'Glorious October'- realising the dream of Sun Yat-sen
abia...@my-deja.com
Thursday, October 29, 2009
CHINESE on both sides of the Taiwan Strait generally see the month of
October as "Glorious October" because on the 10th of October 98 years
ago, a year known as "Xinhai" in the Chinese calendar, Sun Yat-sen
overthrew the Qing government by force and found the first Republic of
China in Asia. And 60 years ago on 1st October, the troops of Mao Tse-
tung then defeated Chiang Kai-shek, the successor of Sun Yat-sen, and
found the People's Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek retreated to
Taiwan after the defeat.
Year after year, both regimes celebrated their own national days, and
this year, Beijing drew the attention of the world by celebrating its
founding with the most elaborate ever procession in 60 years; Taiwan
on the other hand cancelled its celebration due to Typhoon Morak
inflicting the island with its most serious flood in half a century.
With both events just nine days apart, it provided a strong contrast.
President Ma Ying-jeou announced that Republic of China (Taiwan) will
celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2011 with a full
calendar year of events; and in Beijing, the authorities are also
planning to hold joint celebrations with Taiwanese political parties
for the same event. This will be the first time the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) and Kuomintang (KMT) celebrates the "glorious Double-Ten
Festival" together since Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung signed the
"Double-Ten Agreement" and celebrated the day in 1945. Both parties
have their own agendas, hoping to inherit the legitimacy of Sun Yat-
sen's successful revolution, and it will definitely be an extravaganza
to look forward to.
If Chiang Kai-shek were to be alive today, he would not have recognise
Taiwan in its current political colours of Blue and Green, and not
forgetting sometimes a patch of Red here and Orange there. The
presidential residence is still there, but long gone is the "Three
Principles of the People". And if his soul were to cross into mainland
China and see the rampant structural corruption and how the local
officials are profiting from the people, he probably would have
thought that the corrupted KMT was still ruling mainland China.
And if Mao Tse-tung were to come back to life, he would not have
recognise mainland China either, because China is now a free market
that is even more capitalist than a capitalist state. It is now a
state without real communism, and without the essence of socialism.
The class struggle has long vanished, and whatever remains are mere
slogans, including his most revelled "long live Maoism". And if his
soul were to cross the strait into Taiwan, looking at the political
struggle, especially those vulgarities hurled by politicians in
parliament, he probably would have thought that his wife Chiang Ching
has crossed the strait and brought the torch of revolution into
Taiwan.
The massive national power demonstrated by China in its 60th national
day was mainly the fruit of 30 years of reforms and opening up. The
expending of enormous resources in the country, activating a higher
security level than that of Beijing Olympics and the show of
collectivism through the precision of the military parade was all
about displaying the prestige of the rise of a superpower by peaceful
means.
The "1st October Fever" in Taiwan was also astounding, and the
opposition was very resentful of this eagerness among Taiwanese for
China's National Day as they viewed October 1st as the "Doomsday of
Republic of China" and "KMT's day of disgrace". But the media only
recognises market demands, and several mainstream TV stations in
Taiwan all provided live broadcast to the military parade in Tiananmen
Square.
History is usually the triumphal song of the victorious, and China is
the victor of the civil war. Its population is 57 times that of
Taiwan, its land area is 267 times of Taiwan, and military experts
believe that if China were to use its overwhelming military strength
to invade Taiwan, Taiwan would not even last 24 hours.
Surprisingly, as the loser of the civil war 60 years ago, Taiwan
managed to remain on par against China in military and economic
strength for the first 30 years due to sound political management that
created an economic miracle, and also with the support of the United
States. The living standard on both sides of the strait are now
getting closer due to the rapid economic growth of China, aided also
by the ban of investing in China by Taiwan's ex-presidents Lee Teng-
hui and Chen Shui-bian.
Even though there are shortcomings in Taiwan's democracy, it must be
remembered that they are the first ever democracy in 5,000 years of
Chinese history. From village head to mayor to the President, all
officials are elected through the one vote to one person voting
system. Freedom of speech was however left to spread unchecked, and it
became one of the causes of chaos in the Taiwanese society.
China achieved the first four elements of modernisation, but lacks the
fifth, that is democracy. Even Hong Kong, Macao, Shenzhen, Beijing and
Shanghai do not have general elections. The Chinese Communist Party
believes that they must hold the ultimate authority, and stability is
everything to them. Chinese in mainland China enjoys a huge level of
economic freedom, but there are no private and independent media, only
official mass media that spreads the same propaganda to all 1.3
billion people.
After a separation of 60 years, more and more Taiwanese are hoping to
share the fruit of China's economic success, and they also believe
that the now opened China will not return to their old communist ways.
Similarly, more and more of them are also adamant on maintaining their
democratic way of life. To lay it down, the trend in Taiwan now is: No
independence, no communist, status quo. The reasons are simple, the
changes in China brought about prosperity and modernisation, but the
people are still restricted from criticising the government and the
communist, prevented from promoting human rights and social justice,
and the only home that dissidents have is the jail.
The Taiwanese have resisted and fought for democracy since the days of
KMT's martial law and the hard earned freedom they have today is
through the blood and tears shed by people who sacrificed for the
cause. With ruling power switching hands twice in the last three
elections, it will be difficult for Taiwanese to give up their
democracy and tolerate the autocracy in mainland China.
The formidable progress of China is having a greater impact on the
world with every passing day. It is the third largest economy in the
world and is expected to overtake Japan next year and then the United
States in 2020; China has the highest foreign reserves in the world at
US$2 trillion, and its overall strength is growing rapidly, which is a
highly attractive factor in the eyes of Hong Kong and Macau.
However, most Taiwanese will not simply throw themselves into the arms
of China and forget about the more than a thousand missiles that are
currently aimed at the island. Ma Ying-jeou rode on this mainstream
public opinion and was elected president, and he even declared that he
will work to keep cross-strait relationship status quo for the rest of
his life: no independence, no reunification, no war.
The "One-China" policy is seen by Beijing as the cardinal rule and
Taiwan is seen as a province that belongs to China, even though they
are still unable to unite the country after 60 years; Taiwan on their
side also insist that "One-China" is their long term objective, but it
will always ensure that it keeps a safe distance from the mainland.
Both parties finally compromised with Beijing changing its stance to
"Mainland China and Taiwan both belongs to the same China"; this is a
statement that respected the truth as it meant that "Sovereignty of
one China belongs to Chinese on both sides of the strait".
On the surface, it does not seem too difficult for both regimes to
settle their differences, but in fact the situation is much more
complex and intricate than it seems. China will certainly insist on
its "socialism with Chinese characteristcs" as it is currently in the
early stages of this socialism, and it currently has no intention or
confidence in practising any universal values.
From stalemate to compromise, both parties paid the price in 60 years
of protracted talks, and after much consideration, Ma Ying-jeou
decided to call for a political truce, and Beijing responded
favourably to his call and even decided not to block Taiwan's bid to
join the World Health Organisation, contrary to what they have always
done historically. This is actually the most natural and best option
for cross-strait relations after 60 years of feuds. The question then
becomes when will the deadlock be finally broken?
Taiwan's politics is all about public opinions, the opinions of 23
million people, and their subjective consciousness will decide both
Taiwan's future and Taiwan's future president. If China is unable to
implement freedom and democracy under the rule of law, then Wen
Jiabao's declaration that China will be a "Prosperous, democratic,
civilised and harmonious socialist modern nation" 40 years later in
its 100th anniversary will still not be a real democracy in the eyes
of Sun Yat-sen when he advocated "Tian Xia Wei Gong" (power belongs to
the people, Tian Xia refers to "the world", and Wei Gong refers to
"belongs to the people"), and will naturally also be unable to attract
the Taiwanese.
The meaning of Sun Yat-sen's "Tian Xia Wei Gong" ideal is that the
country belongs to the people, politics should be handled by the
people, and wealth should be spread among the people. When Hu Jintao
spoke in his speech in 2003 declaring "power for the people, concern
for the people, benefits for the people", it was basically the same
idea as that of Sun Yat-sen.
Sun urged the people before his death that "The revolution has not
succeeded, comrades must continue the struggle", and since Chinese
from both sides of the strait all respect him, they should also
continue the revolution. The "revolution" here refers of course not to
a bloodied coup of beheading to seize political power, but the shift
of power by headcounts, that is voting. No political parties in China
should ever cause the death of millions of people just to seize power.
Let the killings fade into history, and may peace remains eternal.
The last words of Sun before his death were "Peace, Strive, Rescue
China". Only by giving up war measures can both sides of the strait
coexist peacefully, cooperate peacefully, and compete peacefully. As
for peaceful reunification, it will certainly not be according to the
subjective will of Hu Jintao. The CCP must self-improve and implement
the rule of law to genuinely serve its 1.3 billion people and win the
support of the public. Only then will Taiwanese change their views on
China and the CCP and trust them enough to effect a true peaceful
negotiation for reunification. Only on that day can the dream of Sun
Yat-sen for "Tian Xia Wei Gong' can be truly achieved. The Brunei
Times
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in all his uprising died for their part.
On Nov 18, 4:02 am, "abianc...@my-deja.com" <abianc...@my-deja.com>
wrote: