News •
The Chen Shui-bian presidency
In March 2000 Chen Shui-bian of the opposition DPP won the presidential election. This was a watershed event; the KMT had been in power for more than half a century. Some hailed the election as the final step in Taiwan’s process toward democratizing and establishing majority rule. Others called it a fluke.
The latter view was supported by the way Chen won. Pres. Lee Teng-hui had backed his vice president, Lien Chan, for the KMT’s presidential nomination. However, a third candidate, former Taipei governor James Soong, had the best preference-poll numbers—far ahead of Lien’s and Chen’s. Hence, Soong ran as an independent and might well have won the election except that during the campaign Lee and other top members of the KMT accused Soong of having absconded with party funds when he was secretary-general of the KMT. This accusation hurt his reputation badly. Soong was also at a disadvantage by not having a political party and not having sufficient funds to run his campaign. In any case, Soong, running as an independent, ended up splitting the conservative vote.
Chen ran a highly effective campaign, appealing to the Fukien Taiwanese, women, young people, the poor, and those who believed that Taiwan should be legally separate from mainland China. In addition, he was charismatic. Soong, also a consummate politician, won only a small percentage less than Chen in the final vote tally. Soong won more votes from all of Taiwan’s ethnic minorities (mainland Chinese and Hakka and aboriginal peoples) and from women. Hence, Chen was elected with less than half of the popular vote, which was not considered a mandate by many observers. The DPP also lacked a majority in the legislature, which meant a divided government and a difficult job ahead for Chen.
Chen nevertheless started out his term well, with his approval poll numbers ranging upward to 70 percent. However, his efforts to build an effective ruling coalition failed, and he resorted to playing ethnic politics. One of the president’s tactics was to create a political crisis by canceling work on a nuclear power plant that the previous legislature had authorized. Concern about electricity shortages, a general paralysis in government, and a loss of confidence in the business community contributed to the economy’s fall into recession in 2001.
In 2001 Lee Teng-hui left the KMT and formed the Taiwan Solidarity Union, which aligned itself with Chen. James Soong set up the People First Party and aligned it with Lien, who by then was heading the KMT. In legislative elections held that year, the DPP won a plurality but not a majority of seats in the legislature, while Soong’s party made bigger gains (though from a smaller base). Thus, President Chen still did not command a majority in the legislature, and political gridlock became worse.
In 2004 President Chen and his vice president, Annette Lu, were reelected in a highly controversial election. Lien and Soong had teamed up to run against them, and the polls leading up to ballot day showed the opposition duo winning. However, less than 24 hours before the polls were to open, both Chen and Lu were shot while campaigning near Chen’s hometown. The wounds were minor, but Chen ordered the police and the military to remain at their posts, which kept them from voting (it was assumed that most would have voted for Lien and Soong). Chen and Lu were also helped by the sympathy vote, and the pair won by a razor-thin margin.
The opposition charged that the election had been stolen. Political paralysis got even worse. Meanwhile, Chen’s people, who had perceived that they would be out of power soon, increased their efforts to cash in on their positions, and corruption, already bad, worsened dramatically.
During his first term in office, Chen had antagonized Beijing with calls for Taiwan’s independence in order to solidify his support base, the Fukien Taiwanese. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, the United States, engaged in war in the Middle East, did not welcome Chen’s provocation. U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, who until then had been a close friend of Taiwan, now made caustic comments about the Chen administration and regarded Chen as a loose cannon and Taiwan as no longer a loyal ally. Because of domestic political gridlock, purchases of American arms were held up by Taiwan’s legislature at a time when mainland China continued to put more missiles in place in an attempt to intimidate Taiwan. Moreover, the mainland attracted Taiwan’s businessmen with investment and trade opportunities. The cumulative effect of these developments was to discredit the Chen presidency.
Late in Chen’s second term, Shih Ming-teh—a former DPP chairman known as “Taiwan’s Nelson Mandela” for having served longer in prison than any other DPP member during KMT rule (1966–77 and 1980–90)—organized mass public protests against Chen, citing his poor governance and massive corruption. Indictments of a large number of Chen administration officials, including Chen’s wife, made the situation worse for the president. Chen’s public approval poll numbers fell into single digits.
Chen ended his presidency in disgrace. The hallmarks of his administration were extreme corruption, worsening ethnic relations, and deteriorating relations with mainland China and the United States. He also did serious damage to his party, the DPP, and its leadership. Some even feared for the future of the party.
After Chen left the presidency, he was not allowed to leave Taiwan. In late 2009 he was sentenced to life in prison and fined $6.13 million after he and his wife were convicted of embezzlement, receiving bribes, and money laundering involving a total of some $15 million. Chen’s friends and relatives provided evidence against him in court, as did legal authorities from the United States and several other countries. Taiwan’s High Court subsequently reviewed the case and reduced the sentence, but Chen remained in prison. Though Chen still had a significant following, the conviction signaled that Chen’s influence in the KMT had ended.
By going on hunger strikes, complaining of ill treatment in prison, and appealing his sentence, Chen remained under media scrutiny in ensuing years. This worked to the advantage of the KMT and hurt the DPP.
The Ma Ying-jeou presidency
In 2008 the KMT won both the presidential and legislative elections by big margins. Ma Ying-jeou, a former mayor of Taipei and once the minister of justice, was elected president. Ma, who had a law degree from Harvard University and a reputation for being the cleanest of Taiwan’s political elite, was respected and popular. During the campaign he had pledged good economic growth, better ethnic relations, clean government, and cordial relations with mainland China and the United States.
The U.S. government was indeed very pleased with Ma as president, principally because he reduced tensions in the Taiwan Strait by pursuing cordial relations with Beijing rather than provoking its leaders. In the process, the Taiwan Strait was downgraded from its former status as the foremost flash point in the world (defined as the place where a conflict between two powers—in this case the United States and mainland China—might involve the use of weapons of mass destruction). Beijing was also pleased, and it set in motion policies to dramatically improve relations with Taiwan.
However, in 2009 Taiwan fell victim to the worldwide recession, which caused negative economic growth on the island. Also that year a devastating tropical cyclone, Typhoon Morakot, hit Taiwan, and nearly 500 people were killed or listed as missing. Ma espoused the position that responding to the tragedy was largely local governments’ responsibility. The public, however, was ultimately dissatisfied with the response of Ma’s government, and Ma’s popularity plummeted as a result.
Meanwhile, the opposition, in a state of shock and disarray after its two election defeats in early 2008, began to make a comeback under the leadership of Tsai Ing-wen, a former vice-premier. She moderated DPP policies, improved party morale, and oversaw some wins in local and replacement elections.
In 2010 Ma’s approval ratings rose in public opinion polls, buoyed by very impressive improvements in Taiwan’s economic growth. Ma was able to negotiate the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement with mainland China, which reduced tariffs on the mainland’s and Taiwan’s exports to each other. It was the first in a series of economic and financial agreements concluded between Taiwan and the mainland over several years that continued to build economic ties between the two.
In 2011 Taiwan observed the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China, but by then economic growth had fallen off sharply, helping to fuel mounting discontent among voters. Nonetheless, in January 2012 Ma won a second presidential term, easily defeating the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen. Moreover, the KMT retained a majority in the legislature, despite losing 17 seats in the election. Tsai took responsibility for her electoral loss and resigned as the head of the DPP.
However, Ma’s popularity, and that of the KMT, went into decline as the economy continued to stagnate, complaints of poor governance mounted, and public unease grew over Taiwan’s increasingly close relations with mainland China, which many saw as endangering Taiwan’s sovereignty. A more general explanation of the decline is that Ma and the KMT’s brand of elitist moral leadership had waned and was overwhelmed by the DPP’s populism.
Popular protest movements grew at that time, including nearly a monthlong occupation of the Legislative Yuan by a student-led group seeking to block the legislature from ratifying a trade agreement with Beijing. Tsai was reelected chair of the DPP in 2014, and in elections that year DPP candidates ousted several incumbent KMT mayors, including those in the special municipalities of Taipei, T’ai-chung, and T’ao-yüan.
The elections constituted a major victory for the DPP and a serious setback for the KMT. The outcome mirrored further deterioration in the image of President Ma and the KMT, Tsai Ing-wen’s adroit leadership of the DPP, the continued rise of populism, the appeal of the DPP and its good candidates at the local level, and voters’ concerns over growing economic inequality and increasing dependence on mainland China. Many observers viewed the outcome as a signal that the DPP would win the national presidential and legislative elections in January 2016.
Toward the end of Ma’s presidency, in November 2015, he met with Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping, the first-ever encounter between the heads of the two governments. While Ma’s diplomatic effort did not, according to opinion polls taken at the time, influence how voters might cast their ballots in the upcoming election, it was viewed favourably by many observers. It reinforced Ma’s earlier initiatives to find a solution to the dispute between mainland China and Japan over the Senkaku (Diaoyu in Chinese) Islands in the North China Sea, which involved Taiwan. It also laid the groundwork for dealing with later tensions over opposing territorial claims in the South China Sea, where mainland China was building up islands and expanding its activities and Taiwan also had an interest. Ma’s proposals were applauded in the United States and elsewhere, thereby enhancing his reputation as a diplomat and peacemaker.