The island's first direct presidential election in 1996 received foreign attention for both its historical significance and main land China's well-timed missile tests. This time around, Beijing has so far refrained from trying out its deadly weapons, but Chen Shui-bian's victory took many members of the foreign media corps by surprise. And Taiwan's expatriates? Business as usual.
On the night of March 18, right after ROC President-elect Chen Shui-bian had made his victory speech, a Singaporean journalist was anxious to ask the new leader about his stance on independence for Taiwan and the possible dangers this could pose to cross-strait relations. "You have avoided calling the nation, 'the Republic of China.' Can you explain why?" the journalist asked. "Well," the president-elect replied patiently, "I said at the very beginning of my speech that the results of the tenth Republic of China presidential and vice presidential election have been declared."
That particular attempt to persuade the winner to make an injudicious statement failed, but cross-strait concerns nevertheless figured prominently in just about every foreign media reaction to the election. Taiwan's expatriate community, on the other hand, went right back to work on Monday morning as if nothing was new--apart, that is, from the ringing in their ears caused by exuberant neighborhood firework parties. The only difference was that they had a little more to talk about at the water fountain. The rise of Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose platform calls for the establishment of a Republic of Taiwan through plebiscite, was enough for Newsweek to label him "Beijing's worst nightmare." But while the foreign media scrabbled around for scare stories, Taiwan's expats just went the way of the locals and continued taking care of business.
A week before more than 12 million people cast their vote here, an article entitled "How China Will Take Taiwan," discussing the possibility of war across the Taiwan Strait, appeared in The Washington Post. "Polls show a majority of Taiwanese oppose reunification: A growing percentage no longer even consider themselves Chinese," the Post columnist wrote. "The next Taiwanese president will probably maintain the status quo that Beijing considers unacceptable." The outcome of the election was that Taiwan is not only still maintaining an "unacceptable" status quo, it has picked an unacceptable leader. Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji even tried to scare the island away from voting for Chen by making a last-ditch threat three days before the election.
The foreign media has picked up on the perceived danger, but how close is a real one? Talk by higher-ranking DPP officials of revising the party's independence platform seemed designed to calm nerves. "I have heard so many things, but I've also heard Chen say that he is the president of the Republic of China," says Vassilis Vagios, a Greek language and literature professor at National Taiwan University (NTU). "He's changing. There seem to be two positions for him--the position in principle and the position in practice. Chen is very flexible."
According to Scott Weaver, vice president and deputy head of the Research Department of ING Baring Securities' Taiwan branch, the cross-strait situation is "difficult, but not extremely alarming." Foreign investors in Taiwan, the Ohio native points out, will always consider political problems besides economic issues. "Our view is that the political issue is there no matter who wins," he says, adding that his market targets did not change with the election. "We are still positive toward Taiwan's stock market, yet we should keep in mind that the political questions are difficult."
It goes without saying that observers whose countries have a close geographical, cultural, and economic connection with Taiwan want tranquillity across the strait, but that does not mean that they are losing sleep. "We hope a peaceful resolution will be found through dialogue," says Tetsuo Yamashita of The Interchange Association, Japan's de facto embassy. "Partly because the security of Taiwan is closely related to the security of Japan." Yamashita says he has been reassured by Chen's invitation to Wang Daohan, China's top cross-strait negotiator, to attend his inauguration ceremony, and the suggestion that the president-elect might make a trip to the mainland. "The statements made so far represent a positive message in a good direction," he says. "The message he is sending may not be 100 percent acceptable, but it's not heightening any tensions."
It seems the foreign community is still waiting for something along the lines of President Lee's "state-to-state" concept to shake things up a little. Domestic issues, however, are the most pressing part of election polemics. "I think the most important thing is not a vote for or against independence," Weaver says. "Maybe from the outside it looks that way, but internally you can see that it's actually more a question of local issues: Who will govern the people of Taiwan?"
Chen's victory can be interpreted as meaning that Taiwan has selected the candidate most likely to wipe out corruption and gang involvement in business and political circles. William Bryson, vice president of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), says that among the chamber's members it is the construction sector that has encountered the greatest level of corruption. "We see it as a very big problem here in Taiwan," he says. "If President Chen can get rid of corruption and 'black-and-gold' politics, he certainly has our support."
Bryson is basing his belief in Chen on the president-elect's past record as Taipei mayor. "The Taipei City Government that he left behind a year ago is far cleaner than the one he inherited. He certainly made Taipei city a much nicer place to live," he says. "I've heard criticism expressed from time to time that he was sometimes a bit heavy-handed or authoritarian in the way he got things done, but overall he was very effective and very good for the city."
Paul Scholten, chairman of the European Council of Commerce and Trade and country manager of ABM-AMRO Bank, says he had the impression last year that people were waiting for the elections to pass so they could get down to business and start things moving again. "What we hope is that the envisaged liberalizations and market openings will actually be implemented," he says. "The combination of having a new government in place and the accession of Taiwan to the WTO will be an impetus to all that."
Reform pledges are nothing new, and they featured prominently in the manifestoes of each of the three major candidates. In terms of the liberalization of foreign investment in Taiwan, the DPP and KMT are not so different. The DPP, however, seems to come out a little ahead in the market-opening stakes. "I think in some ways the DPP will have more freedom to liberalize more quickly, maybe in the telecommunication and finance sectors," Scott Weaver says. "The KMT has the same intention, but there are a lot of internal interests to deal with. It's a very cautious and conservative party. Their movement would be slower."
Before the election, graft in all walks of life was debated by the two major parties, and their perceived images in the eyes of foreigners led to some interesting exchanges. A March 12 story that appeared in The New York Times, entitled "Taiwan's Open Wallets Bring Fear of Bought Presidency," said the ruling KMT was reported to have "set aside more than US$60 million to get out the vote." Chen employed this story in his campaign speeches to criticize the KMT for having created a shameful impression of itself among foreigners. The KMT's campaign spokespersons in turn blasted the DPP for trying to defame its rival through the foreign press. "Foreign media workers stayed in Taiwan for just a limited amount of time," said one KMT representative. "Most of their reports were based on a handful of unreliable local sources."
What probably impressed expatriates and foreign journalists the most were not party images but their lively political rallies, all accompanied by deafening soundhorns and cheers in response to candidates' speeches. A voter turnout of 82 percent provided ample proof of the passions that elections here stir up, although the campaign circus was stigmatized as immature by New Party presidential candidate Li Ao). Compared to democratic forerunners such as the United States, where voter turnout would be around 50 percent, Li feels the Taiwanese pay too much attention to political affairs and are obsessed with elections. But NTU's Vassilis Vagios disagrees. "That shows people's willingness to participate in the political process," the professor says. He adds that voter turnout in many European countries would be similar to Taiwan's.
American campaigners don't attach as much importance to large rallies as they do to speeches and decorous indoor forums. Weaver, however, still feels that the Taiwanese are extremely savvy voters. "The political process here is maybe more active than in the United States," he says. "The process of democracy is definitely alive in Taiwan. It's really a credit that people in Taiwan take it as a very serious question and they do their best to come up with an answer that's good for them as well as maintaining a peaceful situation."
A Japanese observer, who refers to the presidential election season as a "high-voltage" period, uses half-full, half-empty bottle imagery when talking about the island's democratic development. "You can say it's immature, but immaturity also means youthfulness and dynamism," he points out, adding that an older political system can be "outdated, rusty, and in need of some movement." He even finds something to envy in the controversial plurality voting system, which handed victory to Chen even though he obtained less than 50 percent of the votes cast.
So despite the passing of an administration that had provided a stable environment for businessmen over a number of decades, the expatriate community seems disposed to optimism. "You have to take that view," says AmCham's William Bryson. "The DPP has more freedom and can be more creative." Two qualities that, in a dawning era of dotcom start-ups and the so-called New Economics, may be just what the island needs.