. Whatever doctrine replaces capitalism, core traditional values should accordingly adopt additional value layers to survive another round of social transformation. In other words, traditional values should remain up-to-date by wearing these coatings, to the effect of eventually outliving new values.
DEMOCRATIC AND AUTHORITARIAN VALUES

Concerning democratic values, Taiwanese respondents can be divided into two clusters (Table 5.3.). The analysis of these clusters is similar to that applied to the tradition scale. Note that there is consensus among the four dimensions: equality, legislative independence, freedom of expression, and freedom of thought. The overwhelming majority agreed that the executive branch cannot perform adequately with too much legislative interference. They also agreed that too many ways of thinking may cause chaos. Both are manifestations of authoritarian attitudes. By contrast, on the equality scale, all disagreed that education should be a prerequisite for political participation. All likewise disagreed that the government should intervene in deciding the range of ideas allowed for discussion in society, which is a reflection of modern tolerance of pluralism. All four attitudinal traits appear universally, producing a combination impossible to anticipate prior to its actual emergence. The second cluster is composed of what might be called as ambivalent authoritarian actors. On the one hand, these people have a dim view of existing political practices in Taiwan which seem to be causing their discomfort, such as the legislative assertion of power (Q137) and a very competitive market of expression (Q139). However, their suspicions toward these practices do not lead them to embrace all authoritarian values. They are hesitant to submit to government leadership in ideology or to discriminate on the basis of education. Nonetheless, they are skeptical about the formation of groups lest this should possibly destroy social harmony, lack sensitivity toward executive intervention in judicial decision making, and expect morally upright leaders to act on their behalf. In other words, a portion of the constituency cannot comfortably accept what is widely considered to be democratic phenomena in Taiwans legislative process or speech market, but even these respondents hold certain democratic values. The respondents of the first cluster, the ambivalent democrats, demonstrate a much stronger commitment to democracy with only two exceptions, one on the aforementioned anxiety about too many different ways of thinking, and another about legislative supervision over executive policy making. Just as traditional values fail to lock the respondents into certain
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Table 5.3.
Chapter 5
Authoritarian Orientation Clusters
Cluster Final Cluster Centers

Q132 -People with little or no education should not have as much say in politics as highly-educated people. Q133 Government leaders are like the head of a family; we should all follow their decisions. Q134 The government should decide whether certain ideas should be allowed to be discussed in society. Q135 Harmony of the community will be disrupted if people organize lots of groups. Q136 When judges decide important cases, they should accept the view of the executive branch. Q137 If the government is constantly checked [i.e. monitored and supervised] by the legislature, it cannot possibly accomplish great things. Q138 If we have political leaders who are morally upright, we can let them decide everything. Q139 If people have too many different ways of thinking, society will be chaotic.
Ambivalent democrat
disagree
Ambivalent authoritarian
disagree
disagree disagree
agree disagree
disagree disagree
agree agree
agree
agree
disagree
agree
agree
agree

Cluster Valid Missing
Weighted
653.040 730.680 1383.720 31.770
1 2
705.000 681.000 1386.000 29.000
types of attitudes, a general predisposition to democratic values cannot determine respondents more specific attitudes either. In fact, people in the first cluster exhibit a certain amount of anxiety toward democratization, wanting unity of thought while opposing government indoctrination. This seeming paradox reflects the limits of the discursive power of democracy, which in this case is strong enough to inculcate respondents with respect for freedom of thought but not strong enough for them to feel comfortable with ideational divergence.
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POLITICAL EFFICACY
The democracy theory rests upon citizens sense of efficacy which liberates them from some dependency complex characterizing the traditional society. Political efficacy is thus an important intervening variable explaining the strength of the democratic culture.10 However, cluster analysis suggests that efficacy is a complicated affect that can pull individual people in several different directions. It is not simply a matter of degree. To begin with, if Taiwanese respondents are divided into four clusters, none of those in the four clusters would trust the government to do the right thing (Table 5.4.). This being true, all four clusters then share one intriguing aspect. If the government is not trustworthy in principle, whether or not one willingly submits to government leadership, it may not mean that much. On one hand, even when one claims no efficacy as those in the first cluster, ones passive attitude does not necessarily mean that the government is legitimate to one. On the other hand, the same result holds true for the third cluster where the respondents claim to be intellectually equal, if not superior, to the government. However, Taiwanese belonging to the third cluster display frustrated efficacy; they exhibit a sense of efficacy that they cannot effectuate due to a lack of drive for participation. Compared with the respondents in China who overwhelmingly consider the government to be trustworthy, democratization in Taiwan does not lead people to identify with the leadership. In contrast, post-cultural revolution generations in Mainland China place their trust in their government. The fourth cluster includes respondents who show efficacy in all aspects. One can call this full efficacy. Note that full efficacy is the least common type of efficacy in Taiwan. Therefore, the third cluster is more intriguing. The respondents in this cluster believe that they themselves are intellectually ready to participate and that the government is not under the control of the elite nor is in any perfect condition. Ironically, they say that they do not have the ability to participate or have influence. One can call it frustrated efficacy which is at best, humble efficacy. The aforementioned lack of drive to participate because of the government being not good enough can be a useful clue to the psychological condition in which one is intellectually capable of understanding but is affectively alienated. There could arise a feeling of relative deprivation between the assessment favoring participation and the actual retreat from participation. The second cluster is characterized by what might be considered as selfdeception. According to the respondents in this group, they do not have sufficient knowledge to participate meaningfully. Furthermore, they believe that the government is run by the elite and is already in its best possible form. They themselves have little influence over what the government does. Despite this submissive attitude, they claim that they have the ability to
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Table 5.4.
Political Efficacy Clusters
Cluster Exit efficacy

Q126 Do you agree with the statement, I think I have the ability to participate in politics? Q127 Do you agree with the statement, Sometimes, politics and government seem so complicated that a person like me cannot really understand what is going on? Q128 Do you agree with the statement, The nation is run by a powerful few, and ordinary citizens cannot do much about it? Q129 Do you agree with the statement, People like me do not have any influence over what the government does? Q130 Do you agree with the statement, Whatever its faults maybe, our form of government is still the best for us? Q131 Do you agree with the statement, You can generally trust the people who run our government to do what is right? agree
Mobilized efficacy
disagree
Frustrated efficacy
agree
Full efficacy
disagree
agree
agree
disagree
disagree
agree
agree
disagree
disagree
agree
agree
agree
disagree
agree
agree
disagree
disagree
disagree
disagree
disagree
disagree

Cluster 1 2 3 4 610.000 446.000 177.000 152.000 1385.000 30.000
Weighted
626.220 449.250 172.320 131.890 1379.680 35.810
Valid Missing
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participate. One can call this mobilized efficacy which is semantic, trained, and superficial. The distinction between the second cluster and the third cluster is interesting. Is the difference no more than whether or not one is aware of ones inability to participate? If one is aware of it, one falls into the frustrated category. If one is not, one falls into the second category of mobilized efficacy. The pertinent point is that efficacy could be self-deceiving. Outside observers can also be entrapped by the result of this efficacy scale. Observers may fail to understand that high levels of participation may occasionally result from the manipulation of the masses by government elites. In contrast, the first category includes those respondents rating low on all scales, which indicates a lack of efficacy and consequently the ability to motivate participation. One can call this exit efficacy, suggesting that their distrust toward the government finds no outlet in the system. This is the largest of the four clusters. This reading of efficacy questions the widespread impression of Taiwan democracy lauding the participatory rigor of its electoral constituency.11 Only when one looks at the persons who embody different types of efficacy can one realize that efficacy on one single dimension is not efficacy of a degree but efficacy of a kind. The strength of efficacy of one kind is not a good indicator of the strength of another kind, let alone a useful measure of overall agency for change in politics. Democratization can thus change peoples sense of efficacy in at least two unconventional waysby enhancing a sense of efficacy not to be actualized as in the third cluster, or by playing to the rhetoric of efficacy as in the second cluster. The former alludes to the emergence of relative deprivation, while the latter reflects the discursive ability to camouflage the actual lack of efficacy. Efficacy in Context One can examine how the four different clusters divided by the approaches to traditional values fare on the efficacy scale (Table 5.5.). In general, most people fall in the categories of exit efficacy (45.4%) and mobilized efficacy (32.6%). This does not deny the fact that various types of traditional attitudes can be associated with various types of efficacy. That is to say, how one combines traditional and modern values does not determine how one feels about participating in politics. The statistics seems to suggest, however, that the gender-neutral conservatives and the neo-traditionalists are somewhat less likely to consider themselves knowledgeable about politics. The respondents in the two clusters, 85.9% (=48.7+37.2) and 82.5% (=49.2+33.3), respectively, fall in the efficacy clusters that answer negatively toward the inquiry of ones knowledge of politics. These are the two agencies that tended to subscribe to filial piety, fatalism, or neighborly harmony. On the other hand, the gender-neutral conservatives, the
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Table 5.5.
Chapter 5
Tradition-Efficacy Cross-tabulation
TRAD4*EFFI4 Cross-tabulation EFFI4 Exit Mobilized
175 30.0% 12.7% 97 37.2% 7.0% 42 33.3% 3.0% 135 33.1% 9.8% 449 32.6% 32.6%
Frustrated
82 14.0% 5.9% 32 12.3% 2.3% 10 7.9% 0.7% 48 11.8% 3.5% 172 12.5% 12.5%
Full
71 12.2% 5.1% 5 1.9% 0.4% 12 9.5% 0.9% 44 10.8% 3.2% 132 9.6% 9.6%
Total
584 100.0% 42.3% 261 100.0% 18.9% 126 100.0% 9.1% 408 100.0% 29.6% 1379 100.0% 100.0%
TRAD4 Modest modernist
Gender-neutral conservative
Upright Confucian
Small family
Total
Count % within TRAD4 % of Total Count % within TRAD4 % of Total Count % within TRAD4 % of Total Count % within TRAD4 % of Total Count % within TRAD4 % of Total
256 43.8% 18.6% 127 48.7% 9.2% 62 49.2% 4.5% 181 44.4% 13.1% 626 45.4% 45.4%
only cluster that tended to accept nepotism, are much less likely to enjoy full efficacy. These results may correspond to the expectation that modern values contribute to agency for action in politics. However, note that those of neo-traditionalists are less likely to show frustrated efficacy than all the other clusters, including the modest modernists, alluding to the useful role of traditional values in establishing realistic self-awareness. In other words, traditional values do not lead to the paradox of feeling knowledgeable about politics on one hand, and yet feeling alienated from it at the same time (i.e., feeling either the lack of knowledge or being sufficiently involved to avoid frustration). Neo-traditionalists are the only respondents who reject both nepotism and seniority. Perhaps, self-awareness in terms of the constraints and values of traditional social relationships enables them to avoid such frustration. The largest cluster, the modest modernists, is not immune to self-deception. This is the only cluster that ignores harmony among co-workers. Relatively speaking, their agency for action in politics is more likely to be substantive. The respondents, specifically 26.2% (=14+12.2) of them, fall in the clusters of either frustrated efficacy or full efficacy compared with only 14.2% (12.3+1.9), 17.4% (7.9+9.5), and 22.6 % (11.8+10.8) of the other
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three traditionalism clusters. This result is consistent with the expectation of the democracy theory that traditionalism hinders political efficacy. However, note that 30% of the same cluster shows mobilized efficacy. In other words, many of these modest modernists lack genuine efficacy. In fact, 43.8% of modest modernists exhibit the traits of exit efficacy. On the other hand, those who are more likely to be frustrated with unfulfilled mobilized efficacy tend to be gender-neutral conservatives (37.2%) or neo-traditionalists (33.3%). As might be expected in a cross-tabulation of authoritarian and efficacy scales, the ambivalent democratic cluster is more likely to fall in the categories of frustrated or full efficacy, while the ambivalent authoritarian cluster has more respondents belonging to the category of exit efficacy (Table 5.6.). However, a good number of respondents in the ambivalent authoritarian cluster (50.1%) share a sense of efficacy with those in the ambivalent democratic cluster (39.7%) in terms of their low self-assessment of both knowledge (Q127) and influence (Q129) in politics, and yet also in their perceptions of opportunities for participation which are reflected in the incapacity of the government (Q130) and their rejection of elitism (Q128). There is no doubt that the ambivalent democratic cluster embraces a wider range of efficacy, but note that a large proportion of the respondents in this group opt for exit efficacy. This alludes to the possibility that their low assessment of government capacity does not lead to political efficacy. None of the discussions above confirm any stable causal relations between authoritarian culture as the cause and low efficacy as the effect. On the authoritarian scale, there are no respondents who consistently cluster on one side of the scale on all questions. The same is true for the efficacy scale.
Table 5.6.
Authority-efficacy Cross-tabulation</ttitle>
EFFI4 126-131(4) Exit Mobilized
207 31.7%
AUTH2 132-139(2)*EFFI4 126-131(4) Cross-tabulation Frustrated

97 14.9%
Full
89 13.7%
Total
652 100.0%
AUTH2 132-139(2)
Ambivalent democrat
Ambivalent authoritarian
Total
Count % within AUTH2 132-139(2) Count % within AUTH2 132-139(2) Count % within AUTH2 132-139(2)
259 39.7%
359 50.1%
239 33.3%
76 10.6%
43 6.0%
717 100.0%
618 45.1%
446 32.6%
173 12.6%
132 9.6%
1369 100.0%
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In other words, a positive orientation toward authority does not necessarily enable respondents to trust the government.12 On the contrary, it is the overparticipation of the legislature in government policy making that has led this group to want to have capable leadership. At least, a move toward a democratic government could ironically be a solution even to those who appear to have a narrower sense of efficacy. As a result, there is a significant number of respondents in the cluster of ambivalent authoritarians (39.3%=33.3+6) who still feel fully capable of participating in politics. In contrast, a full 71.4% (=39.7+31.7) of the respondents in the ambivalent democratic cluster believe that they lack influence over the government. In sum, orientation toward authority does not unilaterally fix the meaning of political efficacy for the respondents who do not tend to group consistently among different dimensions of any scale.
POLITICAL STYLE
Democratic theory has, for a long time, ignored stylistic issues. Attitudes toward democratic and liberal values are one thing, and whether or not behaviors reflect these attitudes is another. Attitudinal studies are cognitive in nature. The affective need is usually not the focus of research on democratic transition or democratic consolidation. Need refers to subconscious drives toward domination which is effected by schizoid, compulsive, and/or borderline identity, and so on that reflect Oedipal experiences with the maternal power.13 It is possible that people inculcated with democratic values would still not be able to tolerate time-consuming processes that ensure the limitation of governmental power. Despite educational indoctrination with liberal democratic values in schools, the need to assert ones power can be detrimental to democratic consolidation because this power must be manifest in the public in order to mean something to the patient. This would require one to bypass procedures, show off power, and punish differences. When one is a bystander, all the learning of democratic values may work just for its perfection. Once one has involved oneself, the need to dominate quickly overrides democratic values and becomes the key determinant of behavioral choice. Taiwan is a highly frustrated and anxious society.14 The problem lies in its lack of a national identity, a self-reading of history embedded in the image of being raped, suppressed, and invaded, and a leadership carrying a disintegrating mix of Japanese colonialism, Chinese civil war, and American cold war legacies. Indeed, the responses to the survey questions concerning leadership style indicate a variety of needs, although many show a straight liberal-democratic disposition (Table 5.7.). Statistically, they are best divided into four clusters. An absolute majority is unwilling to have leaders pursue
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Table 5.7. Political Style
135
Cluster Final Cluster Centers

Q145 The most important thing for a political leader is to accomplish his goals, even if he has to ignore the established procedure. Q146 If a political leader really believes in his position, he should refuse to compromise regardless of how many people disagree. Q147 A political leader should not tolerate the views of those who challenge his political ideals. Q148 As long as a political leader enjoys majority support, he should implement his own agenda and disregard the view of the minority.
Liberal believer
disagree
Legalist believer
disagree
Expedient believer
agree
Determined believer
agree
disagree
disagree
disagree
agree
disagree
disagree
disagree
agree
disagree
agree
disagree
agree
Cluster
Valid Missing
Number of Cases in each Cluster Unweighted 1 776.000 2 385.000 3 57.000 4 104.000 1322.000 93.000
Weighted 770.530 370.770 59.390 112.840 1313.530 101.960
goals at the sacrifice of due process (1161 of 1322), to the effect of ignoring the minoritys need (833 of 1322), or regardless of the opposition of the majority (1218 of 1322). Just one cluster on the style scale simultaneously attaches significance to procedure, shows willingness to compromise, attends to minority voices, and tolerates those who challenge its leaders political ideals. This cluster can be called as one of liberal believers. While the absolute majority (58.7%) of respondents are liberal believers, the fourth cluster shows a style which is completely opposite to the liberal believers. They want their leaders to not tolerate challenges or compromise at all. They do not even acknowledge the legitimacy of challenges in theory and will suppress them in practice even at the expense of due process,
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minority opinion, or even majority opinion. This robust style of leadership matches the need for power on one hand and answers to the democratic indoctrination to some extent on the other hand,15 being the relatively unpopular stylistic attitude in Taiwan. The second largest cluster (28.4%) which one can call a group of legalist believers is less tolerant than liberal believers to the extent that the respondents disregard the views of the minority. They still care about procedures and will compromise if their ideals are against those of the society. The third cluster has only a small number of respondents, and one can call this cluster as the cluster of expedient believers. The respondents belonging to this category tend to be violators of procedures but still tolerate challenges to their ideals. Moreover, they care so much about the number of people on their side that they take into account the minority opinion as well as the majority opinion, if against them. In other words, the respondents of the third category do listen. They are much more flexible than the determined believers because they are willing to respond to other peoples opinions.
POLITICAL STYLE IN CONTEXT

Who tends to be in any of these clusters of political style? The gender-neutral conservatives are least likely to be liberal believers (48.5% compared with 63.1%, 50.8%, and 60.3% elsewhere) (Table 5.8.). Nevertheless, 33.9% (=27+6.9) of modest modernists show no sympathy for the view of minorities. There is no denying that, relatively speaking, the gender-neutral conservatives are more likely to violate due process (a total of 7+17.2=24.2% compared with 9.9%, 15.3 %, and 10.7% of the other three) and minority opinion (27.3+17.2=44.5% compared with 33.9%, 42.4%, and 35.1% of the other three). Note that neo-traditionalists are almost equally capable of violating minority opinion (42.4%). This suggests that it is the preservation of a sense of an in-group which is associated with ignoring minority opinion (see questions 64, 66, and 68 in which neo-traditionalists and gender-neutral conservatives share similar views.) Respondents in the ambivalent authoritarian cluster are more likely to be liberal believers than determined liberals (Table 5.9.). Note that 54% of ambivalent authoritarians fall in the category of liberal believers. This should be a more significant message than the fact that they are less likely to be liberal believers than the other clusters. Among the respondents, 59.7% (=54+5.7) of them would respect minority opinion. More significantly, 82.3% (=54+28.3) say that they would not bypass procedures just for the sake of pushing their goals. Nearly equal proportions of the ambivalent democrat and authoritarian clusters, 28.4% and 28.3%, respectively, are legalist believers. On the other hand, 4.8% of the ambivalent
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Table 5.8.
Tradition-Style Cross-tabulation
BELI4 Liberal Legalist
153 27.00% 11.70% 62 27.30% 4.70% 40 33.90% 3.00% 116 28.90% 8.80% 371 28.30% 28.30%
TRAD4*BELI4 Cross-tabulation Expedient

17 3.00% 1.30% 16 7.00% 1.20% 8 6.80% 0.60% 18 4.50% 1.40% 59 4.50% 4.50%
Determined
39 6.90% 3.00% 39 17.20% 3.00% 10 8.50% 0.80% 25 6.20% 1.90% 113 8.60% 8.60%
Total
567 100.00% 43.20% 227 100.00% 17.30% 118 100.00% 9.00% 401 100.00% 30.50% 1313 100.00% 100.00%
TRAD4 Modest modernist
Genderneutral conservative
Upright Confucian
Small family
Total
Count % within TRAD4 % of Total Count % within TRAD4 % of Total Count % within TRAD4 % of Total Count % within TRAD4 % of Total Count % within TRAD4 % of Total
358 63.10% 27.30% 110 48.50% 8.40% 60 50.80% 4.60% 242 60.30% 18.40% 770 58.60% 58.60%
Table 5.9.
Authority-Style Cross-tabulation
BELI4 145-148(4) Liberal Legalist Expedient Determined Total
AUTH2 132-139(2)*BELI4 145-148(4) Cross-tabulation
AUTH2 132-139(2) Ambivalent democrat
Total
Count % within AUTH2 % of Total Ambivalent Count authoritarian % within AUTH2 % of Total Count % within AUTH2 % of Total
407 182 63.5% 28.4% 31.1% 13.9% 361 189 54.0% 28.3% 27.6% 14.4% 768 371 58.7% 28.3% 58.7% 28.3%
21 3.3% 1.6% 38 5.7% 2.9% 59 4.5% 4.5%
31 4.8% 2.4% 80 12.0% 6.1% 111 8.5% 8.5%
641 100.0% 49.0% 668 100.0% 51.0% 1309 100.0% 100.0%
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democratic cluster falls into the category of determined believers, suggesting that a negative orientation toward government authority, executive supremacy over the judicial branch, national unity, or moral leadership does not necessarily guarantee a respondent to always oppose suppressive leaders. Hybridity and Ambivalence A few clues caution against any teleological end of modernization and democratization in Taiwan. The cross-board convergence in both Taiwan and China in terms of the prioritization of family interest over individual interest strongly suggests that familial values have survived social and political changes in the past, which should at least include Leninism, class struggle, and the Cultural Revolution in China; and democratization, modernization, and the loss of the national identity of Taiwan. On the authoritarian scale, there are also signs of continuity concerning the role of political leadership. For example, there is the cross-board worry about legislative intervention in the executive process. There is likewise some degree of anxiety in all clusters about the possibility of too many ways of thinking leading to political chaos. In other words, changes do not necessarily move the society toward one destiny despite conscious learning, ideologically as well as institutionally. Thanks to the resilient continuity of certain cultural traits, the meaning of democratization necessarily encounters reinterpretation and practice which opens up new room for evolution. One cannot anticipate the destiny of Taiwans future history from the democracy theorys point of view. Politicians aside, the students of democratization should really avoid any prescriptions of a future Taiwanese democracy and should realize that the result of democratization in Taiwan is still open. The lingering cultural traits create ambivalence toward democracy and modernity. This should not be new to anyone who studies modernization. The lesson is that these cultural traits have not really disappeared. Rather, they stubbornly survive in ways that, together with cultural learning on the ideological and institutional fronts, can dispute the meaning of democratization. The way traits are combined seems to affect political efficacy as well as style. In Table 5.5., one finds that those clusters with a similar extent of cultural learning are equally likely to take the exit approach on the efficacy scale. For example, 43.8% of the modest modernist cluster and 44.4% of the small family cluster opt for exit efficacy, in comparison with 48.7% of the gender-neutral conservative cluster and 49.2% of the neo-traditionalist cluster. The former two, both good cultural learners, are separated only by their different approaches to harmonious relations among co-workers, while the latter two, both mediocre learners, are distinguishable only in terms of nepotism and conflict resolution through seniority. As another example, in Table 5.8., compare the 63.1% of the modest modernist group
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and the 60.3% of the small family group who are liberal believers on one hand, and the 48.5% of the gender-neutral conservatives and 50.8% of the neo-traditionalists who are liberal believers on the other. A similar level of cultural learning results in a closer probability of being a liberal believer. Moreover, there is evidence that any of the traditional traits can contribute to the development of full efficacy. Take Table 5.5. again, in the cluster of full efficacy, in which the difference among modest modernists (12.2%), neo-traditionalists (9.5%), and the small family (10.8%) is not great, and they are all much higher than the gender-neutral conservatives (1.9%). Something in the former three groups contributes to full efficacy. While they represent very different kinds of cultural learning, would this not imply that not one single set of, but different, attitudinal traits can contribute to political efficacy? Accordingly, any theoretical hypothesis concerning the linkage between specific traits and efficacy would be questionable. If it is indeed the human decision in all the contingencies that affect behavioral outcomes, then anyone carrying cultural hybridity cannot, by himself or herself, fix the probability in advance concerning whether or not a particular trait would be acted upon or which direction that trait would lead. There is additional evidence suggesting that the other way around is also true. The degree of ambivalence in ones political efficacy and style can affect how much influence each different kind of cultural learning may have. In Table 5.6., for example, the difference in political efficacy between the ambivalent democrat and the ambivalent authoritarian is much clearer in the clusters of exit efficacy and full efficacy (39.7% vs. 50.1% and 13.7% vs. 6%) than in the clusters of mobilized and frustrated efficacy (31.7% vs. 33.3% and 14.9% vs. 10.6%). Similarly, in Table 5.9., the difference in political style between the ambivalent democrat and the ambivalent authoritarian is clearer in the clusters of the liberal believer and the determined believer (63.5% vs. 54% and 4.8% vs. 12%) than in the clusters of the legalist and expedient believer (28.4% vs. 28.3% and 3.3% vs. 5.7%). This implies that the more ambivalent one is in ones own political efficacy or political style, the less impact ones orientation toward democracy and authority has on political efficacy and style. If the kind of cultural hybridity affects ones political efficacy and style, and the kind of ambivalence in ones political efficacy and style affects the relevance of cultural hybridity, then how are cultural hybridity and the kind of ambivalence in political efficacy and style determined? In factor or regression analyses, one looks for correlations among variables. In cluster analysis, by contrast, one may additionally look at people as represented by clusters. Therefore, it could be the person in question who could be the source of explanation. In other words, instead of trying to determine how all the people would act similarly in accordance with those to-be-discovered
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laws that tell how a macro structure of variables impacts upon behavior, one may open up the field by allowing individuals to engage in their own cultural learning. These micro-learning experiences are necessarily coincidental and contingent upon situations, thus resulting in different kinds of cultural hybridity and ambivalence. Once the kinds of hybridity and ambivalence are determined, one could proceed with factor and regression analysis to discover the law that applies to each different kind. However, a further problem would be that cultural learning does not have to stop, making the search for laws that regulate democratic transition and consolidation obsolete.
DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPANTS IN KIND

Instead of seeing the participants of democracy determine the quality of democracy itself, this chapter turns the problematiqu around and asks how electoral, institutional, and theoretical democratization has created different kinds of democratic participants. The close-to-perfect type of participant nonetheless appears in Taiwan. Roughly 12.3% of the respondents can be qualified as carrying a democratic personality (Table 5.10.). The intersection of liberal believers and respondents with full efficacy is a group of respondents who are prone to respect minority opinion, believe in their own knowledge of governing, and see the defects of the current government. DeTable 5.10. Style-efficacy Cross-tabulation
EFFI4
Exit BELI4 Liberal Count % within BELI4 % of Total Count % within BELI4 % of Total Count28 % within BELI4 % of Total Count % within BELI4 % of Total Count % within BELI4 % of Total 339 44.3% 26.0% 166 45.1% 12.7% 17 47.5% 2.1% 43 38.7% 3.3% 576 44.2% 44.2% Mobilized 235 30.7% 18.0% 125 34% 9.6% 11 28.8% 1.3% 55 49.5% 4.2% 432 33.1% 33.1% Frustrated 98 12.8% 7.5% 47 12.8% 3.6% 3 18.6% 0.8% 9 8.1% 0.7% 165 12.7% 12.7% Full 94 12.3% 7.2% 30 8.2% 2.3% 59 5.1% 0.2% 4 3.6% 0.3% 131 10.0% 10.0% Total 766 100.0% 58.7% 368 100.0% 28.2% 100.0% 4.5% 111 100.0% 8.5% 1304 100.0% 100.0%
BELI4*EFFI4 Cross-tabulation
Legalist
Expedient
determined
Total
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termined believers are less likely to feel the sense of efficacy (38.7% compared with 44.3%, 45.1%, and 47.5% of the other three). By contrast, 9.5% (=7.2+2.3) of the total respondents who appear to respect procedures in pursuing their ideals are also those who enjoy full efficacy. They are almost 19 times as numerous as the expedient and the democratic believers (0.5%=0,2+0,3) who bypass procedures when needed. Expedient believers are the most likely to fall in the category of frustrated efficacy (18.6% compared with 12.8%, 12.8%, and 8.1%). These are the respondents who neglect procedures. It is not clear what the significance of this cell can implyperhaps, tolerant goal pursuers cannot develop the sense of efficacy, or perhaps someone without the sense of efficacy can become a tolerant goal pursuer. Note that the cell containing liberal believers and exit efficacy includes the largest number (26%). In addition, at least 30.7% of the liberal believers may wrongly regard their own ability to participate as high. Since the respondents of both exit and mobilized efficacy accept that the government is not trustworthy, the self-deception of this 30.7% could possibly be caused by hybrid values, as most liberal believers seem to fall in the cluster of modest modernists. In factor analysis, one is interested primarily in causal relationships, expecting stable behavioral patters that can be attributed to specific cultural traits. The probabilities of those with certain traits to display certain attitudinal patterns are considered universal once statistically demonstrated. By contrast, cluster analysis is equally, if not more, concerned with possibility vis--vis probability. In cluster analysis, although one can still take a deductive approach to determine the causal linkage between traits, one does not have to. On the contrary, one can study how different cultural traits can combine into a personality type. The ways of combination are so varied and creative that they cannot be predicted by any theory of democracy proposed to date. The Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese combinations are quite different, even if there are occasional similarities. If the person is the focus, then the causal thinking can be completely reversed. Instead of seeing the democratic attitudinal pattern as a dependent variable and the cultural trait as an independent variable, one can treat democratic attitudinal pattern as the independent variable to explain the emergence of the ostensible causal linkage in a regression analysis. From the vantage point of a cluster analysis, ones decision is the source of behavior for oneself because the combination of traits is not externally determined and because once a type of person emerges, the ways in which each of the traits will influence behavior is also not determined. The individual cannot help but make unique decisions in each unique context. Nevertheless, looking from a macro level, we could aggregate the micro-level decisions and determine how each trait is linked with behavioral results, resulting in a series of propositions stating that an increased strength in a
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certain trait should lead to an increased probability of a certain behavior. However, this is exactly what this book is not about. Instead of arguing that cultural traits shape democratic attitudes, this book raises the possibility that it is individual decisions that lead to the emergence of a seeming pattern of traits associated with democratic attitudes. Since this is about decisions and not about causal linkage, the statistically identified pattern is allowed to shift overnight. There is no denying that individuals can learn, and under the continuous democratic indoctrination, they have learned to be more modern and liberal. Indeed, the age structures suggest that the elderly in Taiwan are most widely conservative. They are more likely to subscribe to filial piety or fatalism, as they are more likely to fall under the category of the gender-neutral conservative (42.3% compared with 10.8 and 20.5 of the other age groups) and the neo-traditionalist (15.4% compared with 6.6 and 9.6 of the other age groups) (Table 5.11.), and are much more likely to be supportive of the governments moral leadership (74.1% compared with 41.8 and 51 of the other two) (Table 5.12.). Also, they are less likely to enjoy full efficacy (4.4% compared with 10.8 and 10.3 elsewhere) (Table 5.12.) and are more likely to be harsh on minority opinion (17.3% compared with 7.6 and 6.6 elsewhere) (Table 5.13. here). This said, note that an absolute majority of them remains tolerant (75.2%=42.3+33). This makes one wonder if the relatively liberal tendency of younger generations is less about liberalism than about their lack of experience, which prompts them toward the modernist discourse comprising of formal language which they are familiar with since early childhood, but declines in importance as their social roles increase in importance as they age. The young generations negative orientation toward tradition may likewise be responsible for the lack of security felt by the elderly.
Table 5.11. Traditional Value by Age
TRAD4 64-71(4) Modest modernist
AGE3 20-39 40-59 above 60 Total Count % within AGE3 Count % within AGE3 Count % within AGE3 Count % within AGE3 319 47.10% 200 41.00% 73 29.70% 592 42.00%
AGE3*TRAD4 64-71(4) Cross-tabulation Genderneutral Upright conservative Confucian Small family Total
73 10.80% 100 20.50% 104 42.30% 277 19.60% 45 6.60% 47 9.60% 38 15.40% 130 9.20% 240 35.50% 141 28.90% 31 12.60% 412 29.20% 677 100.00% 488 100.00% 246 100.00% 1411 100.00%
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Table 5.12. Political Efficacy by Age
EFFI4 126-131(4) Exit
143
AGE3*EFFI4 126-131(4) Cross-tabulation Mobilized

234 35.10% 137 28.30% 78 34.20% 449 32.60%
Frustrated
69 10.30% 72 14.90% 30 13.20% 171 12.40%
Full
72 10.80% 50 10.30% 10 4.40% 132 9.60%
Total
667 100.00% 484 100.00% 228 100.00% 1379 100.00%
Theories of democracy typically rely on factor analysis or regression of behavior to variables, thereby sharing the same causal epistemology of factor analysis. This is probably why the democratic theory needs an extension to the democratic consolidation theory to cope with the unstable patterns shown in those once-acknowledged, yet shaky democracies. However, look at the predominance of liberal believers and the relative majority of exit efficacy at the same time. The determination of some of the constituency in expecting their leaders to disregard established procedures, traits which leaders naturally share, makes the institutional progress along the consolidation path irrelevant as long as the situation is ripe for the determined leadership to pursue its goal at the sacrifice of procedures and majority and/or minority opinion. That a majority acquiesces to leaders who are either expedient or legalist believers tolerant on one dimension but not on the other may shift the political style of the polity in minutes. The clustering of problematic people opens up room for understanding this possibility by allowing individual actors to pursue an ontologically undecidable
Table 5.13. Political Style by Age
BELI4 145-148(4) Liberal
AGE3* BELI4 145-148(4) Cross-tabulation Legalist

165 24.70% 144 31.40% 61 33.00% 370 28.20%
Expedient
20 3.00% 25 5.50% 14 7.60% 59 4.50%
Determined
51 7.60% 30 6.60% 32 17.30% 113 8.60%
Total
669 100.00% 458 100.00% 185 100.00% 1312 100.00%
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identity in which no single trait can determine a certain pattern of behavior with a fixed probability. Modernization is the last layer applied and is probably the least stable or assimilated value in Taiwan. The democratic theory expects the latest development to eventually become the most stable element of a changing society. It is perhaps the most popular and attractive theory to post-colonial narrators in Taiwan. Its research agenda seeks to collect signs of such consolidation, and to explain how and why the consolidation has yet to occur. This agenda dominated public discourse for the past decade. Thanks to the unwavering quest of looking for a sovereign national identity (another modern value), unexpected responses have taken place in Taiwanese politics to reveal the maladjustment at both the social and the individual levels. In truth, when specific circumstances coincide with specific moods, Taiwans modernization and democratization may suddenly appear so strangeeven deviant and subversive to observers who once thought liberal democracy took only a single form. Chapter 1 gives an appalling example of how a successfully democratizing state may turn off its humanism attached to the shallow layer of modernity, resulting in a post-colonial moment of domination. Without the pressure of modernization, the postcolonial puzzle over identity, or the inability to enlist familiar Confucian values, this loss of humanism either would have not occurred or would have conveyed something entirely different.
NOTES
1. Lawrence E. Harrison and Samuel P. Huntington, eds., Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress (New York: Basic Books, 2000); Guillermo ODonnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, Laurence Whitehead, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian rule: comparative Perspectives (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); Larry Diamond et. al., eds., Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Andrew Nathan, Chinas Crisis: Dilemmas of Reform and Prospects for Democracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Lucian Pye, The Mandarin and the Cadre: Chinese Political Culture (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988). 2. Daniel Bell, East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); Zhao Suisheng, ed., China and Democracy: Reconsidering the Prospects for Democratic China (London: Routledge, 2000); Chih-yu Shih, Collective Democracy: Political and Legal Reform in China (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press of Hong Kong, 1999). 3. Yun-han Chu, Taiwans Unique Challenge in Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner, eds., Democracy in East Asia (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998). 4. Hung-mao Tien, ed., Taiwans Electoral Politics and Democratic Transition: Riding the Third Wave (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1996) ; Shelley Rigger, Politics in Taiwan:
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Voting for Democracy (New York : Routledge, 1999); Bruce J. Dickson, Democratization in China and Taiwan: The Adaptability of Leninist Parties (Oxford, U.K. : Oxford University Press, 1997); Yun-han Chu, Consolidating Democracy in Taiwan: From Guoshi to Guofa Conference? in Hung-mao Tien and Steve Yui-sang Tsang, eds.. Democratization in Taiwan: Implications for China (New York: St. Martins Press, 1998). 5. Lily H. M. Ling and Chih-yu Shih, Confucianism with a Liberal Face: The Meaning of Democratic Politics in Postcolonial Taiwan, Review of Politics 60, no. 1 (Winter 1998). 6. June Tuefel Dreyer, Chinas Political System: Modernization and Tradition (New York: Longman, 2000); Peter R. Moody, Jr., Tradition and Modernization in China and Japan (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1995). 7. Linda Chao and Ramon H. Myers, The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Steve Tsang and Hung-mao Tien, eds., Democratization in Taiwan: Implications for China (New York: St. Martins Press, 1999); John F. Copper, Taiwan Political Miracle: Essays on Political Development, Elections, and Foreign Relations (Lanham: University Press of America, 1997). 8. Yu An-bang, The Nature of Achievement Motivation in Collectivist Societies (with Kuo-shu Yang). in U. Kim, H. C. Triandis, C. Kagitcibasi, S. C. Choi, & G. Yoon, eds., Individualism and Collectivism: Theory, Method, and Applications (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage): 239250. 9. Thomas A. Metzger, Escape from Predicament: Neo-Confucianism and Chinas Evolving Political Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977); Eric Wu and Yun-han Chu, The Predicament of Modernization in East Asia (Taipei, Taiwan: National Cultural Association, 1995). 10. Chung-li Wu, Ching-Ping Tang, and Chi Huang, A Pilot Study on Measuring the Sense of Political Efficacy in Taiwan (woguo zhengzhi gongxiayishi celiang zhi chutan) Xuanju Yanjiu (Journal of Electoral Studies) 6, no. 2 (1999): 2344; Fu Hu et. al., Emerging Mass Politics in a Democratizing System: The Evolution of Political Culture and Political Participation in Taiwan in the 1980s I and II (paper presented at the Workshop on Comparative Study of Political Culture and Political Participation in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, East-West Center, Hawaii, U.S.A, 1992); Shyu, Huo-yan, Empowering the People: The Role of Elections in Taiwanese Democratization (paper presented in the 1997 Copenhagen Workshop on Power and Authority in the Political Cultures: East Asia and the Nordic Countries Compared, the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS), Copenhagen, 1319 October 1997). 11. Fu Hu and Yun-han Chu, Neo-authoritarianism, Polarized Conflict, and Populism in a Democratizing Regime: Taiwans Emerging Mass Politics, Journal of Contemporary China, no. 5(11): 2341; Chih-yu Shih, From Democratic Personality to Parenting Personality Tamkang Journal of International Affairs 6, no. 1 (Fall 2001). 12. A negative orientation toward authority does not mean distrust toward the government. Fu Hu, The Transition from a Modern Authoritarian Regime and the Development of Democracy in Taiwan, (paper presented at the seminar on Taiwans Development Experience organized by the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation on the Celebration of its 5th Anniversary, Taipei, 16 January 1994).
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13. James Glass, Psychosis and Power: Threats to Democracy in the Self and the Group (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). 14. Susan Tifft, Taiwan Island of Quiet Anxiety, Times (16 Sept. 1985); Stephen J. Yates, Taiwan: A Celebration of Democracy, Policy Research and Analysis, Heritage Foundation (17 March 2000); Kurt M. Campbell and Derek J. Mitchell, Crisis in the Taiwan Strait? Foreign Affairs (July/August 2001); Franz Schurmann, Taiwan Worries It Could Be Sold Outand For Good Reason, Jinn Magazine 6, no. 15 (24 July4 August 2000), Pacific News Service. 15. Note that this group of people may represent an electoral majority, hence democracy in a sense.
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6
The World Timing of Un-Chinese Consciousness
BEFORE THE PURSUIT OF INDEPENDENCE

From what it looks like in the twenty first century, the political campaign for Taiwans independent statehood seems natural and even imperative. However, what seems to be natural today was not so only a decade ago. It is widely held by those who (both abroad as well as local) support, observe, or even oppose Taiwanese independence that the cause for independence is a product of the recent democratization of Taiwan. Accordingly, some would take the holding of the election of the first Taiwanese native President Lee Teng-hui in 1996 as a watershed for the independence movement. Others would choose the election of Chen Shui-bian, a non-KMT, pro-independent advocate, as President in 2000 to be the watershed. Independence and democratization go hand-in-hand for most people. This book disputes this popular impression and argues that the rise of independence has been set by the turn of the world clock, a conjuncture, whereas the world political economy, the world media, and the world social science literature began to treat Taiwan as an independent reference point. Democratization only comes into play at a later point. In brief, the rise of Taiwanese national consciousness took place long before the 1991 constitutional amendment or the 2000 election for a pro-independence president. Similarly, independence was neither about democratization nor about liberalism. It was the combination of the American discourse of the Pacific Rim and the Maoist Third World that first excluded the aboriginal Red Leaves from Taiwans indigenous identity and then posthumously bred the feeling for the un-Chinese statehood in Taiwan.
147
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This chapter seeks to contextualize the popular historiography of Taiwans independence. It points out that the self-recognition of political autonomy did not take place in a historical vacuum. Neither the celebration of the 2000 electoral victory as a human rights victory for the independents nor Lees victory in 1996 is a sufficient description of the rise of national consciousness in Taiwan. To assert political autonomy, Taiwan must first locate itself as an independent reference point. This book argues that the identity making of Taiwan, as it is independent from its rivalry relations with the Mainland or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), emerged as early as in the mid-1970s. Before that, Taiwan is primarily a Chinese name, not ready to be used by the pro-independence forces. This is despite the fact that it was not present in the independence-related discourse until Lee became president. To understand independence, one must know about the rise of un-Chinese consciousness, which is first prepared by developments in international political economy and is later capitalized by Taiwanese leaders into a new strategy of representation during the years between the mid-1970s and the late 1980s. The IPE did not structurally determine Taiwans fate. On the contrary, it was used in Taiwanese politics in subsequent decades in ways unexpected or unknown to the hegemonic forces in the IPE (International Political Economy). This chapter first presents the common assumption that independence and democratization are together. It then shows how Taiwanese consciousness grew and expanded as early as 1988 to dispute the democratizationinto-independence argument. After demonstrating the rise of national consciousness before democratization, the chapter returns to the past to trace the discursive roots of Taiwanese consciousness. First of all, there was the surfacing of a nascent Taiwan discourse in the mid-1970s. The discourse incorporated the notion of a Pacific Rim, which was an American attempt at remapping the world in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The new world mapping also helped modernization theorists defend themselves against the attack of the dependency theory which originated in Latin America. Coincidentally, Taiwan achieved independent status in the new worldview. Facing the post-Cultural Revolution development in China, which witnessed a shift of attention toward economic growth, Taiwan and China found themselves as no longer just civil war rivals but also as representatives of contending models of development. In the meantime, the chapter explores how, due to its wrong timing, the aboriginal little league baseball whose many traits corresponded to the ideology of independence failed in becoming a useful foundation of self-recognition for the independents. In brief, all the early developments that lured Taiwan away from the Chinese identity was neither structurally determined by the IPE, nor strategically devised by the democratizing forces.
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THE DEMOCRATIZATION-INTO-INDEPENDENCE ARGUMENT

The common practice of linking democratization with independent national consciousness has three sources: academic literature, international media, and independence leaders. Regarding the first, the most recent literature that treats Taiwans national consciousness is perhaps Stphane Corcuffs edited volume, Memoirs for the Future.1 His chapter writers specifically link it to democratization and sees democratization as the cause and the rise of national consciousness as the effect. For example, Tsong-jyi Lin writes about the democratic pressure that pushed the KMT to respond to a rising national identity.2 For Lin, public opinion drove the KMT and the oppositional DPP toward the new identity. Rwei-Ren Wu similarly praises Lees passive revolution for creating a liberal, pacifist, and flexible nationalism capable of defending Taiwans sovereignty.3 Chia-Lung Lin additionally argues that emerging nationalism is not only a result of democratization but also one of confrontation with China.4 Hinting at its spontaneity, they take the rise of national consciousness for granted, even to the extent of calling Taiwanese nationalism as civic nationalism. Conceiving the drive for independence as a liberal democratic development has been a typical assumption for the international media which is the second source of the democratization-into-independence argument. The international media generally portray the climax of Taiwans statehood drive as motivated by democratization.5 As chapter 2 has noted, many columnists praised Taiwans democracy, claiming that it finally matured in the 2000 election. In fact, it is probably the same belief that prompted the international media to bestow the title of Mr. Democracy to Lee Tenghui who denounced his own KMT as an alien regime. Columnists generally note Chens sympathy for Taiwanese independence. His running mate, Ms. Annette Lu, was regarded by most people to be a determined Taiwanese independence advocate. To China, democratization in Taiwan means opposition to China. Some interpret the vote for pro-independence candidates as showing the wish of voters that they do not want to be enticed by Chinas unification appeal. Some suggest that self-sovereignty which the presidential election has institutionally established in Taiwan can be present in a low-key fashion. They believe that, if necessary, Taipei can confidently negotiate peace and resist unification with Beijing all on its own. The third source of democratization-into-independence is the independence leaders. Today, proponents of independence present their cause in an essentially human rights discourse.6 They argue that the CCP continues to exert oppression against the Taiwanese people by denying Taiwan its statehood. This argument is supported by the widespread impression of Taiwan being a democracy, while China is not. Lee Teng-hui who served three terms
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as President between 1988 and 2000 has a similar historiography. Being the first Taiwanese president working for political independence from China, he believes that he effectively and single-handedly transformed the KMT from an alien Chinese regime into an indigenous Taiwanese regime. In fact, in his famous state-to-state relationship interview published in 1999,7 he attributes Taiwans de facto independence from China to the constitutional amendment he engineered in 1991. The move unilaterally withdrew the ROC from the Chinese Civil War and ended the myth of Taiwan being a part of China. It was from this watershed, accordingly, that the constituency eventually accepted Chens dominancy in 2000. Lee was later officially expelled from the KMT, allegedly for disloyalty to both his Party and the ROC. For Lee, the Taiwanese have never enjoyed political autonomy; it was he who rendered it to the people. After his expulsion, he denounced the KMT as anti-Taiwanese, by which he meant Chinese. Lee consciously links his campaign for independence to the democratization process. In the early 1990s, he specifically cited Samuel Huntingtons theory of third-wave democracy,8 and utilized the aftermath of the massacre of the pro-democracy students in China to parallel Huntingtons clash of civilizations theory.9 It was also in the early 1990s when Lee openly faulted Lee Kuan Yew, the former President of Singapore and a long-time KMT friend. Kuan Yew was interested in bringing Taipei and Beijing to the negotiation table; he was also a strong advocate of Asian values. Both contradict Teng-huis vision for Taiwan which is independence through a Westernstyled democracy. In 1995, Teng-hui invited Huntington to support him.10 Likewise, in October 1993, Taipei launched the campaign of participation in the United Nations, insinuating its desire for full statehood.11 Lee also finalized the constitutional amendment in 1993, demanding that the President be popularly elected after 1996. This was to cleanse the myth of the Presidents Chinese representation.
THE NOTICEABLE TAIWANESE CONSCIOUSNESS BEFORE DEMOCRATIZATION

The Taiwanese national consciousness promoted by Lee during his twelve year term could not be a meaningful policy without some pre-existing cognitive underpinning, something which the KMTs Civil War generation had consciously avoided providing. During the 1950s and the 1960s, the collective self-concept in Taiwan could be anything other than Taiwanese. Recent colonial history conceptually made it a piece of land returning to the motherland after WWII. In the Cairo Meeting of 1943, Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek asked for Taiwans return following the end of the Pacific war. The return of Taiwan symbolized the end of an unequal treaty, which car-
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ried with it 100 years of humiliation in modern Chinese history. Both Taiwan residents and the KMT celebrated when Japan surrendered at the end of the war. As the civil war escalated in the Mainland, the transition in Taiwan proved to be violent as well. Many of those who could not accept the KMT nor the Chinese identity either left the island or acquiesced in silence. The term Taiwanese rarely appeared in the official language without the concomitant reference to its provincial status. When Taiwan was referred to, it virtually meant Taiwan, province of the Republic of China. In other words, at this stage, people were psychologically unprepared to perceive Taiwan as an entity separate from China. On the contrary, any reference to Taiwan was at the same time also a reference to China. However, in the late-1970s, a Taiwan with self-identity began to emerge and was welcomed by the KMT. This suggests, on one hand, that there is not necessarily any logical relationship between Taiwan consciousness and Taiwanese independence. On the other hand, the reference of Taiwan could forge a scheme solid enough for people to comfortably speak of indigenization at a later time. After all, something conceptually belonging exclusively to Taiwan must presuppose the use of Taiwan as a viable reference point. It can be unique development experiences, aboriginal kinship, democratic values, indigenous languages, colonial legacies, and so on. The recognition of Taiwan as such a reference point in the late 1970s is thus essential for locating the contemporary roots of Taiwans independence. From then on, the reference to Taiwan has been increasingly about Taiwan. This makes it possible for the pro-independence leaders to use Taiwan to represent Taiwan.
Table 6.1. The Annual Frequency of the Term Taiwan as Recorded in the United News Knowledge Bank
Year
1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
Counts
7,778 7,663 7,075 7,862 8,346 7,337 7,197 6,889 42,352 45,937 58,134
Year
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Counts
57,341 62,182 76,037 80,766 83,268 84,422 81,209 80,518 92,334 112,749 121,106
Since 2002, the numbers have dropped slightly to 111,995 in 2002, 105,704 in 2003, and 104,977 in 2004. Source: United News Data Bank, collected by the author.
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To promote Taiwanese statehood, the independents have enlisted since the early 1990s terms such as indigenous identity to replace Chinese identity, new Taiwanese to replace Chinese nationals, Taiwan to replace the Republic of China, and defending Taiwan to replace recovering the Mainland.12 From the knowledge bank of the United Daily, one can easily count how often a term was used in a given year.13 For example, in Table 6.1., the term Taiwan began with 7,305 counts in 1975, jumping to 42,352 counts in 1988 (the year Lee succeeded Chiang Ching-kuos unfinished Presidency), to 62,182 in 1990 (when Lee was first voted to Presidency), and finally to 112,749 in 2000. This is not a precise count because the term taiwan (Taiwan) can be linked with other characters to mean something different. For example, Taiwan followed by sheng means Taiwan province, Taiwanese by ren, people of Taiwan by renmin, Taiwan experience by jingyan, and so on. On the whole, the rising frequency of its appearance reflects the social change in mood. In a particular combination, Taiwan is followed by experience to suggest that Taiwan itself is a source of governing experience. While Taiwan experience is neutral to the question of statehood, its frequent appearance rose only after Lee took over power, as Table 6.2. demonstrates. The opposite must be equally true; it seems that Lees subsequent use of Taiwan had to rest upon the pre-existing rhetoric of Taiwan experience, something that could hardly be considered a product of the Taiwanese independence movement. Likewise, the frequency of Taiwanese, in Table 6.2., also witnessed a rise along with the development of the statehood issue. Like Taiwan experience, Taiwanese is not necessarily a sensitive term, since
Table 6.2. The Annual Frequency of the terms Taiwan Experience/Taiwanese as Recorded in the United News Knowledge Bank
Year
1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992
Counts
5/174 9/88 5/145 1/133 9/126 7/250 8/91 26/160 191/673 365/944 459/1,391 286/1,298 319/1,525
Year
1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Counts
395/1,921 392/2,953 403/2,986 231/3,097 249/2,503 220/2,836 195/3,858 169/4,815 191/4,459 223/4,286 203/4,617 187/5,402
Source: United News Data Bank, collected by the author.
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Chiang Ching-kuo made a widely quoted remark that he was also a Taiwanese. Being a Taiwanese does not necessarily connote the persons support of Taiwanese statehood. Although by treating Taiwan as an independent reference point, the use of Taiwanese in rhetoric certainly makes the advocacy of statehood discursively more sensible, so other concepts must be invented. This is where the term indigenization fits in. When Taiwan experience and Taiwanese appear in the context of indigenization, their association with Taiwanese statehood become more apparent. This is why the term indigenization must be included in the calculation. Table 6.3. shows the result. Note that the sharp jump in 1993 coincides with the first bid for UN membership. By adopting a reversed way of referencing, one can show that there has been a discursive change since Lee. Instead of counting the terms often enlisted by the independents, one can count the term carrying messages opposite to independent statehood. This is a difficult task because generally, these terms are not focused. Nonetheless, by reading the 19881990 minutes of the KMT Central Standing Committee weekly meetings,14 a particular self-referencing term seems apparent: fuxing jidi which literally means the base for restoration. Thus, Taiwan was seen as a political base for the recovery of the Mainland. The frequency of the appearance of this term drops suddenly in 1992, the year when the KMT held its fourteenth Party Congress to outcast most of its senior members. They were the ones who called Taiwan as the Base for Restoration. For the independents, it is highly possible that their choice of representation through a Taiwan-centered discourse was spontaneous. From a historical point of view, however, Taiwanese independence as a discourse
Table 6.3. The Annual Frequency of the term Indigenization as Recorded in the United Daily Knowledge Bank
Year
1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
Counts
0 3 2 8 4 5 7 78 202 294 444
Year
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Counts
490 597 953 892 861 910 747 733 584 900 1,091
Since 2002, the numbers dropped to 748 in 2002, 668 in 2003, and 734 in 2004. Source: United News Data Bank, collected by the author.
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Table 6.4. The Annual Frequency of the term Base for Restoration as Recorded in the United Daily Knowledge Bank
Year
1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
Counts
174 217 157 149 497 97 135 349 243 137 149
Year
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Counts
110 46 28 12 17 4 7 4 6 2 0
The count is 3 in 2002, 1 in 2003, and 0 in 2004. Source: United News Data Bank, collected by the author.
could not simply come into existence all of a sudden just because Lee Tenghui came to power. In fact, the speeches he gave before 1992 often reiterated the one-China policy.15 While the KMT before Lee also spoke of Taiwan, how is it that the reference to Taiwan after Lee took over delivered the message of independence? There must have been developments before 1988 to make the rise of Lees new identity discourse possible. If the source of change did not come from the KMT, it must have originated abroad. This is why this book looks at the development of the global arena for seeking explanation regarding why Taiwan became discursively independent from China. In brief, Taiwan became a role model of development in the late 1970s. The conjunction of Washingtons global strategic adaptation in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Beijing quest for national identity during the late Cultural Revolution period, and the battle between the modernization and dependency school that coincidentally constructed new meanings of being Taiwan. This allowed Lee to devise a Taiwan discourse without necessarily, albeit readily, alluding to independence. After 1993, he was able to highlight the independence implications of the Taiwan discourse. He began by dropping China from his remarks and eventually headed toward the direction of juxtaposing Taiwan to China.
THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMIC CONSTITUTION OF TAIWAN

The end of the Vietnam War decided the victory of one camp over the border. The unification of Vietnam and the withdrawal of American troops
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brought shame and trauma to the leading capitalist country. The containment of the Communist bloc was broken. The domino theory singled out Laos and Cambodia to be among the next targets of communist invasion, which became a threat to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Morale was low in the United States. This was partly due to the Watergate scandal which tarnished the integrity of a democratic statesman. Many people began to have doubts about the American role in the world. To recover from the debacle of a broken containment, democratic retreat, and the image of betraying Americans, it was necessary to find some alternative way to make sense of the world. At this critical moment, private foundations associated with the national security sectors were called in to execute the reconstruction of the world map.16 Accordingly, new approaches to world politics began to shift attention away from containment and toward a kind of new global order. The key to the new world map was the Pacific Rim. Projects centering on Pacific Rim studies received funding. This would not have happened there before the fall of Saigon. Pacific Rim topics were added to academic journals or conference captions.17 A new graduate school was even founded on the basis of the study on the Pacific Rim (of the University of Californias San Diego campus). The new map made room for Taiwan to stand on its own. Taiwan was unknowingly, but instrumentally, involved in the management of the Vietnam War fiasco. When Vietnam was transplanted to the Pacific Rim, it received a completely different rating. It had been a triumphant state in the Cold War for its role in breaking the containment. However, when compared with other countries in the Pacific Rim, it was considered a failed state. Therefore, in addition to the KMTs role in containing the CCP under the Cold War scenario (which was quite compatible with the KMTs Civil War), Taiwans new task was to serve as an economic role model to discredit Communist Vietnam. Academic writings ensued in the following years. The new trend was to name Taiwan as one of the four tigers or four dragons. This phrase referred to Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong, the last of which was then not a part of China but still a British colony. A more powerful designation was as a newly industrialized (or industrializing) country.18 Tigers were nicknamed NICs. This designation had nothing to do with the Mainland, and singling out Taiwan as an entity worthy to be praised by the world.19 Indirectly, in the writings on Taiwans growth with equity which measured income distribution within the island, Taiwan is conceived of as an entity by itself, with its own people and economic performance. This implied that development in Taiwan is NOT for the sake of recovering the Mainland. The talk of Taiwan experience, which was later heavily used by the government in its propaganda, emerged to make Taiwan a sensible reference point. Way before people in Taiwan realized it was happening, the world political economy had already constituted the separateness of Taiwan from the Mainland.20
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As a result, Taiwanese government officials and intellectuals alike began the process of serious self-reevaluation. In the late 1970s, a series of conceptual developments reflected the self-image of Taiwan as rapidly becoming an independent entity of its own. Even though the Civil War mentality continued to constrain the central belief on the island, the government initiated a new propaganda coup, selling Taiwans economic success to the world as well as to the Chinese in the Mainland. When confronting the Mainland, the government asked the CCP to learn economics from Taiwan, and then learn politics from Taipei.21 Before long, the executive head Sun Yunhsun amazed the media in 1980 by lending support to the resolution of the Civil War through an effective multi-system scheme which politically separated Taiwan from the Mainland for the first time.22 At this point, Taiwans response to the NIC identity had grown beyond the scope of the Pacific Rim mapping, although not necessarily in opposition to it. Meanwhile, intellectual politics in the 1970s had a significant impact upon Taiwans self-image in an additionally different manner. The modernization theory which is intrinsic to the Pacific Rim discourse encountered a challenge raised by the dependency theorists. According to these neo-Marxists, the world capitalist cores have structurally and permanently locked the Latin American countries in the underdeveloped position, causing dual economies, high debts, government deficits, trade deficits, skewed income distributions, and so forth. This distorted picture invited political instability in these areas and brought periodic military overtakings. This was ironically supported by the democratic capitalist governments desiring to exploit disciplined, low-wage workers. As a rebuttal, modernization theorists in different periods tend to look at the deficiencies in areas such as human resources, market institution, cultural psychology, as well as government capacity when looking for reasons for underdevelopment. Huntington, for example, was once so pessimistic in the early 1980s that he had doubts about whether or not there would be more democratic countries emerging from the Third World.23 Among the list of possible explanations, the stress on government capacity is particularly attractive to the KMT leadership. At that time, Taiwan was an archetypal example in opposition to the predicted fate of a dependent country. Whatever the social scientific approaches one took, the same political implications of the Taiwan experience were too clear for any dependency theorist to miss. Taiwan is both politically and militarily dependent on the United States to help fend off potential attacks from the Peoples Liberation Army. Economically, it is dependent on Uncle Sam for capital investment and the export market. Taiwan seemed to fit all aspects of the dependency theory and yet grew with widely acknowledged equity. Even though one may question legitimately from hindsight how true, perpetual,
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or solid the Taiwan experience really is, Taiwans attraction to modernization theorists cannot be overemphasized.24 As compared with strong antiAmerican nationalism in Korea, the obsession with Asian values in Singapore, and the colonial dependence of Hong Kong, Taiwan with its anti-Communist and pro-American attitude was the perfect place to fight neo-Marxism. Democratization in Taiwan similarly attracted the interest of political scientists roughly a decade later.25 Again, all the praise for the democratization in Taiwan could be questioned from hindsight, but this is not the point. Studies on civil society, ethnic nationalism, political factionalism, and election in Taiwan treat Taiwan separately from its long-established relations with China.26 In the past, scholars came to Taiwan to study Chinese behavior because they could not visit the Mainland.27 Taiwan was simply a second choice. Since the 1980s, however, scholars have come to Taiwan to study the nation. Doctoral dissertations on Taiwan have never been short in supply since the 1990s. Many writers came from Taiwan, answering partially to the need for American academic politics, while Taiwanese students studying Taiwan in the United States experience changes in their self-identification and reflect these changes in their heightened identification with Taiwan (instead of China). These topics, such as the comparison of Taiwan with Mexico, South Korea, and Singapore, would have sounded bizarre in the past, and yet, they have become very common. Nowadays, Taiwan is an independent subject of comparative study in the academic circle. Thanks to the challenge posed by the dependency theory, politicians can almost be sure that their constituency is psychologically ready to appreciate the advocacy for an un-Chinese statehood.
THE THIRD WORLD CONSTITUTION OF THE TAIWAN DISCOURSE

In China, the CCP was deeply involved in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. To restore domestic order, Mao resorted to brinkmanship in 1969 by being involved in military confrontation with the former Soviet Union, with Washington seizing the opportunity to open the dialogue with Beijing. This resulted in the Shanghai Communiqu of 1972 and the official recognition in 1979. Mao must have been concerned with the image of himself normalizing relations with imperialism. He avoided encountering Richard Nixon by staying in the countryside during the latters visit to China. This was not enough to remove the impression that there was a Sino-U.S. coalition against the Soviet Union. Therefore, Mao developed his famous Three-World theory. In 1974, Deng Xiaoping arrived at the United Nations to pronounce Chinas permanent membership in the Third
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World. Accordingly, China called for a united front against the first world which theoretically included both superpowers. Maos reappraisal of Chinas place in the world laid out by the ThreeWorld theory was followed at that time by the unification of Vietnam. Subsequent discourse on the Pacific Rim redirected the worlds attention to the issue of modernization and development. Geographically, the shared focus of the Third World Theory and the Pacific Rim discourse was upon developing countries. Meanwhile, the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 was followed by the call for Four Modernizations. Ideologically, Chinas turn to Four Modernizations coincidentally tackled the same problematiqu in which the modernization theory is embedded. Finally, the recognition of the Peoples Republic of China by the U.S. came in 1979. These developments reoriented the CCPs Taiwan policy toward peaceful unification, leaving armed struggle a last resort at best. Ye Jianying, the head of the Peoples Congress, pronounced a nine-point guideline in 1979, mentioning the possibility of the PRC authorities subsidizing Taiwan comrades if needed. While people in Taiwan believed that they were much better off economically, equally important in Yes remark was the rising significance of the role of economics in defining the Civil War. The Civil War rivals had undergone a shift of battlefield from one about which side represented China to another about which side modeled better for the developing countries.28 In fact, when Taiwan experience became a faddish term in Taiwan during the late 1980s, the Chinese advisors were visiting Third World countries to coach the substitution of reform for planning. For a short period, the Chinese delegate supported the call for the new international economic order. Since 1986, the Chinese diplomatic slogan has been peace and development.29 In the late 1980s, the Chinese ideologues came up with a new approach that places China in the primary stage of socialism. This argument justified all market and property reforms launched by the CCP authorities.30 According to this theory, the relations between the Mainland and Taiwan should be a peaceful coexistence between a socialist system and a capitalist system. Competition should stop on the military or the political front. In fact, in 1984, Deng Xiaoping came up with the idea of one country, two systems to resolve the difference in institution that might obstruct unification. The idea was remarkably similar to the notion of the aforementioned multi-system nation. The focus on economic reform and development was therefore connected with the Civil War, but it would never be the same Civil War, or not at all a Civil War if taken from Taiwans perspective. The 1989 Tiananmen incident slowed down the reform, but the same theory of socialism at the primary stage resurfaced in 1997. All this conceptual maneuvering was conducive to redefining the Chinese Civil War. The anti-communist KMTs target has in-
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creasingly obscured. At the same time, people in Taiwan were becoming even less attached to the Chinese dimension of their country. From Chinas unification point of view, Maos Third World theory had unintentionally created a need for the KMT to compete in the Third World. The mapping of the Pacific Rim provided a discursive weapon for the KMT to score in developing countries in which the ROC suffered continuous setbacks. Competing for the best development model also allowed the KMT to regain confidence after it was clear to everyone that its claim over the Mainland was unrealistic. The conceptual remapping of the world by China and the United States expanded the battlefield of the Chinese Civil War. The battlefield was selected for the KMT, not created by the democratization of Taiwan. The KMT willingly transformed itself by claiming its legitimacy of ruling in Taiwan based upon economic success, instead of promoting the recovery of the Mainland. While this said success sustained the KMT by denouncing the CCPs rule in the Mainland, it also enjoyed an international reputation that distanced the KMT away from its Chinese identity.31 Being a role model for developing countries rested upon the choice of teleology. Taiwan represented the capitalist/modernization route, while China is the manifestation of a peculiar market socialism. The subsequent demise of the socialist bloc determined the winner prematurely before Taiwan could decisively defeat China on its own. Modeling contests also compelled the United States to commit to the security of capitalist Taiwan, to assure that it remains separate from China, if not in name, at least in reality.32 Once Taiwan and China became used to modeling competition in the international arena, the psychological condition for Taiwan to pursue its separate statehood, instead of replacing or taking over the Chinese one, remains only a matter of time. The independent economic identity became the KMTs newly discovered foundation, something to continue the Civil War with. Today, this foundation has become so essential in the eyes of the contemporary independents that they consider economic integration with China as national suicide. As many Taiwanese seek economic opportunities in China in response to the continuing economic slack, advocates of independence are critical of the government for not putting enough effort to stop the westward trend. They push for harsh punishment for those who invest in China. The policy rationale is to avoid possible economic fusion with the Mainland market.33 If this is true, one can argue that Maos Third World theory has atavistically given rise to a new theory of the capitalist state in Taiwan that is based upon economic segregation instead of integration. Although it was a concurrent result of several projects originating from different countries intended for completely different goals, its independent economic identity has become the evidence of independent statehood for Taiwan.
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THE MISSING RED LEAVES IN NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS

The importance of the world timing can also be demonstrated through reverse logic. Symbols ready for use to boost national consciousness risk being neglected if shown at the wrong time. This is particularly true with the baseball culture. Sports and identity politics are always linked throughout human history. Baseball represents such an opportunity for the political leaders in Taiwan. Baseball has been a popular sport in Taiwan since 1968 when the aboriginal Red Leaves (Hongye), a little league newcomer, first beat the visiting world champion team from Japan. The legendary Red Leaves was unanimously considered by the Taiwanese to symbolize the opening of local baseball history. There are three good reasons why the Red Leaves could have been a perfect symbol to enhance national consciousness. First of all, baseball is not popular in China, and yet, it has a wide following in Taiwan. The World Championship of the American little league held in Williamsport provided a stage for the team from the ROC at a time (the 1970s) when Taipei was facing serious diplomatic setbacks. Later on, this sport has become the only choice through which Taiwan could claim decisive victory over China. At a recent reception party welcoming a little leaguer who won a competition in China, Vice President Annette Lu remarked to the kids that the most important thing was to beat China.34 Second, the Taiwanese baseball culture came primarily from Japan. Even though the KMT was extremely sensitive to Japanese colonial legacy, the sport of baseball never belonged to the watch list. Nonetheless, this could have had important connotations, since intellectuals leading the independence movement are often connected, in one way or another, with Japan. This Japanese connection among independence advocates was apparent: both Lee and his competitor in the 1996 elections, Peng Mingming, the DPP candidate, were once Japanese citizens. Lee even served in the Japanese military. Interestingly, few independence advocates, if any, have picked up the Japanese connection in Taiwans baseball culture, or the un-Chinese characteristics of the sport.35 The most important reason for the baseball culture being a good candidate for indigenous representation is that many athletes have aboriginal backgrounds, including the first Taiwanese Major League pitcher Tsao Chinghui. Unlike basketball which has been an established sport within the KMT-dominated military, baseball depends less on the Mainlanders in exile. Nor is it like soccer which used to recruit overseas Hong Kong players. The Red Leaves comes from a community that is least affiliated with Chinese cultural heritage and is Christian due to its historical contact with missionaries. The independence advocates are always highly sensitive to aboriginal politics, strongly believing that the aboriginal components in Taiwan are useful in demonstrating the un-Chinese nature of Taiwan.36
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All attempts to subdivide aboriginal identities into ever-complicated categories and to raise their status on a constitutional basis are motivated by the desire to wedge in a greater racial distance between Taiwan and China. The loss of aboriginal sensibility in the case of baseball culture is beyond comprehension, especially at a time when independence advocates are thirsty for proof that allows the separation of Taiwanese culture from the Chinese one. Despite un-Chinese, Japanese, and aboriginal features, the politics of baseball has a limit. Baseball carries a memory of unity in the country during a time of crisis. Whenever there is a victory, comments as well as letters to the editor reveal the appreciation for the feel of national unity that was destroyed by politicians.37 While leading politicians complain about the lack of unity, none dared to exploit baseball to their own advantage. That baseball symbolizes unity and perseverance during national hardship has to do with the timing of its growth. The late 1960s was the age of Cultural Revolution in the Mainland. To respond, Chiang Kaishek launched the Cultural Renaissance Campaign. Supposedly, it was to demonstrate that the ROC was the genuine successor of Chinese culture. Taiwans baseball started to take off during this period. It also had a mission which was the duty of reviving the Chinese spirit. It was also during this time that the ROC suffered a serious diplomatic setback. The little leaguer playing in the United States was welcomed by thousands of overseas students, each of them waiving the ROCs national flag. As a result, baseball and Chineseness were discursively locked together. In addition, because Taiwans baseball is competitive in the world, the PRC team (which usually loses in the early rounds) was unable to prevent the appearance of the ROCs flags. While Chens overseas trips are typically received with the DPPs green flags, the baseball players continue to identify with the ROCs national flags. In fact, when overseas students showed support for Tsaos first show in Denver in July 2003, they were waving the ROCs flags. The more famous Yankee pitcher Wang hien-ming always sees the same flag that the overseas Taiwanese fans carry with them. A token of recognition was given to the Red Leaves when the Central Bank joined the building of national consciousness by enlisting those new logos on the paper money that could distinguish Taiwan from China. In 2000, the Central Bank selected a little league image for the NT $500 note, including other images such as local scenes, plants, and animals.38 Another incident took place when the Government Information Office decided in 2002 that the official national anthem would no longer be played with lyrics to avoid its Chinese context. Instead, the new film accompanying the anthem ended with the image of Red Leaves. Interestingly, there still has been no attempt on the independence advocates part to capitalize on the baseball culture.
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The understanding that the baseball team is a Chinese team goes unchallenged even in 2004. In fact, many retired players go to China for a second career. The Chinese identity of the sport would make it a target of indigenization rather than a product of indigenization. It would be embarrassing, however, to ask aboriginal players to engage in indigenization. It would be politically unwise to destroy the sense of unity on the baseball field that is not existent anywhere else. All these factors contributed to the removal of the Red Leaves from the list of indigenous symbols. Amidst the repeated calls for sourcing Taiwans own cultural symbols, the missing story of the Red Leaves in the reconstruction of statehood has been left unexplained in the literature. This indirectly demonstrates the importance of the world timing, hence the sports ineligibility to contribute to the independence discourse.
UNHOOKING DEMOCRATIZATION FROM INDEPENDENT STATEHOOD

Looking at the fact that the global constitution of Taiwan rests upon the modernization theory, one would expect that liberalism plays a role in the rise of its national consciousness; however, liberalism exactly lacks an indigenous underpinning because Taiwans image of liberal democracy is externally constituted. If liberalism had taken root in Taiwans ideology, the approach the independence advocates would take could be very different today. Liberalism is an ideology of universal application. By adopting it, the practice was able to distract independence advocates from pursuing separate statehood for Taiwan. The focus may be shifted to demanding a liberal state of China which includes Taiwan.39 Early liberals in Taiwan who were critical of the KMTs ruling style nonetheless subscribed to the grandiose ideal of a liberal China. In contrast, the proponents of the independence movement do not care for liberal development in China; they actually want to clean Taiwan of Chinese politics.40 Indeed, the independents did not easily let go of opportunities to condemn the CCP for undemocratic ruling. They did this not because they intended to convert the CCP but because they wanted to differentiate undemocratic China from democratic Taiwan which was used to justify their pursuit of a separate state. In other words, neither the pro-independent government nor the independence advocates are motivated by liberalism. The unavailability of liberalism to independence advocates thus needs explanation, before the explanation of the contemporary roots of independence advocates come to a full circle. First of all, the KMT was never a liberal party. Leading Chinese liberals in Taiwan such as Hu Shih, Yin Haiguang, Lei Chen, and Hu Fu supported the KMT over the CCP for historical rather than ideological reasons. During dif-
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ferent periods of the KMT regime, they were consistent in remaining critical with the authoritarianism of the party. However, this string of liberalism was not closely connected with the opposition forces evolving from within the KMT. When the international situation turned grim for the KMT to the point that it decided to open up the election for public posts to improve internal legitimacy, there were too many candidates and too few positions. Authoritarianism prevented the KMT from recruiting the most capable members to run. Consequently, the capable and the ambitious ones who lost the bid within the Party framework left the party to challenge its candidates. Many were able to win sympathy from a society which was impatient with the KMTs conservative ruling or its incompetent candidates. Together, these party outcasts were able to establish strategic alliance with one another. Eventually, they became the major components of the DPP. Since the DPP is composed of former KMT elite, there was no such ideological tradition as liberalism or socialism in the world view of these people. Their campaigns rested upon populist mobilization against the KMT. Each developed its own support base through charisma and style. It is unlikely that a universal ideology could have united them, although a taste for liberal rhetoric may have appeared in their remarks. In the beginning of their struggle against the KMT, the few liberals in the KMT were their allies. The relationship soon dwindled as they came to power. Liberalism was far removed from their daily political life point of view. As compared to liberalism, the discourse of indigenization appeared much more attractive, since indigenization implies concerns for local feelings, while most in the DPP thrived on their opposition to the KMTs Chinese national appeals. As the KMT suffered accusation for its Chinese identity, the DPP quickly assumed the indigenous or un-Chinese identity. One must not overlook the fact that the time these KMT outcasts came to prominence was in the late 1970s. The DPP came into being in 1986 which followed the emergence of the un-Chinese dimension of Taiwan identity in the evolving world political economy. Lee was the first person to systematically enlist the discourse of indigenization. He was able to recruit support from the DPP members in his struggle against the KMT seniors handpicked by Chiang Ching-kuo to escort Lee. The formation of the DPP, the rise of Lee to the presidency, and the appeal to indigenization immediately appeared in Taiwanese politics one after another. Together, they could cash in on the global referencing of Taiwan as a separate entity from China which the KMT once wanted to introduce to Taiwan to continue the Civil War. Taiwan consciousness is really about representation and not about democratization, and representation is related to academic studies. The way Pacific Rim scholars chose to map Taiwan affects the extent to which Taiwans identity can be anchored outside of China. The pundit dispute between schools also affects the production of the literature in Taiwan.
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Scholarship, politics, and identity work in conjunction with the manufacture of a new Taiwanese identity.41 The timing of events, their concurrence and subsequence, and the mind of those involved in forging new world views all contributed to paving the possibility of the Taiwanese creating political room for themselves. On the other hand, the government acting in the name of this separate Taiwanese identity by no means idly receives the assigned place in the new world mapping. For domestic reasons, Taiwanese politicians have geared toward an indigenous self-definition, which is away from both liberalistic universalism and anti-communist nationalism.
NOTES
1. Stphane Corcuff, ed., Memoirs for the Future: National Identity Issues and the Search for a New Taiwan (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2002). 2. Tsong-jyi Lin, The Evolution of National Identity Issues in Democratizing Taiwan: An Investigation of the Elite-Mass Linkage, in Memoirs for the Future, ed. Corcuff, 123143. 3. Wu Rwei-Ren, Toward a Pragmatic Nationalism: Democratization and Taiwans Passive Revolution, in Memoirs for the Future, ed. Curcoff, 196218. 4. Chia-lung Lin, The Political Formation of Taiwanese Nationalism, in Memoirs for the Future, ed. Curcoff, 219242. 5. For example, see the Editorial, Two Chinas? Newsday, 21 March 2000, A34; Joseph Kahn, China Indicating Caution on Taiwan, New York Times, 2 April 2000, A1; Editorial, China, Taiwan and Democracy, Chicago Tribune, 22 March 2000, 18; Editorial, Shake-up in Taiwan, San Francisco Examiner, 21 March 2000, A19; Erik Eckholm, Why a Victory in Taiwan Wasnt Enough for Some, New York Times, 22 March 2000, A16; Editorial, Chens Victory, Wall Street Journal, 20 March 2000, 19. 6. President Chen linked human rights, referendum, and Taiwans autonomous subjectivity together in his address to the 30th Annual Conference of the World Federation of Taiwanese Association, <http://www.president.gov.tw/index_e.html>(26 July 2003). 7. Lee, in his capacity as President, pronounced in July 1999 that since 1991, China and Taiwan have in retrospect been in a state-to-state relationship. For an interpretation, see his The Asian Strategem (yazhou de zhilyue) (Taipei: Yuanliu, 2000), 2; also see news release by the Presidential Office, <http://www.president.gov.tw/ php-bin/dore2+/list.php4>. 8. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 9. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). 10. Tenghui once called Kuan Yew a dictator, United Daily, 28 July 1995, 2. Huntington, in his keynote speech in the above conference, stood against Kuan Yew in support of his host. In the same conference, Francis Fukuyama was quoted by the United Daily, 25 Aug. 1995, 6, as saying that Tenghuis opening of history was on the side of freedom, while Kuan Yew, the dictatorship side. The result of the confer-
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ence is Larry Diamond et. al., eds., Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies: Themes and Perspectives (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). 11. Lee pronounced in the National Assembly on 9 April 1993 that the ROC would actively apply to participate in the United Nations. In the same speech, he reiterated his desire that the ROC become a free, national, democratic society. United Evening, 9 Apr. 1993, 1; see also Chen Lun-chu, Admission of Taiwan to the United Nations: A Way toward Normalization of the TaiwanChina Relations, The China Quarterly (zhongguo shiwu jikan) (Taipei) 5 (2001): 107109. 12. See Lee Tenghui, Taiwans Positions (taiwan de zhuzhang ) (Taipei: Yuanliu, 1999); The Asian Stratagem; The Quiet Revolution. 13. The United Daily data bank can be found at <http://udndata.com/library/>. 14. Mimeograph. About the term, also see Carl K. Y. Shaw, Modulations of Nationalism across the Taiwan Straits Issues & Studies 38, no. 2 (March/April 2002): 122147. 15. Since 1992, he believed that he would at best express his opinion about the one China principle, and not necessarily meaning he would accept it. United Daily, 2 Aug. 1992, 2. 16. For details, see Bruce Cummings, Boundary Displacement: Area Studies and International Studies during and after the Cold War, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 29, no. 1 (Jan-Mar 1997): 627. 17. Aldershot in England launches a Pacific Rim Research Series; there are Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal and Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, for example. 18. For research in the NICs discourse, see Tun-jen Cheng and Stephan Haggard, Newly industrializing Asia in transition: Policy Reform and American Response (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1987); Stephen Haggard, Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1990). 19. Note the title: Emerging Western Pacific Community Problems and Prospects: Proceedings of the Seminar on Western Pacific Community, 1719 December 1979, by Freedom Council, Taipei, Republic of China (Taipei: Freedom Council, 1981); also the title: Science in the ROC and the Pacific Rim, 19811992: A Citationist Perspective, by National Science Council (Taipei: National Science Council, 1993). 20. The method of separate national accounts makes it a separate unit of development, seeTimothy Michell, Fixing the Economy, Cultural Studies 12, no. 1 (1998): 82101. 21. United Daily, 9 Nov. 1979, 2. 22. His cabinet member expounded the multi-system nation in United Daily, 15 Oct. 1980, 2, 4. 23. Samuel Huntington, Will More Countries Become Democratic? Political Science Quarterly 99, no. 2 (1984): 193218 24. For example, Alan P.L. Liu, Phoenix and the Lame Lion: Modernization in Taiwan and Mainland China, 19501980 (Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1987); Chi Schive, The Foreign Factor: The Multinational Corporations Contribution to the Economic Modernization of the Republic of China (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1990). 25. For example, Steven J. Hood, The Kuomintang and the Democratization of Taiwan (Boulder: Westview, 1997); Bruce J. Dickson, Democratization in China and Taiwan: The Adaptability of Leninist Parties (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997);
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Hung-mao Tien, ed., Taiwans Electoral Politics and Democratic Transition: Riding the Third Wave (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1996). 26. For example, Shelley Rigger, Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (London: Routledge, 1999); Alan M. Wachman, Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1994); Chou Bih-er, Cal Clark, and Janet Clark, Women in Taiwan Politics: Overcoming Barriers to Womens Participation in a Modernizing Society (Boulder: Rienner, 1990); Robert Sutter, Taiwan: Entering the 21st Century (Lanham: University Press of America, 1988). 27. See the discussion in Andrew Walder, The Transformation of Contemporary China Studies, 19772002 in Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines 3 (2002), article 8 at <http://repositories.cdlib.org/cuiaspubs/editedvolumes/3/8>, ed. UCLAS. For specific examples of China research conducted in Taiwan, see, Richard W. Wilson, Learning to be Chinese: The Political Socialization of Children in Taiwan (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970); Burton Pasternak, Kinship and Community in Two Chinese Villages (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972); Bernard Gallin, Hsin Hsing, Taiwan: A Chinese Village in Change (Berkeley: University of California, 1966). 28. In response to Ye, the KMT asked the CCP to undergo Taiwanization, United Daily, 2 Apr. 1979, 2; 15 Jan. 1979, 2. 29. See, for example, The Chinese Commission, ed., Collections of Scholarly Discussions in International Peace Year (guoji heping nian xueshu taolunhui lunwenji) (Beijing: Social Science Literature, 1986); Gao Jing dian, Jiang Lingfei and Zou Zhengyuan, Peace and Development (heping yu fazhan) (Beijing: Peoples Liberation Army Press, 1989). 30. The notion of the primary stage of socialism was first raised in a resolution passed by the Sixth Plenary of the Eleventh Central Committee on June 27, 1981. 31. Reports or comments on Taiwans economic performance as well as its ability to survive diplomatic isolation were always proudly translated. See, for example, United Daily, 11 Jun. 1997; 28 Dec. 1979; 22 May 1981; 24 Jun. 1981. 32. See the discussion by Nancy Bernkopt Tucker, If Taiwan Chooses Unification, Should the United States Care? Washington Quarterly 25, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 1528. 33. The Premier expressed his worry in Economics Daily, 15 Jan. 2003, 4; the President did in Economics Daily, 30 July 2002, 1. 34. She made the remark on July 13, 2002 when she hosted the victorious little leaguers returning from Beijing. 35. The pro-DPP and pro-independence Formosa Television had once strangely broadcasted major Japanese league games during airtime typically reserved for news. 36. Note that the ethnic category adopted by the Constitution is defined by the timing of ones ancestors arriving in Taiwan, thus excluding from the Taiwanese those whose ancestors have never arrived. The aboriginal people became the anchor of the ethnic constitutionality in Taiwans pursuit of statehood. From the aboriginal gene test, accordingly, one could actually scientifically assert that Taiwan is not a part of China. 37. For letters to the editor, see United Daily, 18 Nov. 2001, 15; Related reports are abundant, see for example, United Daily, 20 Nov. 2001, 5; 13 Nov. 2001, 15; and Minsheng Daily, 19 Nov. 2001, B2; 20 Nov. 2001, B3; 16 Nov. 2001, A2; 10 Nov. 2001, B2.
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38. For related discussion, see Stphane Corcuff The Symbolic Dimension of Democratization and the Transition of National Identity under Lee Teng-hui, in Memories of the Future: National identity Issues and the Search for a New Taiwan, ed. S. Corcuff (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2002), 9394. 39. A writer on liberalism expresses puzzle over the nationalistic value of the liberals, see Chiang Yihua, Liberalism, Nationalism and National Identity (ziyouzhuyi, minzuzhuyi yu guojia rentong) (Taipei: Yangchi, 1998), 142144. 40. This careless attitude toward Taiwans possible role in Chinas democratization bothers Chinese pro-democracy activists very much, see United Daily, 19 Jun. 2000, 15. 41. The largest research fund as well as award for political science in Taiwans National Science Council typically goes to scholars of democratization as well as democratic culture.
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IV
TWO THESES ON CONFUCIAN DEMOCRACY
So what, if all are learning liberal democracy and gradually perfecting their practices no matter how long this could take? Why would a reader worry about Taiwan, or any other place, if the local discourses that provide meanings to the widespread pressure to democratize would eventually either disappear in favor of what could once be no more than an alien concept or perish at all due to failing the fittest test of the time? It is therefore necessary to come up with alternative theories that can assist Taiwan watchers in viewing the world as the local residents in Taiwan do. These theories should provide a language that could connect the local world to the familiar perspectives of the Taiwan watchers so that they could make sense of what has gone wrong with the success story both in terms of human rights and democratic election, why advisors home at contemporary political theory have lost control in electoral campaign as well as strategic triangle, and how political theory has intervened in the development of Taiwanese modernity and its international representation. Chapter 7 tries a thesis on Confucian parenting personality and chapter 8, a thesis on Confucian state-society symbiosis. Readers not interested in reforming political science ontology and epistemology should proceed to conclusion directly.
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Parenting Personality
FROM TAIWAN TO POLITICAL SCIENCE

Earlier chapters blame political science for misreading the meanings of political action embedded in the complexity of a post-colonial Confucian society. The result is the presentation of a liberal democracy in Taiwan which is actually not liberal. Instead, democratization in Taiwan produces a polity that neither practices (or even comprehends) the principle of limited government nor respects differences to the extent that these differences are functional to the construction of the new identity. For global political economic reasons, international commentators largely look away from this deviation, so to speak, from liberal democratic ideal. Their inattention to violations of rights or lack of operable constitutional procedures in Taiwan reflects the commentators interest more in maintaining Taiwan as a hope of democratization than as an accomplished liberal democracy. Such a hope, if lauded as a success, is useful to Washingtons grand strategy of bringing China into the liberal world order, particularly in light of Taiwans model effect on the change of the one-party rule in China. Taiwans domestic quest for a national identity away from China, under the guise of democratization, has risen along with this external pull to pose Taiwan as a separate entity that represents the way of the liberal world order. Together, they have created the image of a successful state. For those who are sincerely devoted to liberal democracy, the first proper step to ameliorate the misreading is probably to hold off any hasty conceptualization of Taiwans democracy because the knowledge concerning local politics and society is so limited outside the misleading literature, but
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to reform political science so that they could better empathize with Taiwanese politics. However, the typical revision that political science usually adopts whenever there is an anomaly is to either identify variables that can turn local idiosyncrasy into an abstract, universally applicable factor that is manageable, or to redefine the current variable matrix to explain away idiosyncrasy. This approach would not work, though, because to keep using liberal democracy as the point of reference to reform political science cannot shun the tendency of treating idiosyncrasy as deviation to be cured. The kind of citizenship and the state-society distinction, so deeply rooted in political science, easily leads observers into a pathological analysis of the postcolonial society which cannot match the expectation of political science. Philosophically, anyone who dedicates himself or herself to democratizing and liberalizing a different society, which in our case is a post-colonial and Confucian one, should first learn how to shift positions and participate in local practices. When shifting from external liberal democracy to the Taiwanese post-colonial democracy is possible, political science would be able to see what liberal democracy has meant in the mind of a Taiwanese local. If shifting of this sort provides a route for the Taiwanese local to move toward liberal democracy, then it is epistemically arguable that a local could also shift and learn to accept that liberal democracy could be completely different from that which is already being practiced in Taiwan. This is not unlike an epistemic tourist. From the discussions in earlier chapters, what this challenging epistemic exercise would require is for one to shift from liberalism to post-colonialism and Confucianism. Shifting exposes the fundamental assumption of todays political science, enabling one to appreciate a power relationship wherein power is moral, as well as a state-society relationship wherein the two are symbiotic. In the current chapter, the emphasis is on moral power and personality. The critical reflection on the state-society relationship is in chapter 8. Despite the fact that political personality is not a popular subject in the discipline of political science, political science privileges through a presupposition, a particular kind of personality. One major aspect aforementioned that explains why todays political science and Confucianism do not match well is that political science treats moral as a value external to the personality. According to political science, through learning, the Taiwanese can acquire liberalism as a value. However, liberal democratic psychologists cannot accurately diagnose Taiwan. Note that moral is pertinent to relationship, while relationship is an important component of personality under Confucianism as well as post-colonialism. Relationship in ones family and closer circles is the basis of trust. This is why Confucian leadership relies upon a demonstrated relationship with the constituency, who participates in the democratic process, to express loyalty to such a relationship instead of exercising independent judgments based on self-interest. To execute liberal de-
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mocracy in Taiwan therefore alludes to a personality reform, a kind of reform few liberals would consider compatible with liberalism.
DEMOCRACY AND PERSONALITY

According to contemporary political science, despite its various definitions and practices, democracy is applicable to all human gatherings, rather than a particular type of personality limited to certain cultures. In other words, a polity does not have to have Athenian origins, the worlds earliest democracy, in order to wield democratic power. However, democracy is not always able to reproduce itself in the long run, above all when it faces the challenges of modern nationalism. Both world wars which were fought during the twentieth century were related to nationalism that escalated from ethnic conflicts internal to sovereign states. This was especially true in World War II in which a Holocaust against the Jews occurred in Germany and some parts of Europe, and another in Nanjing against the Chinese. These left a permanent trauma on parliamentary democracy. Ethnic conflicts which destroy human dignity do not simply humiliate anyone who praised Weimar democracy, but also continue to haunt post-colonial Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi, the West Bank, Chechnya, Croatia, and so on. Obviously, democracy as an institution of election as well as of separation of power does not seem superior to its feudal predecessor, since both inter-war Germany and Japan had been parliamentary democracies,1 especially with Germanys Weimar Republic once considered as a well-designed constitutional democracy. Such traumas of democracy lead to the suspicion that democracy is more than just a set of institutions; it also has to be a type of personality which citizens of democracy must cultivate. Those defeated by the Allies whose leaders regarded most Allies as democracies, to the extreme extent that some even perceived the developments in the warlord-peasant-comprador-based China as democratic,2 were in no position to refute the conclusion of political psychologists practicing in the allied countries who blamed the failure of democracy in the Axis countries on their societies authoritarian personality type.3 The mission for democrats uncomfortable with any other ideal system was thus to transform the authoritarian personality and/or prevent it from spreading in democracy.4 Psychologists designed numerous personality scales intended for the scientific monitoring of the conditions of authoritarian pathology.5 In the meantime, a psychoanalysis of the Confucian roots of the authoritarian personality drew significant attention from sinologists interested in, yet puzzled by, the Cultural Revolution which lasted from 1966 until the late 1970s.6 The threat to democracy was thereby maintained. On the eve of the twenty first century, this vision of pathological personality continues to stir
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anxiety for some democrats in the West,7 as if the eventual clash of civilizations between Christian democracy and Confucian and Muslim collectivism were inevitable, or maybe even desired. Efforts to locate the new threat to democracy are not limited to the specification of the classic authoritarian personality8 but are being extended to include the critical and interpretive stream of scholarship which endeavors to deconstruct the meaning of capitalism, democracy, market, or individualism. Thinkers belonging to this strand of post-modern thought challenge the image of the third wave of third-world democracy proclaimed and promoted by many liberal democratic countries. Specifically, the post-modern questioning of democracy especially dislikes its assumption of individual subjectivity under liberal democracy.9 Contrary to the claim made by democrats that individual citizens each have their own value judgments and preferences, the illusion of individualism which believes that individuals are naturally autonomous, separate, and ontological beings may be responsible for modern citizens inability to connect with one another due to the pressure put upon them to feign independence and perform in solitude. As a result, according to post-modern critics, it becomes a psychological necessity for the individualized citizens to look for an other against whom they maintain the illusion of a separate, subjective being in themselves. That other is there to be conquered, despised, opposed, or separated. The post-modern challenge reminds one of authoritarian personality traits, which, just like post-modernism, refuses the claim of meaningful boundaries among each different self.10 This denial of the sense of boundary contributes to a kind of collective action, such as what was shown during World War II, which could destroy the capacity of society to tolerate differences. Transforming authoritarian personalities would be insufficient to preserve democracy if post-modern personalities were allowed to emerge en masse.11 What used to be the mission for those so-called democratic psychologists such as Harold Lasswell, Erich Fromm, or Milton Rokeach in the earlier period, and Lucian Pye and James Glass12 in the contemporary period, has been to oppose certain pathological personality types such as authoritarian as well as post-modern. However, this mission no longer suffices. Rather, their extended mission should be to construct a model democratic personality type which enables each individual citizen to comfortably tolerate the very different others sharing the same polity. Ironically, this model personality sets out to transform very different others. Responding to the literature on democratic psychology, this chapter will discuss this nascent notion of democratic personality, examine its liberal premises, and reflect upon the allusions to the development of Taiwanese democratic culture, including both the exploration of social personality types unfamiliar to democratic psychologists under liberal circumstances, and the attempt to cultivate the kind of personality type which may contribute to the preparation of a civic democracy in Taiwan.
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DEMOCRACY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

No matter how strongly Pysians or Glassians emphasize the importance of the ontologically unproblematized being, the existence of a democratic personality which expects, tolerates, and encourages differences and therefore supports individual citizens in their participation in democracy, is clearly a proposition about personality benefiting the operation of society and not merely for the fulfillment of individual citizens. One rationale for the promotion of a democratic personality in each individual citizen is that it prepares one with the mental capacity to tolerate differences, so that society as a gathering of individuals can survive the vast differences among its constituents. Only in this sense can democracy enhance the protection of individual rights. Without this democratic personality, one could not differentiate others from oneself and would either deny the existence of others as if one is omnipotent or, when unable to achieve omnipotence, search for an omnipotent subject to occupy the self and project ones anxiety over ones own impotence onto a target selected by the occupier. Either way, one would fail to tolerate any differentiating selves essential for democracy. For the operation of democracy, the lack of a democratic personality is, thus, a mental illness. Findings from research on the psychotic personality conducted by Glass at the Maryland Mental Hospital show that patients generally lack a democratic personality. Glass, who is in charge of this research, suggests that antisocial behavior is a product of delusion that any democracy must cure.13 Glass found out that during their psychosis (i.e., psychotic time as Glass calls it), patients fumble with elements in the consensual reality and put them in the wrong order.14 This causes in them extreme fears leading to a search for totalitarian control.15 In their delusion, patients develop their own sense of order and assign each person with whom they have contact a specific role, be it an oppressor or a victim. If the medical teams interacted with patients in accordance to the consensual reality, the patients world views would be denied. They would need to isolate themselves from the team to avoid the threatening consensual reality. Violence toward the medical team marks one usual response of patients under such a delusion. Patients are involved in a process of regression, seemingly returning to the newborn stage, in which an infant is narcissistic yet at the same time dependent on his parents to satisfy his totalitarian tendency.16 Since, there is no language available for the infant to express the frustration of not always being able to control his environment, violence toward the outside world as well as self-destruction are commonly resorted to. Accordingly, patients and the newborn share one common character, and that is the mental incapacity for difference, separation, or tolerance. For the newborn, this is easy to appreciate, since they have never experienced separation inside the womb, and birth is the beginning of physical separation
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for which they could not have been psychologically prepared. The growing process is therefore also a learning process in which a child comes to appreciate his separation from his parents, especially his mother. The parents have to hold the child while he is experiencing frustration over his inability to control his environment, or the anxiety at being left in solitude.17 Holding, which provides a sense of security for the child in his parents receiving and calming arms, allows the child to contain the tendency of self-denial inside his own psyche, and as time passes by, to manage his anxiety within the emerging boundaries of a self.18 If the parents fail to do this, the child would have problems establishing self-sustaining boundaries. The horror toward consensual reality thus accumulated is generally inexpressible in the discourse of consensual reality. It is stored deep down like a titan who will explode at a later time of development and result in destructive behaviors that cannot be explained.19 To democratic psychologists, holding is therefore an important function for any healthy democratic personality to develop. In clinical experience, for those who lacked holding and regressed into delusion, the holding of the medical team is essential to the construction of boundaries and the sense of a self. The team must discover the root of the anxiety, which the discourse of the consensual reality cannot express. Hopefully, the team can help patients bring the unconscious to the conscious, so that they can manage their own delusion once buried deep down and unnoticeable at the cognitive level. Assistance with moving beyond the narcissistic stage is imperative for patients to begin interacting with the consensual reality, without which no society can stick together. Indeed, for the sake of their own survival, men need the society, so they learn to tolerate the differences among themselves. In order to achieve this ability to tolerate, however, they must first settle down within their own spheres and accept its limitation in order to allow the differentiation of boundaries for each self so that they become able to hold others. The emergence of this sense of boundaries reflects the growth out of the narcissistic stage. Accordingly, the process of maturing requires the sense of subjectivity, i.e., a self with boundaries, which the medical team should inject into the consciousness of the patients.20 Glass believes that the operation of democracy is contingent upon this sense of subjectivity, which not only prompts one to act upon ones own behalf instead of a totalitarian occupiers, but also enables one to appreciate the sense of subjectivity in others.21 The medical team has to interact with the patients frequently in order to patch together the pieces of the story given by the patients and rebuild a personal history for them. It is critical that the patients have at least a minimum level of trust in the team. However, close contacts with patients expose the team to certain dangers. One of them, of course, is physical violence which each patient displays toward his/her environment from time to time. The more
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worrisome danger is nonetheless psychological: that the team members may themselves be involved in the psychotic time of the patients and begin to feel delusive themselves. Clinical experiences show that the psychotic order of a patient can be passed on to the medical team.22 Patients who repeatedly attack the team verbally deny the sense of efficacy and self-worth of the team members. On the other hand, the relationships among the roles which the patients assign to team members are not easy to detect, especially when the patients themselves often shift roles too quickly for the members to adapt and then deconstruct the subjectivity of the members which is necessary to hold the patients. As the team members do not always join all the therapeutic sessions at the same time, the communication among them is often incomplete, disallowing a consensual reality to emerge and causing emotional intensity among them. On the other hand, to win patients trust, the members may gradually adopt the role expectations imposed upon them by the patients and even treat the other members according to the psychotic order of the patients. All of these hurt the holding capacity of the team dealing with the patients. This finding must be alarming for democratic psychologists. The total holding capacity of the society may drop as the psychotic time encroaches on the consensual reality. The team members must then get together more frequently in order to reconstruct the professional subjectivity, which is the function of the team, in order to regain the will to hold the patients. Regression, which can be triggered inside the holder, suggests that no one is ever completely beyond the narcissistic stage.23 Those parents who fail to hold babies well may themselves be the victims of their own parents inability to hold babies well. As a result, the narcissistic pursuit in the infant may recall the narcissistic tyrant inside of the parents. The same could be said of the relationship between an authoritarian legacy or a post-modern trigger with an existing democratic society. Narcissism can be collective, and often, it is. While the joining of society by an adult signals the nominal end of narcissism, the incompletely satisfied narcissistic need caused by the unfulfilled holding by the parents can also seek satisfaction in public life.24 Even for those who succeed in departing the narcissistic stage, the building of boundaries nonetheless indicates the loss of omnipotence.25 People will feel more or less frustrated over things as well as people they cannot control. For most of us who remain attracted to narcissistic power to some degree, the consensual reality represents self-denial, and even more so if it appears inattentive to the frustration we experience inside, just like children feeling frantic when failing to draw any response from their parents. To compensate for the loss of omnipotence, one would likely project this search for omnipotence on to a totalitarian leader in public life,26 especially when heroes are not available in the
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field of sports, entertainment, or the professions. Totalitarianism relies on a target to be conquered, and this meets the uncompleted narcissistic need. Possibly, the society continues to operate in a normal, mutually respectful manner with an excluded target group serving to compensate the narcissistic loss. The political realm is an ideal place to project ones totalitarian need, particularly as modern techniques enable politics to reach every corner of society.27 Political narratives shared by individual citizens provide them a common scapegoat. These narratives are familiar to individuals through repeated use in the public realm by leaders who enjoy the trust of the public. The politics of scapegoating is like an epidemic. Through such public narratives, the leaders psychotic time engulfs the public. Collective psychotic time reproduces itself through the same channels that implant the leaders narratives into the society. In the clinical experience, the psychotic patient who blames and fears the nurse may lead the doctor into complaining about the nurses incompetence. In politics, individual citizens could share leaders real and politically fabricated paranoia in the same way that the doctor enters the psychotic time of the patient. The social regression caused by the leaders scapegoating politics and the narratives that introduce the scapegoat to the society, which in turn allow the citizens to be engulfed by the leaders psychotic time, together generate the collective need for domination. In the name of politics, one can legitimately engage in all sorts of oppression, exclusion, conquest, annihilation, and other means of violence. Those individual citizens who participate in this mass political delusion may continue to faithfully play the role of loving and holding parents at home without sensing the psychotic nature of the politics which they help facilitate without their names printed on it.28 Those supporters and suppliers for the German Nazis, the Japanese militarists of WWII, and the Chinese Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution who were not democrats could have been perfectly normal human beings outside of politics. This rational madness or mad rationalism reflects the inaccessibility to a holding environment if deprived of totalitarianism. In short, attraction to narcissistic power can be released when the situation is right. This explains why an institutional democratic system is at best a necessary condition for democracy, never sufficient all by itself. Nor does democratic personality alone suffice because few are entirely beyond the narcissistic stage. Accordingly, in addition to a democratic personality and a democratic institution, democracy requires a way of thinking, an illusion, or a kind of cognition to manage the waiting titan, directing the energy generated by the frustration and anxiety away from destruction and toward holding. Many psychologists recognize the importance of a transitional object as an object or an other against which the child gains the sense of subjec-
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tivity. However, the meaning of possessing an object may not be universal. For example, the child may learn to love and take care of an object; indeed, some renowned psychologists consider loving to be an essential curing mechanism.29 If loving is an effective metaphor of holding, then it would also be acceptable to democratic psychologists who emphasize holding. Here, holding refers to a sense of security socially and culturally, wherein one never worries about intrusion or abandonment. However, if the emergence of the sense of boundaries is the first step to developing ones holding capacity, it would be begging the question to ask someone to love in order to learn holding, since without having subjectivity within certain boundaries in the first place, one would be in no position to love.30 In short, if subjectivity must come before loving or holding, loving is not an available prescription for improving holding. On the other hand, if, by possessing a transitional object (a quilt, a pillow, or a teddy bear, for example), the child may transcend his dependence on the mother and still meet his narcissistic need, subjectivity could develop inside of the child without him being demanded to love first. Here is where the illusion of liberalism can contribute to democracy.31 Liberalism is a necessary illusion for democracy because it supports the pretension that each individual is entitled to certain basic rights, the most fundamental of which is perhaps the property right. The property right provides the material foundation of a sense of boundary. Here is the classic American dream, a home. This is not to say that everyone is entitled to an equal amount of property. Nonetheless, liberalism, which comprises the basic assumptions of Western democracy, is based upon a nominal expectation that every citizen has properties. Someone who does not possess any property still enjoys property rights like everyone else, as if there were an impermeable sphere of selfhood regardless of ones property level. In addition to God who provides all Christians with a spiritual foundation of subjectivity, property as a transitional object, which provides a buffer zone with a legally protected tangible boundary of ones physical selfhood, lays the material foundation of ones subjectivity. A provisional proposition connects the liberal illusion and democratic personality here. With Christian conviction and liberalism, no individual citizen needs to feel anxious in solitude before interacting with another, nor feel impotent for not being able to dominate others. Each has property in his dominance and, if really anxious, can still seek to be occupied by God in spirit. Under the liberal illusion, legal rights and duties are the result of interactions among subjective individuals rather than individualism being the creation and gift of legal rights and duties.32 Now that ones subjectivity and sense of boundary can be preserved under liberalism, holding becomes possible; even those who have little property accept that they have the right to property. The right to possess property substitutes for property itself and
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becomes the transitional object for each self who ceases to long for a totalitarian occupier to provide security. This completes the story of liberalism as the most appropriate illusion for democracy. In contrast, post-modern critics of liberal democracy do not only point out the oppressive nature of capitalism and the pretentious nature of democracy, which Marxist critics have done in the past, but also historicize the evolution of liberalism to make it appear fragile or discursively unreal.33 However, the critics intention to deconstruct liberal subjectivity is precisely what democratic psychologists cannot easily make sense of. Liberalism is in fact an illusion, but is believed to be much better than the psychotic world under post-modernism. This psychotic regression would destroy the consensual reality, which is precisely the source of evil for most post-modernists, and would allow the reemergence of an authoritarian personality and a totalitarian occupier. To deny liberalism as sheer illusion is to miss the point. For democratic psychologists, liberalism is more of a prescription of narcissism rather than an inevitability. Democratic psychologists themselves may be a minority voice in political science. For example, they may very well question the prevailing rational choice school in political science today which ignores that calculating subjects do not exist naturally.34 The theory of rational choice presupposes a consensual reality, such as a common norm of exchange, individualist ontology, and measurable desire, yet its preservation is far beyond the work of rational choice theorists, which include the exploitation of the disadvantaged, the expulsion of aliens (so to speak), and the control of dissidence. Besides, there is no guarantee that participants in rational politics will not regress into a narcissistic state. Ultimately, the theory of rational choice fails to deal with the affective and subconscious need to be held. Accordingly, democratic psychologists may not oppose the post-modern suspicion of liberalism in the sense that critical analyses can be applied to many known predicaments under liberal conditions. Post-modern critics must explain, though, how the deconstruction of the subjectivity, rocking the sense of certainty, or contextualizing a long-held belief are not manifestations of the sheer destruction of humanism upon which contemporary citizens rely to defend the holocaust potential. Post-modern thinking could release this potential to feed the hunger for power that compensates the unsatisfied narcissistic egoism facing the post-modern threat of self-disintegration.
THE HEGEMONY OF A DEMOCRATIC PERSONALITY

The research on authoritarian personality spilled over to studies done on China in the 1960s as Confucian values struggled with the Maoist Cultural Revolution. During this period, the society split into confrontational
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groups of Red Guards engaging in bloody killings. Mao became the totalitarian Son of Heaven (the occupier) prompting Red Guards to compete in carrying out the revolutionary illusion. Opposing Red-Guard groups were seen as counterrevolutionary by the others for reasons unrelated to ethnicity, ideology, citizenship, or even economic class. Rather, the frustration of being kept away from practicing Maoism in schools, the fear of being labeled as counterrevolutionary, the anxiety of being unable to carry out revolution in society, and finally, the hatred of school and public authorities all pushed young men and women to look for outlets in those with a different birth status, a status superficially constructed in accordance with the political class of a persons family (e.g., landlords, the wealthy, the counterrevolutionary, rascals, rightists, Krushchevists, capitalistroaders, revisionists, and the KMT agents vs. workers, peasants, soldiers, cadres, and martyr families). Symptoms typical of a period of individual psychotic time appeared in this society, denying privacy to individual citizens beginning from birth, while on the other hand, no consensual reality could be achieved among the red guards, all of whom refused to hold single signs of deviation from Maoism nebulously interpreted entirely by the will of someone belonging to a higher status. All enemies were treated ruthlessly in order to manifest behaviors of a fearless revolutionary. Therefore, self-empowerment through the Maoist delusion was, at the same time, a total submission of oneself to Maoism. It would appear that the Cultural Revolution was just an extreme game played among narcissistic children. Psychoanalysts endeavor to discover the cultural root of narcissism in Confucian societies,35 particularly in child-rearing practices, which discourage the emergence of an independent selfhood.36 For example, toilet training starts with newborns, which deny infants the only power they enjoy. As another example, the disciplining of children conventionally involves the giving and taking away of food. In fact, children learn social manners at dining tables where they are not allowed to speak, only to listen. Oral power parallels moral power. This deprivation of the enjoyment of food, which is central to the Freudian diagnosis of pathological root in early childhood, allegedly explains the uncompleted narcissistic need in Confucian societies. On top of that, extended family structures in Confucian societies distract a child from having a clear one-on-one relationship with his mother, exacerbating the lack of boundaries in his psyche. Accordingly, it is almost unavoidable that members of the Confucian societies would have a culturally dependent and authoritarian personality, whereby in politics, the tendency is to withdraw regressively if charismatic leaders are not available for the projection of narcissistic needs.37 Characterized by a culture of self-denial or self-hatred of this sort, public life in Confucian societies is filled with
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selfless dramas in which only strict role playing without individual characteristics can provide self-worth.38 The basically anxious politicians in Confucian societies cannot help but be preoccupied with the game of naming and ranking orally as well as morally, and this is how one gains psychological advantage over the opponents. Face is such an important issue, since it entails the voluntary submission and loyalty of the subordinate. On the other hand, losing face is a disaster, since everyone else has to despise the loser to protect his own ranking or membership in the right group. 39 What promotes peoples careers in politics is obviously the human relations already in existence or [AU: or which?] are socially constructed between them and the nobility. The winners honor their ancestors and benefit their posterity; the losers degrade their ancestors and bring death to their relatives.40 Having historically been accustomed to fear, ridicule, and manipulation, modern citizens in Confucian societies are psychologically vulnerable to mobilization by fighting warlords and parties.41 This is both because these power holders rarely showed any mercy in dealing with the rank-and-file during political breakdown and because it was not difficult for the people to satisfy the power holder with some token respect. Few Confucian historians left for later generations any critical perspective on the cruelty of war and politics, except for tales on the magnitude of cruelty. They are pacifists not supposed to give the dark side of the heavenly order. Few, if any, would care about the loss of life anyway once political order and hierarchical peace are restored. Narcissistic citizens in Confucian societies are psychologically comfortable with their lack of subjectivity as they respond inattentively to boundaries.42 In fact, any sign of self-centrism in public would even incur self-hatred, as if one were unable to sacrifice for a high cause. In this mode of psychoanalysis, the Confucian societies are all somehow similar to the psychotic patients in the Maryland Mental Hospital, living occasionally in delusion to satisfy their narcissistic need. In addition, they refuse any distinction between the public and the private, but then still struggle regressively to avoid involvement in politics. Moreover, they shamelessly maneuver human relationships to stay inside of the system at the expense of the others once in a while, but feel obliged to sacrifice their good for the protection of the nobility in higher positions.43 Having caused tens of thousands of casualties, periods of collective psychosis historically witnessed emperors imaginations of temporal replay by constantly and selectively drawing and fabricating lessons from the past. History also records their abuse of spatial arrangement by building Great Walls, digging transportation ditches, constructing huge occult stones, and searching for Gods residence, and yet, people usually cooperated. Culturally lacking the democratic personality, contemporary Confucian societies are seemingly unprepared for democracy.44
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Democratic psychology inevitably creates enormous pressure for contemporary politicians in Taiwan and China because if liberalism and democratic personality are the normal types, the Confucian subjects have unfortunately not been made for that. Since the May 4 Movement of 1919, Chinese intellectuals have faced the dilemma of how to handle the backward Chinese political culture without hurting their own pride. National leaders struggle to prove that their citizens are modern by pushing them to rally on the streets for goals actually given by the government. Even if there is a spontaneous rally, observers often suspect government involvement and, ironically, the government would immediately begin to worry about the damage to political unity, especially since the discourses on democratic psychology are being revived today to target not just Confucian authoritarianism but also postmodernism. The standpoint, as acknowledged, is invariably liberalist. As discussed in the earlier chapters, liberalism prevails in the public discourse in Taiwan, but individual boundaries do not enjoy respect or protection to the extent that both the KMT and the DPP may consider political opposition as the enemy of liberalism, and is thus not worth liberal protection. In other words, the pressure is for one to demonstrate that one is democratic while one can trust no more than a strictly guided democracy. From within the liberal illusion, there seems to be no doubt that a democratic personality is one major condition to sustain the illusion, and vice versa. Globalization, which has spread liberal discourses all over the world, necessarily breeds the expectation of a democratic personality at the same time. If in the Taiwanese subconscious there has rooted a sense of self-hatred, their adoption of liberal individualist discourses which look down on selfless dramas would compel the Taiwanese to perform for the global liberal observers only at the expense of self-worth, which is still felt in the family, the kinship group, and in a united independent nation. Ones professional identity is increasingly important during globalization, but as chapter 5 shows, it is no substitute for relational identities. Without appreciating the operation of non-liberal (some would prefer illiberal) cultures, democratic psychologists would be unable to perceive the irony in this selfdenying individualismwanting to act as an individualist liberal while dreading the breakdown of group unity. For them, if individuals have no sense of boundaries or subjectivity, there cannot be any act of self-denial.45 Now that liberalism is, for Glass, the base of a democratic personality, it is necessary to transform society outside of the liberal tradition so as to allow a breathing space for a democratic personality to grow. If a liberal society could tolerate the existence of illiberalism, then the illusion of intrinsic individual subjectivity would not be universal, and it would not even be natural. To maintain liberal illusion, liberals must not tolerate the illiberal society or await its maturation beyond the narcissistic stage without intervening. Similarly, a non-liberal society would have to cope with the liberal
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twist that breaks its collectivist illusion of some sort in order to continue the pretension of selflessness. Samuel Huntingtons widely quoted notion of the clash of civilizations exists precisely between the holding democratic personality and the caring totalitarian leadership.46 The former seems unprepared to tolerate illiberal politics despite the stress on the liberal method of holding, particularly if illiberalism occurred in the third world, including Taiwan. The latter, by contrast, refuses to address the feelings of collectivisms outsiders, above all, the West. This results in social regression among communities that are oriented toward different model personalities. Accordingly, globalization that brings together these communities incurs psychological stress on all sides. Post-modern critics raise the suspicion that once the sense of boundaries is considered essential to building the holding subjectivity, one must engage in the othering of certain objects.47 If the othering is not successful either because ones property earning capability is insignificant or because the uncertainty of the market is beyond control, confrontation is the natural alternative. The creation of an enemy whose presence explains ones frustration is the cheapest way of drawing boundaries. Since liberalism is not expected to soothe an average citizen from the anxiety of failure in the market, or an average society from the anxiety of failure in the global world, the othering politics subsequently employed for the sake of self-empowerment could be equally, if not more destructive, in comparison with authoritarianism. In a sense, the Confucian societies would be perfectly justified in wondering if their proclivity for harmony and refusal to recognize contradiction of interests among individual citizens in the public life is an effective alternative to failed liberalism in terms of not holding an anxious self. Indeed, the low level of tolerance in the Cultural Revolution is not a phenomenon that has repeatedly occurred in dynastic history, just as the extremity of lacking tolerance in the Holocaust is not typical to Western history. In fact, the othering rarely existed in Confucian politics; in contrast, the bias in Confucian history has always been toward conquering or assimilating, not excluding, which has been typical of liberalism in practice. The approach to narcissism in Taiwan is thus fundamentally different from what democratic psychologists assume, and yet the threat of totalitarianism is equally dreaded in Taiwan by liberals. The question facing Confucian culture is thus not how to rear the democratic personality; on the contrary, it may be to at least partly respond to the hegemony of liberal democracy and its affiliated theory of democratic personality. This well-intended liberal prescription upsets the Taiwanese because of their belief that the liberal pursuit of ones own good by the rest of society will destroy ones sense of belonging and further prompt ones need for an omnipotent occupier to resume the collectivist order.48 The problem is that there is no tradition available among the Taiwanese to allow a mean-
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ingful dialogue with the liberal discourses. The choice is presented as one between anti-Japanese and anti-Chinese colonialism. As a result, contemporary Taiwanese leadership can only struggle within the liberal discourses and either feel frustrated about their own citizens inability to act democratically or feel anxious about a pro-democracy minoritys destruction of social harmony.
PARENTING PERSONALITY AS AN ALTERNATIVE

Glass expects a holding mother to move a child beyond the narcissistic stage.49 Accordingly, a clear sense of boundaries and subjectivity for the mother must be the precondition for her to hold the child. However, if the child is naturally indulged in the narcissistic stage and feels comfortable with his merger with the mother, there is no reason for the mother not to enjoy the same merge with the child.50 Of course, the mother is different to the extent that she is cognitively sophisticated enough to move in and out of this merger. The holding theory, by contrast, suggests that a successful mother is one who stays outside of the merger. The ability to stay outside allegedly allows her to take the bad feeling released from the child without throwing it back in. The mother suffers in this sense. This can only be a part of the story. Anyone who has been a parent would probably agree that parenting involves alternatively suffering and enjoyment. When the parents stay outside of the imagined merger with the child, they suffer but hold the child; when they stay inside, they enjoy and spoil the child. When parenting provides enjoyment, the parents take the child as a part of them, so the boundaries disappear. Narcissism in the child satisfies suppressed narcissism in the parents. Child rearing practices based on this sort of enjoyment theory are thus unlike those of the suffering and holding theory. Like the holding theory which may exaggerate the mothers privilege of knowing her own separate boundaries, what one can call the enjoyment theory, may equally exaggerate the parents ability to selflessly contribute. Nonetheless, it is not at all against the consensual reality to imagine my child as a part of myself and to take care of the child as if I were taking care of myself. Like their children, though, parents, and perhaps more so for mothers, must eventually live with the reality that they and their children are not one. The long-lasting battle between mothers-in-law and daughtersin-law in Confucian societies indicates the difficulty most mothers have under Confucianism, accepting the increasingly clear boundaries between their sons and themselves. Enjoyment becomes a source of suffering later in the parents lives. The resolution is to continue the self-sacrifice in order to maintain their contribution to the growth of the child who may no longer need it and actually
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feels terribly bothered by it. The selfhood or the sense of the self-worth in the parents is denied when the child claims his total independence. In Confucian culture, this is considered very unethical on the childs side. The child, right from the beginning, must learn that the search for total separation is morally wrong. What the child needs to learn from his parents is not how to contain his bad feelings early in childhood and achieve individuality and separateness; rather, it should be an appreciation of how much selfless sacrifice his parents have made and seek to become a selfless person. The maturity of a child in a Confucian society is indicated by his ability to sacrifice for his group and not by his confidence in claiming an exclusive sphere of selfhood. In democratic psychology, schizophrenia to some extent is normal, as it is caused by the contradiction between liberal illusion and the need to release self-hatred.51 In a different type of psychology which is called for the time being as parenting psychology, the contradiction between the affective merge and the physical separation is handled through cognitive adaptation on all sides. It becomes a cognitive necessity for all involved in a relationship to sacrifice their own good in order to reproduce the relationship. This sacrifice is an act of love performed in accordance with ones social role in a particular relationship. Ones individuality is attached to a set of relationships, and ones selfless performance is the precondition for selfhood.52 In essence, it is social recognition that renders one a sense of selfhood; it is not ones own confidence in claiming a distinctive self that counts. The task of parents in Taiwan is to prepare the child for roles (e.g., a good child, a good student, a good citizen) assigned by the society, which requires the child to be disciplined according to social norms. For the parents as well as for the child, duties have priority over rights. One can call this parenting personality because every citizen is expected to parentally sacrifice for society which is considered a part of themselves, just like a child is a part of his parents. Therefore, the norm is against the establishment of boundaries for each individual, but there is no threat of fascism in Confucian political history. Only when parents or their substitute in politics are shamed or attacked is there a pathetic search for omnipotent leadership to occupy the lost, empty self. One such example could be the rise of the Boxers during the Manchu dynasty. The Boxers imagined an omniscient power in themselves and went on to kill the foreign missionaries in China. Unlike Glass illusion of liberalism, the Confucian society uses an illusion of collectivism. Collectivism of various sorts are constructed and, together with parenting personality, are implicated upon an other which is not separate from the self and whose growth depends on ones contribution (or sacrifice).53 Collectivism has many different dimensions, with some societies emphasizing the religious aspect and others focusing on the communal, tribal, Daoist, dynastic, princely, and heavenly aspects. A democratic
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personality emerges at the moment the child transcends his dependence on his mother and conceptualizes the possession of an object external to it. A parenting personality begins to take shape as the child is able to analogize a different object as his child. Within this parent-child framework, an authoritarian personality is not the only destiny. On the contrary, a parenting personality is an enlargement of ones natural affective ties to include all the collectivities with which one is identified.54 There is no occasional need for an external other in parenting psychology to demonstrate ones autonomous, separate being. In democratic psychology, the simple existence of the mother is a threat to a democratic personality, since growth means separation from the mother. One prescription available is to prove that one no longer needs his mother. The Taiwanese alternative is to maintain parenting in one way or another. The former celebrates the release of the holder as the child becomes a holder himself; the latter preserves the child status yet internalizes parenting as a duty. For the latter, parenting is a higher form of narcissism. It treats others need which is external to ones self as ones own need.55 The problems for the two types of personality can also be juxtaposed, with democratic psychology which compels a child to pretentiously assume a position that he could not really know, and with parenting psychology which denies the child the legitimacy to speak on his own behalf, as if he does not know his own interests at all. If the two types of personality were to meet, this would possibly and immediately stir anxiety in both. On the one hand, a democratic personality, not prepared to hold an entirely dependent personality en masse, would perhaps regress into the psychotic state of simultaneously having an escaping impulse (e.g., to sever, to isolate, to ignore, and so on.) and an eliminating drive (e.g., to attack, to quarantine, to subvert, and so on). On the other hand, a parenting personality would face the threat of separating the role of the parent and the child. The loss of the affirming and caring parents, or a conforming and behaving child denies members of their collective individuality.56 There then arises the need to be occupied so as to regain the feeling of a parenting relationship. The willing submission of power and self-sacrificing love in the parenting relationship deviates into an escape from freedom and totalitarian control. What is often ignored is that this deviation is not necessarily an intrinsic development of parenting personality as Confucianism provides ample room for ambiguity as well as a variety of rituals to cover deviations. Instead, the contacts with liberalism, which uncovers ubiquitous interest calculation, may stimulate a drama that sacrifices lives in order to restore moral pretension. Especially when liberalism was introduced to Taiwan, it appeared in the more extreme form because its advocates wanted to wake their fellow citizens out of the allencompassing leadership of Chiang Kaishek and his son Ching-kuo. A similar
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analysis could be applied to Republican China,57 the Weimar Republic,58 or the rise of neo-authoritarianism in China.59 In short, it is not authoritarianism, fascism, or the Cultural Revolution that threatens liberalism; rather, it is the liberal threat that breeds the anxiety leading to these tragedies. Post-modern critics recognize the hybridity of any modern identity. With divergent social illusions (using Glass notion) in terms of religion, ideology, and convention, as well as contexts and individualized backgrounds of childhood, each individual has his or her own way of adapting to growth and physical separation from his or her mother.60 It may be practical for the purpose of maintaining the sense of belongingness to a society and providing prescriptions to those who experience difficulties in their growth adaptation, but depending on just one type of prescription is certainly very rigid especially if the contents of that particular prescription embrace liberalism while the patient is a post-colonial Confucian subject. Indeed, it is impractical to provide totally different prescriptions and prepare different personality types in the same society, and still expect them to maintain cohesion. It is nevertheless characteristically illiberalist to conceive of it as the only plausible illusion for all human gatherings. This chapter must agree then that the development of a democratic personality could be an effective response to post-modern critics, at least for the maintenance of the liberal illusion. Post-modern critics may disagree, but that is fine since they have already transcended liberalism. Besides, liberals, in general, do not respond to the charge of social suppression under liberalism as pointed out by their post-modern critics. It is not acceptable, however, to introduce a democratic personality as a reference point for the analysis of Taiwanese political culture. The reference point itself is a cause of the psychotic response in Confucian societies. Taiwans semi-postcolonial, Confucian encounter with globalization places the Taiwanese under the scrutiny of liberal observers; the anxiety thus generated is strong enough to destroy the norms of parenting relationships in Confucian societies. One such example is the treatment of the Chinese spouses in Taiwan, whereby the government restrains their citizenship. The government justified its action in the name of countering Chinese infiltration. Parenting did not last long in this incident. Accordingly, Confucian political culture does not in itself form a narcissistic trap. The Cultural Revolution was unprecedented in history to the extent that it was deliberately aimed at destroying parenting norms under Confucianism. Parents and teachers were the first targets of the attack. This destruction was associated with the worship of one single patriarchal leader, Mao Zedong, and with widespread psychotic politics in which parents became revolutionary targets. If one explores further, the first seventeen years of indoctrination (from 1949 to 1966) with the class struggle theory must have also been responsible for the anxiety that culminated in the eve of the
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Cultural Revolution which in turn exploded into Beijings Beating Teacher Campaign in the summer of 1966. The class struggle theory jettisons Confucianism and therefore denounces conventional and familiar parenting norms. The social ruptures and cleavages in the Cultural Revolution begot by communism and liberalism are thus similar from this psychoanalytical point of view. The relation of the Cultural Revolution to communism is just like Nazism to liberalism, reflecting a desperate response to the breakdown of a parenting relationship. After all, the integrity of ones individuality in the Chinese parenting personality is not a result of the othering capacity in the Western independent sense of liberalism but of the social recognition of ones selflessness.
TAKING PERSONALITY SERIOUSLY

This chapter attempts to describe how post-colonial Confucianism evaluates a democratic personality and how it may present a different personality type readable to political science. The literature has not systematically attempted such a shifting exercise before, which forces an unfamiliar dialogue among developmental psychology, psychopathology with political culture, and post-modern reflection. The purpose is to try a translation that introduces a normal personality which never existed before. The critical point is that democracy in Taiwan cannot just be a copy of liberal political conventions; neither can its foundation just be the protection of private property rights. Rather, there must remain certain symbols of the public good, and officials running for office are expected to represent those symbols which can be local communal interests, party realignment, indigenous nationalism, and so on. Elections in Taiwan are not mechanisms to find balance among plural interest structures; rather, they are the methods for producing a caring leader whom citizens must trust.61 These elected gentleman officials do not reflect what people want; they determine what is good for the people. Participation in the democratic process is not a testimony to ones independent judgment but is an expression of loyalty to ones identified leadership or political symbols.62 Trust in leadership most likely comes from the extant human relationship in ones family, surname group, local faction, religious sect, and other close ties, although the image of leadership as a symbol is for public rather than particular interest. Often, candidates for public offices pass a nomination procedure, which involves comprehensive consultations with as many social sectors as possible. This is to make sure that a candidate is not a candidate of particular interest while a candidate of particular interest is precisely the rationale of running for election in liberal democracy. Since the kind of trust Taiwanese citizens seek suggests that the search for leadership
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in Taiwan is not a psychologically neutral process, nor is it casual, nominal, or predetermined, it is obviously not simply a product of pathetic narcissism. The fascist threat is therefore not intrinsic to Taiwanese politics. The natural enemy of liberalism in Taiwan is either fascism, which is totalitarian, or colonialism, which destroys the realm of subjectivity. Both fascist and post-colonial politics have unfortunately camouflaged Taiwanese parenting culture alternatively since the 1970s in their maladaptive responses to liberalism. Consequently, democratic psychologists, familiar or unfamiliar with Confucian ethics, unanimously evaluate the Taiwanese political culture as moving toward their cherished liberal reference points. This misunderstanding of Taiwanese society has been reflected recently in the indiscriminate praise of the seemingly liberal democratization in Taiwan. For liberal observers of Taiwanese politics, Taiwans general elections for President in 2000 and 2004 have reinforced the impression that the mismatch between the liberal criticism of Confucian politics and the reluctance of Confucianism to adapt to it is not a fault of liberalism. Few, if any, liberals who praise Taiwans democratization have ever checked whether there is a democratic personality type in the Taiwanese political culture or examined many of the psychotic symptoms occurring repeatedly in Taiwan since the mid-1990s.63 If there are no such personality traits in Taiwans democracy, the celebration as an othering mechanism toward China would have to be hypocritical and definitely premature. In conclusion, since the cultural mechanisms and assumptions regarding the handling of narcissistic anxiety are different from that in a liberal society, liberal democratic psychologists cannot accurately diagnose the cause of psychotic politics and regression into delusion in Taiwan. It is not to say that under parenting psychology, democracy of any sort would be refused; however, the meaning of similar democratic procedures, be they election, legislation through popularly elected deputies, or judicial independence may vary widely as their practitioners anticipate totally different human relationships and a sense of self-identity from democratic politics. Before one can fairly interpret the Taiwanese political personality, however, it is unlikely that our prescription for the development of Taiwanese democracy can be relevant, if fortunately, not damaging at all.
NOTES
1. Edwin O. Reischauer, The Japanese (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), 8794; David Conradt, The German Polity (New York: Longman, 1986), 6; Marshall Dill, Jr., Germany: A Modern History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961), 268. 2. Chih-yu Shih, The Eros of International Politics: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Question of State in China, Comparative Civilizations Review 46 (Spring 2002).
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3. See for example Max Horkheimers preface in T. W. Adorno, E. Frenkel-Burnswik, D. J. Levinson and R. N. Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper and Row, 1950). 4. Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1954); Mark Warren, Democratic Theory and Self Transformation, American Political Science Review 86 (1992). 5. Joan Eager and M. Brewster Smith, A Note on the Validity of Stanfords Authoritarian-Egalitarian Scale, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 47 (1952); John Kirscht and Ronald C. Dillehay, Dimensions of Authoritarianism (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1967). 6. Robert Lifton, Revolutionary Immortality (New York: Random House, 1968); Bruce Mazlish, Revolutionary Ascetic (New York: Basic Books, 1976); Lucian Pye, The Spirit of Chinese Politics (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968); Richard Solomon, Maos Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). 7. James Glass, Psychosis and Power: Threats to Democracy in the Self and the Group (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995); see also Lucian Pye, Erratic State, Frustrated Society, Foreign Affairs 69, no. 4 (1990): 5674. Arthur Schlesinger, The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multi-cultural Society (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998). 8. M. Brewster Smith, The Authoritarian Personality: A Re-Review 46 Years Later, Political Psychology 18, no. 1 (1997): 159163. 9. Jean-Francois Llotard, R. Harvey and S. Roberts, eds., Toward the Postmodern. (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanties Press, 1993); Douglas Kellnre, ed., Baudrillard: A Critical Reader (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1994). 10. Kathleen Kirby, Indifferent Boundaries: Spatial Concepts of Human Subjectivity (New York: The Guilford Press, 1996). 11. James Glass, Shattered Selves: Multiple Personalities in a Postmodern World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). Post-modern personality here refers to multiple/split personalities caused by the disillusion with historically constructed modern values and the realization of ones own historicized being of existence. Others may define post-modernism in a positive, post-materialistic way (e.g., Ronald Inglehart, Modernization and Postmodernization, Princeton: Princeton University, 1997). 12. Harold D. Lasswell, Psychopathology and Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930); Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1954); Milton Rokeach, Political and Religious Dogmatism: Alternative to the Authoritarian Personality, Psychological Monographs 70, 18 (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1956). 13. James Glass, Psychosis and Power: Threats to Democracy in the Self and the Group (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). 14. James Glass, Psychosis and Power: Threats to Democracy in the Self and the Group (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 6187. 15. James Glass, Delusion: Internal Dimensions of Political Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985). 16. See Roger Lewin, Life at the Edge of Chaos (New York: Macmillan, 1991). From this point on, His will consistently refer to both the male and female gender all throughout the document, unless otherwise indicated.
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17. Ann Norton, Reflections of Political Identity (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 1112. 18. Wilfred R. Bion, Second Thoughts: Selected Papers on Psycho-Analysis (New York: Jason Aronson, 1984). 19. Julia Kristeva, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia, trans. L. S. Rodies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989); Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. R. Diaz (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). 20. Drew Westen, Self and Society: Narcissism, Collectivism, and the Development of Morals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Donald Woods Winnicott, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development (New York: International University Press, 1965). 21. James Glass, Psychosis and Power: Threats to Democracy in the Self and the Group (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). 22. James Glass, Psychosis and Power: Threats to Democracy in the Self and the Group (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 45-60. 23. Otton Kernberg, Aggression in Personality Disorders and Perversions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). 24. Harold D. Lasswell, The Selective Effect of Personality on Political Participation, in The Authoritarian Personality: Continuities in Social Research, ed. R. Christie and M. Jahoda,(Gencoe: The Free Press, 1954). 25. Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. R. Diaz (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). 26. Robert Lifton, Revolutionary Immortality (New York: Random House, 1968); James Glass, Psychosis and Power: Threats to Democracy in the Self and the Group (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995); Harold D. Lasswell, The Selective Effect of Personality on Political Participation. 27. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Meridian Books, 1958). 28. Otton Kernberg, Aggression in Personality Disorders and Perversions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). 29. Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1954). 30. Simon Critchley and Peter Dews, Deconstructive Subjectivities (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996); John S. Ransom, Foucaults Discipline: The Politics of Subjectivity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997). 31. Donald Woods Winnicott, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development (New York: International University Press, 1965). 32. Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971). 33. Victor J. Vitanza, Negation, Subjectivity, and the History of Rhetoric (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997). 34. James Glass, Psychosis and Power: Threats to Democracy in the Self and the Group (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 190194; Kristen Renwick Monroe, Psychology and Rational Actor Model, Political Psychology 16, no. 1(1995): 121. 35. Lucian Pye, The Spirit of Chinese Politics; Richard Solomon, Maos Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968); Shih Drama of Chinese Diplomatic Spokesmanship, The China Quarterly (Seoul) 13
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(Summer 1991); Sun, Longji, The Deep Structures of Chinese Culture (zhongguo wenhua de shenceng jiegou) (Taipei: Tangshan, 1990). 36. Yang, Chung-fang, How to Study Chinese (ruhe yanjiu zhongguoren) (Taipei: Kuikuan, 1996), 182183. 37. Jean Piaget, The Childs Conception of the World, trans. J. Tomlinson and A. Tomlinson (Totowa, N.J.: Adams Littlefield, 1979). 38. Lucian Pye, The Dynamics of Chinese Politics (Cambridge: Oelgeschager, Gunn & Hunn, 1981). 39. Lucian Pye, Asian Power and Authority (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985). 40. Hsu, Francis, Under the Ancestors Shadow (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971). 41. Chih-yu Shih, Public Citizens, Private Voters: The Meaning of Election for Chinese Peasants, in PRC Tomorrow ed. C. P. Lin (Kaohsiung: Sun Yatsen Institute of Social Science, National Sun Yatsen University, 1996). 42. Yang, Chung-fang, How to Study Chinese (ruhe yanjiu zhongguoren) (Taipei: Kuikuan, 1996), 199. 43. Chen, Shu-chyuan, Chinese Self-expression as Seen in the Sacrificing Behavior in the June 4th Pro-democracy Movement (cong liu si min yun de xisheng xingwei kan zhongguoren de ziwo biaoda) in Chinese Psychology and Behavior (zhongguoren de xinli yu xingwei), eds. K. Yang and K. Hwang, (Taipei: Kuikuan, 1991). 44. Zhu, Yungxin, On the Complex of Chinese Power Passion (lun zhongguorende lian quan qingjie), Indigenous Psychology (bentu xinlixue) 1 (1993). 45. William Connolly, Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). 46. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (1993): 2249. 47. William Connolly, Identity/Difference. 48. Lucian Pye, The Mandarin and the Cadre (Ann Arbor: The Center of Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988). 49. James Glass, Psychosis and Power: Threats to Democracy in the Self and the Group (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). 50. Carol Gilligan, Mapping the Moral Domain: A Contribution of Womens Thinking to Psychological Theory and Education (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988). 51. James Glass, Psychosis and Power. 52. Hwang, Kwang-kuo, Knowledge and Action: A Social Psychological Interpretation of Chinese Cultural Traditions (zhishi yu xingdong: zhonghua wenhua chuantongde shehui xinli quanshi) (Taipei: Xinli Press, 1995). 53. William Kessen, Childhood in China: The American Delegation on Early Childhood Development in the Peoples Republic of China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 216221. 54. Alison Jaggar, Love and Knowledge, in Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing, eds. A. Jaggar and S. Bordo, (New Burnswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989); Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Womens Development (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989). 55. Cheng, Xiaowei, A Pan-culturist Exploration of the Developmental Stage of Moral Judgment (daode panduan fazhan jieduande fan wenhuaxing tantao) in Chinese
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People, Chinese Mind, eds. C. Yang and S. Kao, (zhongguo ren, zhongguo xin) (Taipei: Yuanliu Press, 1990). 56. George Kateb, Democratic Individuality and the Claims of Politics, Political Theory 12, no. 3 (1984). 57. Shih, Chih-yu, The Clash of Civilizations and China (wenming chongtu yu zhongguo) (Taipei: Wunan, 2000). 58. William Connolly, Identity/Difference. 59. Xiao, Gongqin, History Denies Romanticism (lishi jujue langman) (Taipei: Lianchi, 1998). 60. Todd May, The Moral Theory of Poststructuralism (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995); Mike Gane, Baudrillard: Critical and Fatal Theory (New York: Routledge, 1991). 61. Ling, Wenquan, The Style of Leadership in China (zhongguode lingdao xingwei) in Chinese People, Chinese Mind (zhongguo ren, zhongguo xin), eds. C. Yang and S. Kao (Taipei: Yuanliu Press, 1991), 436437. 62. Hu, Fu, The Implications and Surveys of Political Culture (zhengzhi wenhuade yihan yu guancha) in Chinese Concepts and Behaviors (zhongguorende guannian yu xingwei), ed. J. Qiao, (Tianjin: Tianjin Peoples Press, 1995). 63. H. M. Lily Ling and Chih-yu Shih, Confucianism with a Liberal Face: The Meaning of Democratic Politics in Postcolonial Taiwan, Review of Politics 60, no. 1 (1998): 5582.
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Beyond the State-Society Divide
BRINGING THE CULTURE BACK IN

Lacking the democratic personality on which liberal democracy is based, Taiwans seeming success in installing democracy is really not a case of success. Indeed, another criticism made in this book is that Taiwan is not the kind of liberal democracy normally understood in the political science literature. How to characterize Taiwans political culture poses a challenge to a discipline, which does not recognize post-colonial nor Confucian conditions. In addition to the problem of categorizing Taiwan from a universal perspective, there is also the problem of representing Taiwan from within the local perspectives. In other words, the problem exists in looking at Taiwan from liberal democracy as well as looking from Taiwan at liberal democracy. For the former, the problem lies in the misreading of Taiwans post-colonial conditions to be a democratic will to achieve national independence from China, but in actuality, democratic procedures are at times dispensable. For the latter, the problem is the tendency to alternatively perform different and incompatible values, including liberalism, so as to satisfy different audiences to the effect of experiencing an internal split. This chapter discusses how a post-colonial Confucian culture has viewed the discourse of democracy, particularly in response to the liberal view from the outside. Although political culture, along with political psychology, is not a popular subject in political science, it provides the foundation on which the studies of democratization proceed. The key is the Lockean conviction of the state of nature where men exempted from suppression are believed to be free and happy. Democratization and liberalization presumably exist to, first, free the society from the overreaching of the state and, second,
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mobilize the society to participate in public policy. Personality-in-relationships discussed in the previous chapter, in comparison, do not praise individual freedom. There is arguably no meaningful theory of personality without an a priori association with a larger society. This book takes the view that being born within a society is the state of nature. Nevertheless, political culture does not fare well in political science. The impression is that the studies of political culture are not scientific, although there have been efforts to make them scientific through the promotion of empirical studies of political attitude. The lack of interest in political culture, in general, and the attempt to promote scientism within the subdiscipline of political culture together point to a common assumption: there is ontologically only one single political culture. Implicitly, both Confucianism and post-colonialism fall outside of the meaningful range of studies, except in the role of a huddle to block Taiwan from maturing into the culture. The dry notion of culture of this sort is in effect anti-cultural, suggesting the importance of bringing the cultural, multiple, cyclic, schizophrenic, bifurcate, and hybrid, back in scholarship to disclose the perhaps unintended, yet natural, collusion between the discipline and the subdiscipline.
UNCOVERING DEMOCRATIC SUBJECTIVITIES

One important premise of democracy is that each citizen participating in politics has an undeniable sense of subjectivity. Subjectivity can be a kind of consciousness, referring to a self-centered mode of thinking and calculating which includes volition, referring to goal-oriented behavior, or selfconsistency, referring to an overall preference system judging ones priority at anytime.1 Oftentimes, without explanation of the assumption of innate subjectivity, the literature on democracy takes its existence for granted. It focuses on how to liberate citizens subjectivity from political suppression.2 Surprisingly, Chinese authorities who symbolize suppression to Taiwan have long been promoting Marxism or anti-imperialism which they believe also aim at emancipation.3 For both Marxists and liberals, subjectivity is valued despite their otherwise well-known divergence. If Taiwanese citizens appear to have lacked such subjectivities, the prescription is how to recover them, not about knowing what they are. Lacking subjectivity is, for the liberals, only pathology or adolescence. For the Marxists, it is a bondage consisting of a productive relationship. Indeed, Confucian societies including Taiwan are often seen as lacking in self-consistency. Lucian Pye who makes this observation argues that this lack is a cultural and not a political question.4 If this is true, then Taiwans democratic prospect should be a matter of cultural reformation.5 This
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means that the assumed subjectivity in each Taiwanese citizen reflects more of a liberal theory than of reality. Therefore, democratization as a political discourse interferes in the creation of a correct subjectivity in Taiwanese citizens. In the following discussion, this chapter will explore the meaning of democratic subjectivity based on the following works: literature by Lucian Pye, David Wang Dewei (a Taiwan-born literature critic in the United States), and the debate between the Chinese liberals and the so-called New Leftists. This book hopes to open up the meaning of democracy to allow agency for every Taiwanese practicing and interpreting subjectivity at the ontological level. In the end, this book will attempt to provide an analytical scheme that preserves fluidity concerning the future relationship between the Taiwanese state and the society, thus testifying to a democracy, in the Confucian context, that cannot be defined.
A POLITICAL CULTURE OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Pye argues that in Confucian political culture, the capacity for cognitive dissonance is high, especially between public speech and private behavior.6 This proclivity for inconsistency between the public and the private continued after the Communists took over China in 1949 to become what Pye calls Confucian Leninism.7 In the same vein, Madsen spots a personality type in the Chinese village which he refers to as communist gentry.8 This suggests that the official adoption of communism has made little, if any, influence on the underlying culture of conformity, loyalty, and nepotism. Motivation behind actual behavior includes the elements of private interest, kinship, and social networking. Since the demarcation between public and private is fluid, the important point is to appear selfless, in accordance with the situation in which one is involved. Pye believes that the Confucian political personality is accustomed to pursuing private interests incompatible with public ideology. Cultural changes in terms of personality are insignificant.
Figure 8.1. personality
The Public and the Private reconciled by Pysian
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Figure 8.2. Tradition and modernity reconciled by Wangs discursive analysis
Wang, on the other hand, sets out to disclose the changes that he believes have incorporated modernity into the Confucian culture since the late Qing period.9 The rise of various modern discursive styles in response to the Western introduction of modernity is, for Wang, a process of cultural change in itself. He painstakingly extricates traces of this transformation from a wide range of literature. However, he does not depend on his authors to be specifically aware of the arrival of modernity. The meanings of modernity to these Qing and Republican era writers and their responses are open-ended; they are to be reinterpreted and re-presented at later dates by different readers. The important issue is to uncover the inexpressible agency that enabled writers to adapt each in their own ways. Wangs tendency to sometimes overread meanings into lines is therefore of no harm. For the purpose of this paper, it is not necessary to introduce the substance of his work. His epistemology is more important than his method of overreading because it is his epistemology that recognizes the idea that those writers he examines participated in producing the knowledge of modernity. They produced this knowledge by responding to modernitys forceful arrival in various ways, unsystematically. The notion of responding suggests that indigenous and Western subjectivities are mutually constituted. To what extent responding can be considered as a cultural change that incorporates modernity is also the focus of the debate between contemporary liberals and the New Leftists in China. According to the liberals, the Chinese political practices remain feudal in many aspects. They feel that the rule under the Chinese Communist Party is antagonistic to liberalism which is an institution celebrating individual subjectivity. The New Leftists, in contrast, concentrate on the roles that the peasants, workers, and soldiers are encouraged to play under Maoism. Their challenge to the liberal ideal is that it is alien. Equality in the socialist sense which they argue does not traditionally represent an institutional change toward modernity, although it is modernity embedded in a certain collective subjectivity. The meaning of culture is therefore contingent upon which type of personality, discourse, and institution is being discussed. All are related to subjectivity, with Pye being interested in the diagnosis of dissonance, Wang in the agency to adapt, the liberals in consciousness of self-interest, and the New Left writers in volition to achieve emancipation. Whether or not Confucian culture has incorporated some degree of modernity alludes to the
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Figure 8.3. Institution as a mechanism to move private citizens from tradition to modernity
question of democratization in two ways. First, they both rest upon individual subjectivity. Next, they both involve Confucian responses to Western values. With regard to democratization, Pye looks at how motivation is irrelevant to, if not incompatible with, democracy which undermines democratic values behind the repeated oath to engage in democratization. Wang wants to see how talks on democracy have generated a discursive adaptation that broadens its meanings. The liberals and the New Leftists continue their debate on the balance between limited government and the mass line. It is not difficult to see that Wang is the only party who appears passive when prescribing a right form of subjectivity. For him, responding is a practice sufficient to demonstrate agency, hence subjectivity. The chapter first tackles the meaning of cultural change. First, Pyes preoccupation with personality analysis implicitly denies the possibility that the contents of public discourse affect citizenship. He overlooks the significance of state patriotism gradually replacing Confucianism in the early 1900s, and they contrasted sharply in their expectation of good leadership. Under traditional Confucianism, the government should pursue no interests, signaling harmony. At the turn of the century, imperialism was at its peak, so in the aftermath of the 1911 Republican Revolution, the philosophy of rule under Kuomintang converted into state nationalism or patriotism. From being a disinterested ruler to an active revolutionary, the political leadership under KMT reinterpreted the notion of selflessness as the devotion to a strong state. The previous inconsistency, so to speak, between the public and the private, hidden in the selfishness underneath the disguise of no pursuit, loses relevance. The new inconsistency is between the active pursuit of a strong state and selfishness. As a result of
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change in leadership philosophy, the selfless pretension, preserved via sheer rituals required to keep alive the drama of harmony, has turned into a demand for sacrifice. If the rise of statism is a modern phenomenon in Confucian political culture, the continuance of the public-private inconsistency after 1911 should be understood in a different light. After all, subjects adapting to rituals of harmony are not the same citizens adapting to statist mobilization. With the exception of Pye, other narrators surpass the element of personality to focus on cultural changes in the public domain. The liberals criticism of feudalisms continuation, by pointing to the lack of respect for individuality under statism, is from the perspective of an institution. They disagree with the New Leftists as to which institution can strengthen the state the most. This is nonetheless a critique of the public institution rather than a style of personality. Similarly, the cultural changes are clear to Wang, since he is able to detect new discursive characteristics. In other words, while for Pye cultural change is a matter of personality change, it is to Wang and many contemporary Chinese writers an issue of discourse or institution. On the other hand, the liberals and Pye are on the same side in terms of their common concerns over individual integrity, with the exception of liberals believing that the right institution can resolve Pyes diagnosis of public and psychotic self-denial. They all deal with the public-private dichotomy. Here, the New Leftists become their ally in the sense that their search for institutions to emancipate the masses from exploitation by the bourgeoisie is also predicated upon the public-private (or the state-society) dichotomy. For all of them, there isnt any question about the state representing the public and the society representing the private. The modern dichotomy of the state and the society connotes a significantly different cognition contrary to the Confucian teaching that the personal and the heaven are linked through parents, gentlemen, princes, and the son of heaven. Both Pye and the liberals erred in misconceiving the continuity of a Chinese personality type or feudalism. In contrast, the hiatus of the dichotomy of the state and the society in Wangs discursive analysis is conspicuous. This gap partially explains why Wang is never bothered by any inconsistency which presupposes the dichotomy. The institutional search by the liberals and the New Leftists who collude in reproducing the dichotomy between the public and the private must also be responsible for indirectly granting legitimacy to the Pysian mode of analysis. To study where Pyes (as well as the Chinese contemporary writers) dichotomy originates is therefore critical to understanding their analysis and prescription.
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Table 8.1. Discourses on transition to modernity in China
201
Narrators Pye Diagnosis Discourse Subjectivity Cultural change Modernity Public-private Prescription cognitive dissonance
self-consistency no fixed form yes personality change
Liberals feudalism and state suppression

self-interest no fixed form yes democracy
New-leftists the masses exploited by Imperialism

volition yes open yes the mass line
Wang modernity suppressed

agency yes open no overreading
DECONSTRUCTING THE PUBLIC-PRIVATE DICHOTOMY

In Confucian teaching, there is a clear distinction between the gentleman and the mediocre man. Presumably, the gentleman follows the rule of righteousness; the mediocre man follows the rule of interest. The gentleman serves all under heaven, and the mediocre man lives in the rice field. However, the demarcation between the public and the private is never as clear, nor should it be.10 Righteousness refers to appropriateness which certainly includes interest-driven behavior under given circumstances. Whose interest a gentleman should pursue is a matter of contingency: it is often defined according to how close the interest recipient is to the gentleman. The famous story of Mencius mother who relocated three times to find a right environment for her son is an example of conscious and appropriate calculation. In other words, all gentlemen have their individual and private interests, although there is no clear cut definition for the term private. For the prince of a kingdom, his private realm includes all the subjects in his domain. His public realm, on the other hand, refers to the relations among the son of heaven, the other princes, and himself. However, when the prince considers the welfare of his people, he obviously acts on behalf of all under heaven. In other words, there is no dichotomy. At the most, we can consider it as the symbiosis of the public and the private. The norm that a prince should not extract unreasonably from his own realm was not a matter of choosing between the public and the private. One can say that it was the princes private interest, since frugality could actually ease his reign, according to Confucianism. One can also claim that it was
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for public interest that he restrain extraction from the subjects point of view. The symbiosis of the public and the private has another complication. A gentleman is no longer a gentleman if he violates the rule of righteousness. A mediocre man is no longer a mediocre man if he can respond in times of need in the capacity of selfless leadership. If we divide the gentleman from the mediocre man to meet the dichotomy of the public and the private, we will erroneously fix a person to a predetermined role. To try to divide the state and the society would be committing the same mistake. Since the rule of righteousness has no fixed contents, so too does the moral power of the prince. Morality has no confinement; thus no one should limit the princes discretional power. However, the rule of righteousness is at the same time a limitation upon power. Righteousness presumes selflessness. The princes moral supremacy is derived from the voluntary submission of power by his subjects and not from his own pursuit. To do otherwise would hurt his image and subsequently, reduce his power. On this, the Pyesian analysis has an excellent grasp.11 No one has the legitimacy to deny the prince, unless the prince himself says no. Ironically, the greatest power of the prince is to restrain from exerting his own discretion because only by self-restraint under the right circumstance could the prince justify submission of power by his subjects. One way of confirming the righteousness of the prince was to create circumstances for the prince to perform it. If the prince carries out the task sincerely, we call the performance the ritual of propriety. If the act lacks sincerity, we call it the art of power. This is where Pye goes wrong because he oversimplifies by identifying the whole mechanism dissonance. For Pye, who lives in a Christian society where ones belief should be selfconsistent within despite possible situations involving himself, the Chinese rule of righteousness is just an empty word. If an interest is only real when it is for individuals, the symbiosis of the public and the private cannot be but spurious. To Pye, the statists who demand sacrifices for the sake of patriotism are no different from pretentious mandarins. He further discredits the contemporary state as a disguise.12 This is, from the point of this book, truly insightful. The state is a mobilizing mechanism for most national leaders. Therefore, citizenship has little to do with voluntary participation or rights-consciousness. As a result, the state owns the people and not vice versa. The motivation behind state building in Republican China began to counter imperialism and later in Taiwan, resist China. Anti-imperialist leaders become dictators if they fall for the temptation of extreme discretional power. Numerous reports suggest that modern Confucian politics is still determined by social networking and not by dictatorship. The on-and-off style of dictatorship frustrates both the liberals and the New Leftists. The former are antagonized due to aborted citizenship projects of numerous kinds
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since the Boxers Rebellion and the latter because of the unavailing mass line which treats the masses ruthlessly. The so-called cognitive capacity of the Chinese people to tolerate or even capitalize on the seeming conflict of interest between the state and themselves is worth reconsidering. Let us look at the early missionary who honored the coexistence of ancestor worship and Christianity. The missionary had to pretend that he could better spread gospels by accepting Confucianism. Pye certainly would not consider such strategic adaptation to be a piece of evidence for cognitive dissonance. Yet, for late Qing Chinese, they consistently denounced those converted to the new faith as the junior hairy (or er mao zi) (with the missionary the senior hairy or da mao zi). This means that the ordinary people are not tolerant toward cognitive dissonance. Accordingly, the so-called conflict between the state and private interest is actually between the modernist, albeit fake, state and the pretended individualist citizenship, neither of which is a private concern. First of all, pretended citizenship is a disguise of traditional cultural values, including Confucianism. Concerns over kinship relations prevail over those for civic rights. Theoretically, no dichotomy of the public and the private is universal under Confucianism; as a result, the conflict between Pyes fake state and the private interest is a conflict between the fake state and the Confucian tradition. Furthermore, since this fake state is a modern product of anti-imperialism in the case of China, or anti-China in the case of Taiwan, the conflict between the public state and private the citizen has to be one caused by the intrusion of modernity. In short, the inconsistency Pye discovers in the Confucian mindset is more a conflict between modernity and tradition than one between the public and the private. The state seemingly accepted by the ordinary people is like Confucianism by the early missionary; Confucianism to the mediocre people is like Christianity to the missionary. Pye mistakes the conflict between two different public ideologies with the public-private dichotomy. Ordinary people indoctrinated by these two ideologies experience a conflict within themselves. Consequently, inconsistencies between the modern public and the traditional public have become a private conflict which led to Pyes misconceived statement of cognitive dissonance. In the following table, different kinds of conflicts are summarized: the conflict between citizenship and subject, citizenship and Confucianism, subject and statism, and statism and Confucianism. These conflicts and the dichotomies associated all began with a foreign attempt to transform Confucian culture. Indigenous forces defended the traditional culture by an attempt at xenophobia. Note that only in the discourse of modern statism would Confucianism be a symbol of backwardness; only in the eyes of citizens responding to the call of the revolutionary state would self-surrendering
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Possible Loci of Pysian Cognitive Dissonance
Modern Identities
Traditional Identities Subject Dynastic Under-heaven National/Citizen Private vs Private Public vs Private Modern State Private vs Public Public vs Public
subjects appear feudal. The complication exists when modern statism and Confucianism co-exist, while citizens and subjects are symbiotic. To blame cognitive dissonance between private citizenship and public statism is not analytically useful, not to mention the aforementioned views that citizenship is not just citizenship, and that statism is not just statism. Due to the fact that the discourse on modernization prevailed, Confucianism became further associated with feudalism. If the need to jettison the Confucian legacy and strengthen the state did not exist, the subject would not have been ridiculed as feudal or blamed for dragging modernization. Statism calls for self-sacrifice of all, regardless of their status or role. Here, the conflict between modernity and Confucianism becomes realofficials losing moral power to the state while still remaining socially connected to the masses. The conflict leads to adaptation in behavioral pattern as well as in discourse. This allows state officials to alternate between the roles of professional and gentry, selfless patriotism to coexist with kin-centered clientelism, and ordinary citizens to engage in anti-imperialism while opening to the outside world.
HYBRIDIZED MODERNITIES
The New Left approach to modernity brings in the notion of multiple modernities. Subscribers struggle to unclose indigenous subjectivities by studying how the intellectuals have adapted from various native positions that embrace no liberal teleology of modernity.13 An opened teleology is not teleology. Subjectivity in the form of mass line which is collectivistic can be acknowledged accordingly. The mass line, as reified by the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, was a response to the challenge of the West, but its development was not predetermined by the West or by feudalism. It was inconceivable that any of these political campaigns could have given birth to feudal China. Cultural changes toward modernity have been obvious to the New Leftists.14 For them, Pyes Eurocentrism is evident when reducing the cadre to the mandarin. There must have been a fixed form of modernity that Pye employs to judge that neither character is modern. From a traditional Confucian point of view, the party cadre has never
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been a culturally familiar role. Despite the disaster inflicted by the Cultural Revolution, it is a part of Communist modernity and not of Confucian tradition. More bad news for the liberals is that the New Leftists believe that there is something positive to be uncovered in relation with the Cultural Revolution. This attitude frightens contemporary liberals who doubt that any signs of modernity could be uncovered during the Cultural Revolution.15 The mass line which the New Leftists laud lacks a mechanism to check the abuse of power by its leaders. The liberals will not applaud Pye, either, even though they seem to share the same version of modernity. For the liberals, both modernization and democratization are doomed to take place in China.16 The liberals are hopelessly optimistic in light of the suppression they have all suffered since the entry of liberalism into the Chinese discursive arena.17 Pye is, by contrast, pessimistic. Interestingly enough, the New Leftists adopt a Pyesian critique when they deride liberals for their inconsistencies throughout modern history. A particular liberal whom the New Leftists repeatedly cite is Hu Shih. Known for his extreme liberal philosophy during the Republican period, Hu surprisingly sided with Chiang Kaishek and the Kuomintang (KMT) during the Communist revolution and went on to serve as the President of Academic Synica in Taiwan. Since then, the Chinese Communist Party has denounced Hu. Contemporary New Left writers obviously acquire their limited knowledge of Hu Shih from the CCPs texts which portrays him as a fake liberal.18 Here, the New Leftists reflect upon the methodology which they use when criticizing the liberals to appreciate Hu Shih as a liberal. It is a methodology of opening. By opening, New Leftists appreciate the deep-seated alienation from Western modernity and redefine modernity in terms of the volition of the masses.19 Through this approach, they provide agency for change to the seemingly manipulated masses, even during the Cultural Revolution.20 Hus positive response to Chiangs cooperation, just like the masses worshiping Maoism, requires more analysis than simply dismissing him as a fake. One wonders where Hu Shihs agency for reinterpreting liberalism is. If the masses were allowed agency for reinterpreting the Cultural Revolution from a point that Mao failed to see, why should Hu be disallowed agency for reinterpreting liberalism to incorporate anti-communism in a way Chiang could not see? The New Leftist criticism is hence seriously flawed when they depend on its CCP-indoctrinated simple-mindedness to deny Hus contribution to the Republican eras liberalism. This was precisely the mode of thinking when the liberals completely rejected the New Left reading of modernity into the mass line. The New Left writers negligence in this regard led to the suspicion that denying the liberals of agency for change was politically motivated.
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Taking the methodology of opening seriously shows that Hu was doubtlessly a liberal, and that Chiang was a man of modernity. His dedication to statism and patriotism was based on a sincere hope for a strong China, albeit under the KMTs reign. It is true that Pye could easily discover all kinds of traditional traits in him or disclose the authoritarian nature of his understanding of state, but Chiang was not just a Fascist. He was a Confucianist, a Fascist, and a part-time liberal. He trusted a group of neoclassical economists to transform Taiwan into a modern state for example. Multiple modernities is a meaningful expression only if Chiang, Hu, the liberals, and the masses are all allowed agency to practice modernity each in their own way. Locking modernity exclusively into the mass line and juxtaposing it along with Western modernity creates the impression of a fake opening. Wang adheres to this methodology of opening by concentrating on how the Confucian society has adapted discursively. The assumption of engaging in discursive analysis is that personality does not singly determine behavior; the discursive range of possibilities also shapes both the values that can be sensible and the options that can be understood. Wangs attempt is to read subjectivity into the novelists by detecting between the lines the emergence of any new discourse. Wangs discursive analysis thus gives the main characters in the novels, as well as their authors, subjectivities that show when these people try to make sense out of and respond to phenomena that latecomers call modernity. Furthermore, he explores other possibilities that might emerge in the future. This indicates an epistemology that meanings today cannot determine its future path, even if today influences tomorrow. From there, a new kind of democracy is preserved. It is a democracy at the ontological level where meanings have no structural determinants.
PRACTICING SUBJECTIVITIES
Wang is close to advocating a new democracy. What he seems to be trying to do is discovering subjectivities as an agency that gives meaning. Ordinary characters in novels each have their own ways for reinterpreting things. Qing and the Republican writers legitimize all the reinterpretations by recognizing their existence. Wang shows how the authors he reviews enliven these characters; they are torn between tradition and modernity, no matter how bizarre their meaning system may look to contemporaries or latecomers. Wang extricates traces of modernity in the authors strategies of bringing out these reinterpretations. As a result, no political leaders, liberals, or Western intruders can monopolize the meaning of modernity. The definition of modernity is democratized.
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An implied accusation in Wangs literature review is that the subjectivity which liberals assume to exist in each individual carries suffocating effects on the democratization of the definition. The accusation is potentially both against Pye and the contemporary liberals because both advocate a single form of subjectivity. Pyes diagnosis of psychotic dissonance is undemocratic because he denies subjectivity to those people practicing a notion of modernity that has no counterpart in liberal philosophy. Seeming dissonance is no pathology for Wang, who sympathizes with those historical moments that normalize the fluidity of subjectivity instead of rigidities. The liberals long for an institution of limited government to protect individual freedom and engage in an undemocratic cultural transformation denying subjectivities to those subscribing to collectivism in one way or another. Being unable to sympathize with the Chinese mindset bifurcated toward tradition and modernity, Pye then proceeds to explain the Cultural Revolution as a natural outlet of self-hatred caused by the suppressed subjectivity. However, the Cultural Revolution was an anomaly as well as a wrongdoing, even under the Confucian political culture. There is no need in the Confucian culture for people to have to engage in the Cultural Revolution. This sort of aggression would be therapeutic only to a Western liberal suffering cognitive dissonance. Pyes perspectives are those of an internally consistent liberal democrat. Therefore, he fails to see that cognitive dissonance is a way of practicing subjectivity for those facing the intrusion of liberal thought. Western observers are generally biased to the extent that they want to decide the genuine trend lying on which side of the inconsistent perspective. The undecidable teleology of a Confucian state leads to constant debate in the Western academic circle on matters of Chinese and Taiwanese policies. Western thinkers have failed to achieve a consensus on what modern Confucianism represents. The lack of consensus was noticeable before and after the pursuit of modernization of the state at the end of the nineteenth century. Classic Western thinkers typically interpreted Confucian culture in reference with their own culture. Thinkers who were critical of their own Western tradition usually praised the Confucian values, while those who considered Europe as a vanguard of civilization seldom respected Confucianism.21 In the twenty first century, the puzzle continues as some view China as a threat and Taiwan as a troublemaker, while others see opportunities. Although it is the same geographical China, this territory contains elements of a long history that, according to the liberal teleology of the state, is not supposed to take place during the same period. This combination of elements is a source of puzzle, especially for those who subscribe to the teleology of state ending in liberalism. As many Chinese and Taiwanese students learn more about the Western approach to social science, they adopt the same schema in reading meanings into indigenous politics based on their Western teachers liberal teleology.22
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Western teachers care more about their students thesis than their students life philosophy. This is because teachers expect students to think and act consistently, as a liberal should. The learning speed of the students encourages the teachers to believe that all the other Confucian societies can do the same eventually. This misperception reminds one of Madame Chiang Kaisheks persuasion of Congress in 1943. She said that saving her country was no different than saving herself who appeared to be a seemingly Westernized lady. Claiming to personify China, Mme. Chiang instilled a false expectation that KMT politics was soon to democratize. In comparison, it is commonplace today for a Chinese female student to marry one of her male Western teachers. However, the liberal thought does not transform students into liberals more than it helps them find a job. One significant impact is that capable Chinese students raise the expectation of Westerners. The liberals can even find disciples in both China and Taiwan who never study abroad but still manage to read about liberalism enthusiastically. The Statute of Liberty, which stood in Tiananmen Square until June 3, 1989, has sustained the fantasy of surfacing Chinese liberalism even long after the ugly political battles among prodemocracy students became widely known. It is arguably the pressure created by the rhetoric to be liberal that has led to the anxiety of students seeking an outlet. The politics to which they have socially been accustomed to includes hierarchy, harmony, and duty. The liberalism they appreciate is about laissez faire, equality, and populism. Liberalism as a hegemonic discourse among prodemocracy students suppresses the practice of subjectivity that allows fluidity by situations.23 The need for hierarchy and duty-mindedness becomes inexpressible. The problem with Chinese political culture today is that it is not allowed to be inconsistent in its own way.
DEMOCRATIZATION EXEMPT FROM TELEOLOGY

In the following discussion, this chapter has produced two diagrams that read different possibilities into the process of democratization. The purpose of this exercise is to bring together seemingly incompatible elements (some contribute to liberal democracy, others to the populist, mass line democracy, to Confucian leadership, and so on). Moreover, this book intends to provide a discursive route through which a person schooled in collectivistic values and individualistic institution is able to voice his fluid identities without worrying of being treated as a psychotic character. The integrity of a person is no longer fixed to any given ideology or tradition, but it is fluid in performing divergent self-roles as responses to externally imposed values and institutions. The ability to perform any self-role in accordance with any imposed value system at a given point preserves the wholeness of subjec-
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Diagram 8.1. Society
The Chinese State and
Diagram 8.2. The Western State and Society
tivity required to support other seemingly incompatible roles in different situations. In Diagram 8.1., there is no clear separation of the liberal-styled civil society from the Confucian-styled folk society. In the civil society, people are expected to be rights conscious, individualistic, and procedure oriented. In contrast, people in the Confucian-styled folk society are expected to be duty conscious, collectivistic, and kinship-oriented. The set of roles surfacing at a particular time depends on the clues a person receives regarding his identity in the situation. The institutional setting, the nature of the issues at hand, the people involved, the image of the state, the social as well as the personal mood, and a whole range of contingencies coincidentally determine the impact of a clue. Once the individuals role vis--vis the state is conceptualized, political responses follow. In the civil society, one treats the state as an intervening force to be checked and balanced. The capitalist property rights system, along with the liberal political thought, creates this civil-society mentality. In the folk society, the state is a potential dictator to be avoided; it is also a potential ally, depending on ones connection with the enlarged kinship networking of the leadership. In the folk society, the conviction is that there is always a way to establish connection with the leadership, no matter how far and how indirect. Therefore, the separation between the state and the folk society is unlikely. On the other hand, political leadership of the state also finds it easier to mobilize the folk society. For a person located in the folk society, there is very little that can be done to resist mobilization, except looking for exemptions through the
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kinship connection. The emergence of the civil society provides an alternative a person can assume his identity in the civil society and receive legal protection from state encroachment on private properties. In other words, the function of civil society is to resist the state. This is not identical to the civil society understood in liberal discourses as shown in Diagram 8.2.. It is participation, rather than resistance, that dominates liberal discourses. In Diagram 8.2., the kinship networking that might cross the individualistic boundary is limited to core family members. Marxists who worry about the penetration of the state by the bourgeois are therefore conversant with and contributive to the liberal discourses. Whichever side one is on, liberalism or Marxism, the civil society is not there to simply resist. In the case of the Taiwanese society, however, people do not typically participate through civil identities but through kinship networking. Even state officials have access to the process of resistance in the Taiwanese society. With the rise of civil society in Taiwan, the officials protection of their kinship circle continues to enjoy legitimacy. While this sounds unfair to the rest of the society, people accept this as normal under Confucianism. In institutional economics, this is called rent seeking. With civil society emerging in Taiwan, an official can first return to the folk society and then sneak in the civil society to take advantage of the lack of distinction. This official sabotages the policy he initially drafted for the state to extract from society in general. This is clearly a self-inconsistent move from a liberal point of view. For the contemporary Chinese liberal, that officials seek rent or resist the state attests to the lingering of feudalism, while for Pye, cognitive dissonance between public and private roles exists. The liberals denouncement of rent seeking as feudalistic is strange because rent seeking is universal even in capitalist societies. In their criticism of feudalism, Chinese liberals apparently appreciate that rent seeking in Confucian societies is not simply an individualistic move but also a collective one. In Confucian societies, very few officials can deny requests made on them by kinship. The emergence of the civil society gives them a more sophisticated vehicle to fulfill obligations to the kin circle in the sense that they no longer do this openly. The individualistic procedure orientation actually helps officials cover kinship-related collusion. It is interesting to note the irony that while those who can receive help from their relatives in the government enjoy social recognition, those officials who refuse to help relatives also enjoy such recognition. Neither Confucianism nor socialism highly regards such kinship-related collusions. Their solution is different from the liberals. Accordingly, both patriotism and citizen duty are emphasized, so that the state and the whole citizenry can be conceived of as an enlarged kinship known as the great self, a terminology used by the early Republican revolutionary when striving to establish a modern state in China. This is an unliberal self-concept because
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the citizen is reduced to a little self; he now has an even lesser status than that under Confucianism. For liberals, the solution is to breed individualistic consciousness which Pye considers almost impossible given the Chinese personality. However, as many Taiwanese intellectuals and leaders have demonstrated, there is no cognitive barrier for the Taiwanese to learn liberal philosophy. Few of them belong to the bourgeoisie whom the New Leftists dread. Pyes insight about cognitive dissonance, if reinterpreted, can be useful in appreciating the meaning of Taiwanese liberalism. As mentioned earlier, the notion of liberalism is more of a mechanism to resist the state than of a mechanism to participate in the state. What the New Left writers mainly worry about is unequal participation. This is a legitimate concern even for the liberals who care little about equality. They do so not because it is conceptually minor, but because it is not relevant to their ultimate purpose. In short, the liberals, albeit deeply involved in individualistic rhetoric, are concerned with society as a whole; they thus fit into the philosophy of the little self perfectly. Many liberals advocate liberalism without worrying about political suppression because as Hu Shih said, they care about the nation. To them, liberalism is a way to save and strengthen the nation.24 It is not surprising that a liberal like Hu Shih gave his support freely to Chiang Kai-shek. Hu shifted from his citizen identity in the civil society through his Chinese little self in the folk society, and entered the Taiwanese state apparatus to cope with forces that he believed could destroy the nation. His support at one given point is no guarantee that he would consider it proper to return to his citizen identity and become a critic of Chiangs leadership at a later time or on a different issue. There has been no such political science today that allows us to treat this type of inconsistency. One finds characters shifting among roles imposed by a society in constant transition only in novels. This is why this chapter goes back to Wang in its conclusion.
DEMOCRACY AS RESISTANCE
It should be clear by now that both the liberals and the New Leftists target suppression, with the former targeting the suppression of the Party-state and the latter, the exploitation by bourgeois imperialism. Both want a free country. The coexistence of these people testifies to a kind of cognitive dissonance at the micro level. This is neither feudalistic nor psychotic. It is in fact a call for creative adaptation. It is a creative liberal discourse to the extent that liberalism means more resistance to than participation in the state. It is a creative New Left discourse to the extent that the mass line can be a check on the state entering the capitalistic World Trade Organization.
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Chinas history moves back and forth without set directions because people learn to play different roles at different times with different agendas. Today, political science in general (and area studies in particular), is too preoccupied with whether an exact same type of civil society as the European model (which is itself divergent in style and meaning across regimes, times, and religions, etc.) would appear. Political scientists need an epistemology of democracy that does not assume a fixed ontology or a fixed teleology. This democracy should enable people to resist fixation by any ideology, regime, tradition, or self-consistency. Its form and meaning cannot be determined in advance because the nature of suppression is never fixed. Just as one never expects oneself to become a liberal while growing up in a feudal village, one will likewise never know if he will discover that he has actually a gene, a queer, or a split personality which is considered an abnormal form of existence. If political science is not ready to appreciate the type of personality either embedded in liberalism or aimed at participatory individualism, one possible place to look for heuristics is in novels. There are few laws that govern how a novelist writes. Given Taiwans constant transition, novelists could develop more sensitive and sympathetic perspectives than social scientists on minor characters in societies. Critics who read and reinterpret novels make the inexpressible expressible and the nonexistent existent. Wang and many of his colleagues are good at overreading meanings into lines. The possibility that everyone can survive suppression of one kind or another, and can do that without knowing oneself to be resistant preserves the most democratic style of discourse. Demonstrating this possibility is the ultimate statement of subjectivity, a subjectivity existing in the agency for change, fluidity, and reinterpretation.
NOTES
1. Subjectivity became a popular term only very recently. Early authors do not dwell specifically on it. They assume it. For how to use such concepts as volition, preference, interest that are predicated upon subjectivity, see, for example, Charles Lindblom, Politics and Market (New York: Free Press, 1977); William H. Riker and Peter C. Ordeshook, A Theory of the Calculus of Voting, American Political Science Review 62 (1968): 25-42; Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Aron, 1992). A similar thought can be raised to the level of the state. Concerning the examples of treating the state as an entity of subjectivity in terms of interest, preference or rationality, see Stephen D. Krasner, Defining the National Interest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 2. The suppression comes from the state, the Party, nationalism or the ideology; see the analysis by Merle Goldman, Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994); Gordon White, Riding the Tiger (Stanford:
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Stanford University Press, 1993); Edward Friedman, Democratic Prospects for Socialist China (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 1995); Ann Kent, Between Freedom and Subsistence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 3. Information Office of the State Council, Human Rights in China (zhongguo de renquan zhuangkuang) (Beijing: Central Literature Press, 1991). 4. Lucian Pye, The Mandarin and the Cadre (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988); at an early point, he says this is a racial perspective, see his The Spirit of Chinese Politics (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968). 5. Lucian Pye, How Chinas Nationalism was Shanghaied, in Chinese Nationalism, ed. J. Unger (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), 86112. 6. In addition to his 1988 publication, for the political rationale behind this national character, see also Lucian Pye, The Dynamics of Chinese Politics (Cambridge: Oelgeschager, Gunn & Hain, 1981). 7. Pye, 1988, 3135. 8. Richard Madsen, Morality and Power in a Chinese Village (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). 9. See David Dewei Wang, The Making of the Modern, the Making of a Literature: New Perspectives on 19th and 20th Century Chinese Fiction (ruhe xiandai zeyang wenxue) (Taipei: Maitian, 1998); Chinese Literature in the Second Half of a Modern Century: A Critical Survey (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2000). 10. See the criticism of both Western and Japanese sinology for misrepresenting the private in China in Mizoguchi Yuzo, Sinology in the Japanese Perspectives (Riben shiye zhong de zhongguo xue) trans. Li Suping, Gong Ying and Xue Tao (Beijing: Chinese Peoples University Press, 1996). 11. Lucian Pye, Asian Power and Authority (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985). 12. Lucian Pye, China: Erratic State, Frustrated Society, Foreign Affairs 69, no. 4 (1990): 5674. 13. In fact, the dichotomy of modernity and tradition is a modern concept. The dichotomy suggests that China has been adapting. For further discussion, see Wang, Hui, The Schools of Thought in Contemporary China and the Issue of Modernity, (dangdai zhong guo de sixiang zhuangkuang yu xiandaixing wenti) Tianya 5 (1997), collected in Intellectuals Positions: The Debate on Liberalism and the Division of the Chinese Intellectual World (zhishi fenzi li chang: ziyouzhuyi zhi zheng yu zhongguo sixiang jie de fenhua), ed. Li, Shitao (Changchuen: Shidai Wenyi, 2000), 83123. 14. The mass line is thus not a feudal strategy; it is a Chinese response to the threat of the capitalist imperialism. For further discussion, see Gan Yang, Liberalism: For Autocrats or for People? (ziyouzhuyi: guizude hai shi pinminde?) in Intellectuals Positions, ed. Li, 112. 15. For a representative of the liberal critics, see Ren, Jiantao, Read New Left (jiedu xin zuopai), in Intellectuals Positions, ed. Li, 191214. 16. See one of the most fervent advocates of liberalism, Xu, Youyu, Liberalism and Contemporary China (ziyouzhuyi yu dangdai zhongguo), in Intellectuals Positions, ed. Li, 413430 17. Xu Jilin bitterly recalled how all major parties in China had treated liberals in his The Historical Legacy of Social Democratism (shehui minzhu zhuyi di lishi yichan) in Intellectuals Position, ed. Li, 474486.
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18. For example, see Wang, Binbin, A Research Note on Liberalism (dushu zhaji: guanyu ziyouzhuyi), in Intellectuals Positions, ed. Li, 165-177. 19. See Cui, Zhiyuan, The Second Thought Liberation and Institutional Renovation (dierci sixiang jiefang yu zhidu chuangxin) (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1997). 20. Gan, Yang, for example, specifically promotes the true spirit of great democracy, (da minzhu) a notion that was once popular during the Cultural Revolution, see Gan Yang, Liberalism: For Autocrats or for People? in Intellectuals Positions, ed. Li, 112. 21. The critics, for example, include Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The compliment came from, for example, Francois Marie Voltaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Mark Twain, and L. N. Tolstoy. 22. Among overseas Chinese scholars, the expectation that China will eventually develop into a liberal society or a political democracy is popular; see Steven Cheung, Will China Go Capitalist? An Economic Analysis of Property Rights and Institutional Change, Hobart Paper 94, The Institute of Economic Affairs (Norfolk: Thetford Press Ltd. 1982); Minxin Pei, From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994); Yasheng Huang, Inflation and Investment Controls in China: The Political Economy of Central-Local Relations during the Reform Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Dali Yang, Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change Since the Great Leap Famine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996). 23. To my knowledge, the first Chinese writer to make this keen observation, Xiao Gongqin, was once mistaken as an advocate of New Left authoritarianism; see his History Denies Romantics (lishi jujue langman) (Taipei: Liangchi, 1998); for further discussion of misplaced liberalism leading to violence, see my The Decline of a Moral Regime, Comparative Political Studies 27, no. 2 (1994): 272301. 24. See the discussion by Suisheng Zhao, We Are Patriots First and Democrats Second: The Rise of Chinese Nationalism in the 1990s, in What If China Doesnt Democratize? Implications for War and Peace, eds. E. Friedman and B. L. McCormick (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2000), 2128; Qin, Hui, Where Is the Intersection of Liberalism and Nationalism? (ziyouzhuyi yu minzuzhuyi de qihe dian zai nail??) in Nationalism and the Chinas Lot during Transition (minzuzhuyi yu ahuqnsing qi zhongguo de mingyun), ed. Li, Shitao (Changchuen: Shidai Wenyi, 2000), 380388.
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Conclusion: Political Theory for Democratic Ontology
The discipline of political science is an intrinsic element in Taiwans democracy. It is not only the political science embedded in the liberal philosophy inculcating the discourse of democratization, but also the political science that provides a vehicle with which to represent Taiwanese politics in ways acceptable to U.S. hegemonic power. In terms of what politicians and their constituencies need from one another, Taiwans democracy is not much deeper than the discourse of political science that represents it. Not unlike Taiwans notorious reputation for piracy of intellectual property, Taiwans democracy achieves its fame primarily through cosmetic democratic rhetoric. Given the eagerness of mainstream political science to stipulate a worldwide trend toward liberal democracy, one that once looked hopeful and promising after the collapse of the Soviet bloc yet clearly stalled upon the quick revival of nationalism around the world, any trivial signs of democratization are seen as worth celebrating. political scientists are thus reluctant to unmask fake democracies with the same enthusiasm in which counterfeit products are exposed. To preserve democracys reputation, political scientists therefore have begun to classify them into illiberal democracy and electoral democracy, among a myriad of other types, to allow room for a newly re-interpreted, self-reinforcing, and partially self-deceived optimism toward the teleology of democracy. Their understanding of Taiwanese democracy is the quintessential case in point. This is the secret behind Taiwans success.
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Conclusion
THE IMAGE OF IDENTITY

To repeat the clich of earlier chapters, Taiwans democracy is an image, thus Taiwans independence is also an image. An image is different from an identity. While local narrators in Taiwan are primarily obsessed with the discourse on identity, they are actually pursuing nothing more than an image of having an identity. Having an identity has become such a faddish thing in the global age that anyone eager to represent Taiwan certainly needs to find one for Taiwan. By positioning Taiwan alongside the United States and Japan, and drawing from historical as well as political resources based on its relations with each of the two countries, local narrators easily find anti-Chinese sentiments to be the expedient, readily available, and a safe approach toward identifying Taiwans self. The result is not so much about the identity as it is about the image of having an identity. Identity is about a boundary, which separates the internal from the external. The existence of the external is therefore essential to the claim of the boundary. The boundary and the external are the same thing. Identifying the external is an act of establishing the boundary. The external cannot be external if it is not distinguishable from the internal. The external is, accordingly, about difference. Identity requires a definition of difference, represented by the external, which can likewise be defined as the Other. What ones identity is, automatically speaks of what it is not. One extreme way of claiming difference is through violence, which implies an irreconcilable difference between parties of violence. The Orientalist critique uncovers the potential of violence, physical as well as discursive, in the act of Othering. Instead, it advocates creative methods of self-other differentiation which requires no such violence. Image is about the evaluation of one by another/others. One performs in accordance with some consensually agreed upon role, explicitly as well as implicitly, between one and those others who presumably evaluate. Ones concerns over image connect one with the others with the effect of forming a collective relationship among all of them. One whose need is to receive evaluation from the others generates, reproduces, and/or redefines the collective relationship thereof. This relationship obscures and transcends the sense of boundary caused by Othering. The identity is viewed by others so it has an image. The identity does not change easily even if it has a bad image. It is not determined by the situation while the image is because the perceivers of the image vary by situation. Each situation involves a different relationship and requires one to perform differently in order to receive a positive evaluation. One who needs an identity is very much different from the other who needs an image. Those who live with an identity may feel that those who live with an image have no souls. However, those who live with an image
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look for the relationship in order to perceive and behave meaningfully. Effectively managing ones image relies on ones capacity to adapt to situations/relationships. Effectively asserting ones identity, on the other hand, calls for a reproduction of the boundary and the difference. In general, Christianity breeds the need for an identity since no one can escape the scrutiny of the Lord and, therefore, no one can do without the identity in order to face the Lord. One grows by learning how to distinguish from the Other and enter a secured boundary. Confucianism breeds the need for an image because no one completes the circle of life without being able to eventually reproduce a collective relationship that renders the meaning of life to newcomers. Here, one grows by learning self-sacrifice in order to reproduce the greater self defined by the collective relationship. It is possible for one to have multiple, even contradictive, identities. This is because one is able to appreciate boundaries created through different measures of constructing the difference. In contrast, it is unlikely that one has multiple images in specific situations. Each situation corresponds to one particular image since a relationship connects a specific group of people. When a situation incurs more than one relationship, one runs into a role conflict; but even though the self-image is still a sum of the total evaluations received, it is not separated into conflicting complexes. A role conflict is not the same as a split personality, wherein multiple identities are created. A person with multiple identities is not much different from one with no identity. Multiple identities are necessarily and consciously felt despite the specificity of the situation. Anyone trapped with multiple identities suffers anxiety or depression depending on whether or not one believes that there is a solution to the self-contradiction. If one believes that there is a solution, then multiple identities generate anxiety and self-denial when one struggles to reduce/reconcile the multiple identities to only one. If one takes multiple identities beyond ones own influence, depression ensues. A role conflict incurs embarrassment, which one manages by performing each role expectation separately in the future to reassure the relationship one by one. When one learns to divide multiple identities into each correspondent for a certain situation, then the identities dissolve into images. While wanting to be different theoretically reflects ones need for an identity, the need can still be sheer image-building. This means that to be different is in itself the norm by which one believes ones role should abide by in order to receive positive evaluation. As an image is built, the seeming pursuit of an identity meets, in actuality, the need for an image to have an identity. Accordingly, an enhanced awareness of liberal value does not mean enhanced liberalism, but rather an enhanced need for an image of being liberal. The May Fourth movement of 1919 was one typical example of performing an individualist salvation for the sake of the collectivistic salvation. The whole purpose was less about liberalism or emancipation from
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tradition than about nationalism and acceptance by the Western countries of China to be equal, normal, and modern; hence, it was a matter of image. In the same vein, Taiwan as a democratizing country reflects a similar quest for an image of being democratic. This quest reflects the need to perform democracy in order to become part of the strong, hence the association with the United States or Japan. Creating the image of being democratic and non-Chinese is the vehicle resorted to in order to achieve such an association.
DEMOCRATIC ONTOLOGY
Post-colonial and Confucian Taiwan calls for a different political science, one which is not oriented toward universalism, objectivism, or scientism, nor preoccupied with the prescription for promoting successful states embedded in liberal and democratic ideology. This is not merely a call to benefit Taiwan or Taiwan Studies alone, but also a call for new political science that is reflexive toward the researchers own community and ideology from the perspective of the Taiwanese being studied. Taiwan Studies could be a new discipline in which the research community learns how to be Taiwanese. In fact, all area studies must first reflect upon the decision regarding who will represent the area, which is Taiwan in our case, and who will be studied. An exercise in reflexivity can remind all those Taiwan scholars that they inevitably play an intervening role in defining the scope of Taiwan through the implicit invocation of the concept of sovereign territoriality (excluding Taiwanese expatriates in China), the reproduction of self-identification of those under study (excluding pro-unification fundamentalists), or the examination of only those with electoral rights (excluding over 100,000 Chinese spouses). Embarrassingly, any attempt on the part of the researcher to rely on a particular definition of Taiwaneseness cannot provide firm grounds for understanding the Taiwanese. One chief editor of a major Chinese studies journal once said that Taiwanese scholars should use their linguistic advantage to search for materials that can revise the Western social science theory. It did not occur to the veteran expert that Taiwanese scholars do not want to be different from their Western counterparts so as not to be reduced (in the eyes of the Western academic) to being a pre-modern, non-universal, non-rational actor. To speak the same language is not unlike becoming an equal colleague in the English-speaking academic community. As long as the local scholar can translate local complexity into the mainstream scheme, he or she contributes to the prospect of the liberalization and democratization of Taiwan. To resist mainstream social science risks incurring humiliation. Selfhood faces the prospect of emptiness in the absence of an association with a
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higher scholarship. Note that Taiwanese scholars come from precisely the same community as that of scholars of democratization. The growth of Taiwanese democracy and social science scholarship in Taiwan both involve identity strategies. They both respond to the onlookers expectations on a fine-grained, point-by-point basis, much like counterfeit products for which Taiwan is well-known in the global marketplace. Liberal democracy in Taiwan could very well be another such counterfeit product. Taiwanese scholars and political actors look to the English-speaking communities for recognition. Liberalization and democratization serve to increase Taiwanese self-respect. Ultimately, the pressure is to keep up the appearance of liberal democracy, and not to actually democratize or liberalize. Apparently one major source of the pressure comes from political science because it provides a reality check, posing to worried local scholars the question of whether or not their country is respectfully modern. If political scientists appreciate this lack of confidence in the cooperating local community, they would understand that political science is not just about neutrality. They would lose lofty, innocent objectivism upon acknowledging their being intruders who change their subject of research. What they study is now consciously a product of their own making. They must be studying themselves at the same time that they study Taiwan, given that the response and cooperation they acquire from their Taiwanese informants involve feelings toward and expectations of these social science scholars. Moreover, Taiwans government-initiated educational reform has been enacted in accordance with political science textbooks, using these textbooks as reasons to promote the hidden agenda of reformers that is unrelated to democracy. Academics and political actors in Taiwan are mutually constituted. Even though Taiwanese political scientists are critical of their own government in some ways, their interests nonetheless serve the purpose of expanding capitalism, imperialism, or hegemonism (the choice of a term depending on the readers own ideological position), since American political and economic power has included Taiwan in its area of influence, and political scientists have introduced Taiwan to this unfamiliar foreign audience. Political scientists, writing in English as well as Chinese, assist in the process of generating a sense of familiarity and comfort toward Taiwan among global powers. However, the misinterpretation involved in this act of translation is self-deceptive, distorting not only native presentations of Taiwan and external understandings of Taiwan, but also even more important for our purposes, the resulting self-understandings among Taiwanese academics. Continuity and change in Taiwan politics can be understood in terms of a post-colonial clock on which Confucianism, liberalism, and post-colonialism determine the position or time on the clock. The discipline of political science is represented by the hour hand, while the Japanese colonial
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Conclusion
legacy is represented by the minute hand, and Confucian culture is represented by the second hand. Taken together, these determine where Taiwan is at a particular time or on a particular issue, but no one hand determines the reality of Taiwan politics, despite the fact that it is the hour hand that always seems to be in control. The three hands of the clock also determine how fast a particular actor shifts on the clock, and in this context, the second hand is particularly relevant, since its speed and position are dependent upon those of the other two hands. One actor may pass each stop several times in his or her lifetime, while another may simply be too slow to get to the second stop. Previous chapters show how various values, including moral politics, human rights, sovereign identity, and power, co-exist. Post-colonial time proceeds in a cycle but may seemingly be in a linear direction at any given moment. As the least cyclical and changeable of the hands, liberalism seems to have the greatest influence in determining the position of the clock at any given time, but it is continuously being moved by the other presumably less powerful hands. Reading this post-colonial clock requires that mainstream scholars distance themselves from their historical experiences, which would be tantamount to the realization of a completely different political epistemology as well as ontology, in which studying Taiwan acts as a vehicle for researchers to achieve a much broader scope of self-knowledge. Whereas mainstream social science studies Taiwan with the aim of understanding it, the proposed ontology encourages Taiwanese scholars to study Taiwan for the sake of arriving at new ways of understanding those historical and cultural constraints that they themselves face, resulting in a deeper appreciation of their own epistemological condition. In short, the new political science would be a discipline that openly acknowledges its participation in the lives of those whom it studies. It would create room for those under study to translate their historical specificity into a perspective that political scientists can use for their own self-examination. Only when political scientists can engage in self-examination through the eyes of the Taiwanese can they legitimately claim knowledge of Taiwan. In other words, political science must endeavor to multiply its understanding of world perspectives instead of constricting them, so as to acknowledge and enable the existence of each community or actor on the post-colonial clock. The metaphor of the post-colonial clock allows the addition of new positions in the Taiwanese political space, opening up the liberal ontology to the possibility of previously suppressed realities. Taiwan could actually be a harbinger for the coming crisis of liberal democracy. In todays world, apparent democratization camouflages violations of liberal principles, and although nationalism has been on the decrease in the Balkans, it has grown stronger in East Asia, making the realization of liberal values in this region of the world even more difficult.
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On the other hand, the collectivist style of politics, the need for a strong leadership, as well as the discursive incapacity to cope with hybrid identities plague the political stability sought by Confucianism. What are therefore needed are conceptual schemes and discursive mechanisms allowing fake democrats to face, discuss, and cope with the anxiety involved in their self-representation. In this regard, Taiwan could really become the success story it is seen to be to the extent that its citizens learn to escape the confines of state sovereignty, enter a different ontology to meet with contingencies, and even play with their multiple identities. However, any success of this kind would, unfortunately, hardly be seen as a success, and may even be looked upon as pathetic, from the perspective of mainstream political science, but this only gives further testimony to the main contention of this book that political science is the fundamental source of Taiwans problems, not their solution. For the Taiwanese, therefore, the real struggle is not between democracy and dictatorship but between political science and another language of theirs which is yet to be articulated.
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The Success State As A Political Theory

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07-633_01_Front.

Democracy (Made in Taiwan)

Democracy (Made in Taiwan)

LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

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Conclusion Bibliography Index

Introduction: Political Theory and Taiwan

HUMAN RIGHTS AND IDENTITY POLITICS

Not about Human Rights

THE ANTI-COMMUNIST IDENTITY

Not about Human Rights

SOVEREIGNTY OUTSIDE OF CHINA

Not about Human Rights

Not about Human Rights

THE THOUSAND ISLAND LAKE INCIDENT

Not about Human Rights

Not about Human Rights

THE OFFSHORE HOTEL ISSUE

Not about Human Rights

Not about Human Rights

THE CHINCHING EPISODE

Not about Human Rights

LOSS OF REGIME AND UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS

Not about Human Rights

THE MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS

Not about Human Rights

Not about Human Rights

HOW IS TAIWAN A SUCCESSFUL STATE?

Not about Liberalism

WHAT DOES THE MEDIA SEE IN TAIWANS SUCCESS?

Not about Liberalism

WHY CANNOT CONFUCIAN TAIWAN BE A LIBERAL DEMOCRACY?

Not about Liberalism

WHY CANNOT POST-COLONIAL TAIWAN BE A LIBERAL DEMOCRACY?

Not about Liberalism

Not about Liberalism

HOW IS TAIWAN A FAILED LIBERAL DEMOCRACY?

Not about Liberalism

Not about Liberalism

HOW IS TAIWANS SUCCESS AN EXTERNAL CONSTITUTION?

Not about Liberalism

Not about Liberalism

Not about Liberalism

HOW IS FAILED LIBERAL DEMOCRACY A SUCCESS?

Not about Liberalism

Not about Liberalism

Not about Liberalism

POLITICAL SCIENCE AT THE DOOR OF TAIWAN

The Loss of the Median Voter

THE IN-BETWEEN VOTERS

The Loss of the Median Voter

THE ISSUE SPACE OF THE 2004 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN IN TAIWAN

The independence-reunification spectrum

The Loss of the Median Voter

The Loss of the Median Voter

A CULTURAL THEORY PROPOSITION

The Loss of the Median Voter

THE ISSUE SPACE FOR HYBRID VOTERS

The Loss of the Median Voter

Possibly Definitively not not Missing Total