The conference, held in Taipei, brought together more than sixty of the world's most respected political scientists and political leaders from thirty countries. It was hosted by the Institute for National Policy Research, Taipei, and the National Endowment for Democracy, Washington. D.C.
One of the many topics discussed during the meeting was the international significance of Taiwan's political development experience, especially over the past decade, for the large number of nations that have become democratic in the last fifteen years and are now seeking to consolidate democracy by strengthening their social, political, and cultural institutions.
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is my honor to be with you today in Taipei at the opening ceremony of the International Conference on Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies, hosted by the Institute for National Policy Research of Taipei and the National Endowment for Democracy of Washington, D.C. This significant conference brings together political leaders and distinguished scholars from nearly thirty nations who share a keen interest in the noble cause of democracy to meet with experts in the Republic of China and share views on the practice of democracy for the next four days. On this auspicious occasion, on behalf of the government and people of the Republic of China, I would like to express my heartiest felicitations on the holding of this important conference and my sincerest welcome to those distinguished guests from afar.
Last year, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev accepted an invitation to visit the ROC. During my meeting with him, we exchanged views on reforms in the former Soviet Union. I stated then that political and economic reforms are simultaneous equations with two unknowns. What I meant was that political and economic reforms are mutually indispensable; it is difficult to get anywhere by focusing on either one alone. Which equation should be solved first depends on the conditions and problems of each country. For the Republic of China on Taiwan, economic reforms clearly led the way while political reforms just fell into place when the time and conditions were right.
Indeed, political reform or development can not depend solely on economic improvements for support, but must be determined by each individual situation. What we call political reform or development is an enormously complex social project that not only involves all sorts of social organizations and forces but also is intimately bound up with cultural heritage. In every society, culture influences political development to one degree or another. Culture can be compared to the x in f(x); that is to say, a different cultural heritage will result in a different political development or outcome.
Scholars explaining China's political development from a historical or cultural standpoint have generally been enamored of constructing their theories with historical data to explain current political issues and predict future directions. For instance, some scholars contend that China could not possibly break away from authoritarianism in her political development, because Chinese society has traditionally valued authority, is strongly group-oriented, lacks individualism, and does not respect human rights. While this kind of opinion can of course be analyzed in depth as an academic issue, it must also be able to provide a reasonable interpretation of the actual situation before it can be acceptable. Clearly, most past observations based on traditional Chinese history and culture cannot adequately explain Taiwan's political development over the last five years. Therefore, we must first sort out the actual facts of a nation's political development and then study its cultural heritage before we can somewhat objectively determine the links between the two.
Of course, the determinants of successful political reform or development are highly complex. We cannot take cultural heritage as the only important factor. Probably most political scientists would admit that the political order is not just an abstract concept. For example, although democracies share certain core principles in common, there are differences—and not so minor ones at that—in actual substance and manner of implementation, even among Western Europe and the United States, which are culturally rather similar. These institutional differences follow precisely from the differences in historical conditions and cultural traditions of each country or society. Therefore, I would like on the occasion of this academic seminar to offer our political reform and development here in the Republic of China on Taiwan as an example, and present a historical and cultural explanation instead of an economic interpretation. Please then share with me your learned views on its academic merits.
The Republic of China on Taiwan is a part of the greater Chinese cultural system. For two millennia, the Chinese political order involved a government of centralized power headed by an emperor. It lacked Western-style democracy and a parliamentary system. These are all facts of history. Following the War of Resistance Against Japan from 1937 to 1945, the Chinese Communist Party rebelled and the ROC government in 1948 promulgated the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion. The following year, the ROC government relocated to Taiwan. Because of Communist threats, the Temporary Provisions remained in effect for 43 years before they were abolished in 1991. These provisions restricted the rights given the people by the ROC Constitution, leaving the Republic of China in a state of war under martial law.
However, in less than five years, since the lifting of the Temporary Provisions, the ROC has carried out a series of political reforms, including amendments to the Constitution; termination of the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist Rebellion; retirement of all members of the first National Assembly, Control Yuan, and Legislative Yuan; elections for all seats in the three parliamentary organs; and passage of laws governing the popular election of governor of Taiwan province and mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung special municipalities, as well as the direct election of the president and vice president. The Republic of China has thereupon become a democratic country in which “power lies with the people.”
To date, The Republic of China is moving toward democracy without absolute political authority or an unreasonable political monopoly. Many different political views co-exist in our society, resulting in the formation of political parties which have basically been able to maintain rationality and compete fairly and reasonably to win the support of the people. ROC citizens have also been able to exercise their freedom within the scope of the law. The ROC has created not only an “economic miracle” but also a “political miracle” which some have termed a “quiet revolution.”
Despite the cumbersome two-thousand-year legacy of an imperial system and the tribulations of more than forty years of Communist rebellion, the Republic of China has managed to complete this historic task of political re-engineering peacefully. This fact deserves the attention of scholars in the humanities and social sciences. I believe that there are many levels of reasons for this success, and that the factors at each level playa necessary role. I would now like to take a look at the influence that ancient political philosophy has had on our nation's political development in terms of what Chinese culture says about the relations between the government and the people.
Democracy is a political system in which the public is the principal political entity. Its ultimate goal is to create the greatest well-being for the people. Although this precept has been realized in a variety of forms through the ages, none has deviated from the principle of “power lies with the people,” the sine qua non of democracy. However, there is a certain disparity between the precept of democracy and its political manifestations. Once mankind began to form large and more complex social groups, public matters were increasingly shouldered by a few people since they could not be handled by all group members. Put another way, a minority became rulers while the majority became the ruled. The rulers had power and dominated more and more resources, while the opposite was true for the ruled.Theoretically, this was a virtually unavoidable direction for various forms of political orders to take.
Since it is impossible for the people to directly manage national affairs, republican nations that have emerged from monarchial rule have only been able to implement what is called indirect democracy. Reasonably defining the relationship between a government which has public authority and carries out public business and the people to whom sovereignty belongs is a topic of concern to us all.
Like other political systems, the world's democracies of today are the result of historical development, and perhaps no two countries are exactly alike in this respect. For some countries that are more democratically mature, the developmental process has been mild; for others, it has been fairly drastic. But the basic concept of democracy has invariably developed from an antagonistic relationship between the people and their government. Since Western democracies have generally developed from monarchies, it is natural that antagonism would have arisen when the people struggled to gain power from the monarch. Therefore, a discussion of the nature of democracy must be grounded in the historical background of each country.
Looking back at the historical experiences of Western Europe, the governed attempted to gain more power from the government through various means. In the course of their struggle, some kings were sent to the guillotine, some went into exile, and some were reduced to rulers in name only. The ultimate result was invariably that the people were elevated to the status of the masters of the country. Contemporary democratic development in Europe shows that the milder the people's fight for power, the slower but stabler was the transformation of the national political institution and system. Conversely, the more intense the struggle, the more rapid and turbulent the transformation. This latter course produces a far greater social impact than the former.
The Republic of China on Taiwan's political reform in the past five years could be termed quite dramatic and rapid, in terms of either the two thousand years of Chinese history or the eighty-some years of ROC history. Moreover, the price we have paid for it has been minuscule. Our economy has continued to expand, society has developed, education and culture have flourished, and the people's lives have become more prosperous. What is the reason for this? I have often wondered whether the rule that democracy grows out of antagonism between the people and their government can provide a satisfactory explanation of Taiwan's political development over the past five years. I believe that a reasonable answer lies in our cultural heritage, a factor that exists at a comparatively deep level in a people or society. If one doesn't look carefully, it is often obscured by heated power struggles.
“Following the hearts of the people,” an idea contained in the ancient Chinese Book of History, could also serve as a succinct statement of the essence of modern democracy. This kind of precept for the head of a nation was widely prevalent in ancient Chinese culture. This amply proves that the political thought of the time basically affirmed that the ultimate objective of politics was to fulfill the wishes of the people, just as a similar function for government is stressed by democratic thought today.
Among many documents that carry such political philosophy, the foremost one was found in the era of King Yu of the 21st century B.C. Kao Yao, who was in charge of legal affairs, admonished King Yu, saying, “Heaven can see and hear, and does so through the eyes and ears of the people; Heaven rewards the virtuous and punishes the wicked, and does it through the people.” A similar phrase was used in the 11th century B.C., when King Wu of the Chou dynasty sent troops to suppress the tyrannical King Chou of the Shang dynasty.
In my speech this past June at Cornell University, I specially noted the ancient teaching, “Whatever the people desire, Heaven must follow.” This utterance was said to be the oath taken by King Chou's troops before going to war in the 11th century B.C. It is similar in meaning to what Kao Yao had said to King Yu, yet has more positive significance. As Heaven conforms to the popular will and the popular will finds a respondent, the people become more assertive; it is not just a passive reflection of popular will.
In the third century B.C., Mencius also said: “Give the people what they desire; never force upon them that which they abhor.” By doing so, one can win the hearts of the people and their support, and thus an opportunity to rule. Therefore, ancient Chinese wisdom reminds rulers to always pay close attention to the will of the people and comply with the popular will, which is in fact the realization of the concept of popular sovereignty.
The government and people are a symbiotic unity—this is also a long-standing political precept of our nation. Ancient Chinese political philosophers believed that the government and the people are a harmonious unity, rather than an antagonistic duality. In the seventh century B.C., an official historian of the Chou dynasty quoted the Book of Hsia: “If the people don't support their monarch, whom should they support? If a monarch doesn't have the support of the people, he can't secure his realm.” A similar declaration can be found in the Book of Shang.
Centuries later, when Confucius journeyed through a number of states to disseminate his ideas, he advised the rulers to practice “benevolent governance.” Mencius also promoted “kingly governance.” Both preached that rulers should bring government and people closer together through the way they administered. In the Warring States Period of the fifth through third centuries B.C., the Confucianists used the metaphor, “The ruler is the mind of the people while the people are the body of the ruler.” Just like the symbiotic relationship of survival between the monarch of a nation and the people, it would appear superficially that the body follows the mind much as the people obey their ruler; but upon further reflection, we realize that the mind depends upon the protection of the body for its safety, and the mind is vulnerable to injury when the body is injured.
Following what the people desire and thinking of the government and the people as a single entity are both basic precepts of democracy today. Although they both appeared early in the political activities of our Chinese forebears, it was a pity that the subsequent formation of feudalistic thinking cut short the development of this kind of thought. Nevertheless, these ideals have never disappeared over many thousands of years of Chinese history; they have always been goals constantly pursued by the Chinese people.
Virtually no Chinese emperor throughout the ages, however dictatorial or selfish, dared to openly repudiate the people's will, or dared explicitly claim that the people's welfare need not be the ultimate goal of governmental administration. Clearly, the influence of these political philosophies remained throughout. I am confident that, by injecting into our modern democratic order the political precepts long inherent in Chinese culture of exalting the people's will and claiming that the government and the people are a unity, we can infuse democracy with new vitality.
It is my firm belief that our culture is the most important factor that has allowed the Republic of China to achieve successful political reforms in the past five years. Recently I had guidelines titled “Manage the Great Taiwan, Nurture a New Chinese Culture” drawn up, believing that our profound cultural heritage is indeed deeply embedded in the Taiwan experience of creating an economic miracle and a political miracle. This cultural heritage can be traced as far back as the end of the third century B.C., the classical age when the imperial system had not yet coalesced. Chinese culture then was fresh and pure, and had not yet been tainted by the monarchial politics of later centuries.
More than two thousand years separate us from that classical Chinese culture, so it cannot be transplanted to our age exactly as it was, but must, rather, be creatively transformed. The “new” in the term “a New Chinese Culture” means creative transformation, and this is the direction our cultural development is heading. I believe that a fresh and unsullied Chinese classical civilization will be an inexhaustible wellspring of thought for us.
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished people from all over the world who revere democracy have come to attend this conference. Undoubtedly, it is the result of a blossoming trend toward Third Wave Democracies that binds you and me together, getting beyond national or cultural differences; and it is also devotion and dedication to democracy that bonds us. I hope and believe that this close bond will help increase our common areas of agreement and mutual friendship. We ardently look forward to working together with everyone of you to raise the sophistication of our theoretical learning and empirical practice and to build a world that truly and fully belongs to democracy. We also keenly hope that you will take home from this conference not just a more extensive assessment and understanding of the development of democracy, but also an awareness of the ardent longing by the government and people of the Republic of China for equal and fair treatment of our nation in the international community. We further hope that meaningful international conferences such as this will be held here more often.
In closing, may I wish this conference complete success and each of you good health and happiness! Thank you!