Mainland China has enjoyed a measure of "people power" for a dozen years now. Suppose democracy were to spread. If the Communist leadership became answerable to the ballot box, what would the consequences be for Taiwan?
At the beginning of the twentieth century, H.A. Giles argued in China and the Chinese that, in effect, "the people" ruled China, for the Chinese government at that time was responsive to the people's demands and public opinion. In his 1928 work Chinese Political Thought, Elbert Duncan Thomas developed the argument by asserting that China was an autocracy in form and a democracy in practice. In his opinion, Chinese democracy was founded upon an ancient sentiment that "the people should be cherished, they should not be downtrodden." Democracy in governmental tenure was realized through the civil service examination, which was egalitarian and open to both the rich and the poor, and Chinese people enjoyed personal freedoms such as the right to travel.
As the end of the century approaches, however, the People's Republic of China (PRC) comprises an undemocratic system. Several American political scientists, prominent among whom are Keith Jaggers and Ted Gurr, have devised a democracy/autocracy index. According to this, the PRC's autocracy index stood at eight in the years 1975 and 1976, dropping to seven between 1977 and 1994. By contrast, Taiwan's autocracy index was at seven between 1975 and 1986, dropping slightly to six between 1987-1990, and falling to zero between 1991 and 1994. Mainland China's democracy score was zero from 1975 to 1994. Taiwan's democracy rating between 1975 and 1990 was judged to be at zero, but it rose to six between 1991 and 1994.
The West's positive assessment of Chinese democratic practices at the beginning of the century contrasts with more recent Western criticism of the mainland Chinese government. This raises a number of questions: Were the ideas and practices of past Chinese governments closer to a Western ideal of democracy at that time? Have the conception and criteria of democracy remained the same in the West? Is it true that mainland China under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has achieved little in the way of democracy building?
From a comparative perspective, mainland China has indeed not built a democratic system--in contrast to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Russia and many other places that have democratized since the Second World War, particularly since the 1980s. The CCP still holds on to its authoritarian system. A lack of free elections and open political contests, as well as ongoing hostility to basic civil and political freedoms, exclude China from the global democratic club. Mainland China certainly is a "People's Republic"--but only in the sense that it is not a monarchy. It is not a republic in the sense of a representative community that exercises control over its own political fate. That said, it might be admitted that the PRC has been moving toward democracy since 1949.
"Majority rule" is widely adopted as a decision-making procedure in mainland China. Even Mao Zedong needed the numbers in his politburo; thus, he had the Gang of Four behind him. The National People's Congress (NPC)--China's parliament, often seen as a rubber stamp for the CCP--is slowly but increasingly exerting influence and playing a more important governmental role. For example, in 1995 almost one-third of NPC deputies rejected the CCP's choice of Jiang Chunyun as one of two new vice premiers. (The tally was 605 against, 1,746 for, and 391 abstentions.) A generally more open leadership selection process within the CCP and some improvements in the legal system can be seen as part of a larger process of creeping democratization in China.
The most impressive democratic development can be seen in the mainland's village elections, which have usually been held every three years since 1987. The CCP represents the village elections as a great achievement of local democracy; many Chinese intellectuals, on the other hand, regard them as no more than a political game. A survey conducted by the present author in November 1998 in four areas of Zhejiang Province with a research team of two staff members and seven students from Zhejiang University found that 24.7 percent of 1,245 respondents considered the elections to be "very good." Another 46 percent considered them to be "good," but felt there was room for improvement. Also, 16.5 percent believed the elections "not good," and 10.2 percent considered them to be "very bad." Moreover, 8.8 percent considered the elections to be "very fair," 44 percent "fair," and 35.3 percent "unfair," while 10 percent said they did not know. All in all, more than half of those surveyed said the elections were good and fair. However, when they were asked whether the elections were effective and useful, only 42.7 percent said the polls had a "check and balance function"; 45.5 percent proclaimed them "useful."
How do we explain these differences? To a large extent, village elections are orchestrated from above, and the Communist Party is still in control. Villagers elect chiefs who have only a small proportion of power with regard to village affairs. The ultimate authority is still in the hands of village Communist Party secretaries.
Since the founding of the PRC fifty years ago, democratic movements there have been a continuing trend with recurring events. Roughly one democratic movement occurs every decade. For example, one demanding a two-party system and parliamentary democracy appeared in 1957; one struggling for a Marxist version of people's democracy took place between 1966 and 1968; then there was the revolt against the Gang of Four and a demonstration demanding freedom in 1976-78; the Democracy Wall movement occurred between 1978 and 1981; students demonstrated for reforms and democracy between 1986 and 1989; and numerous campaigns for establishing an independent party and the right to organize trade unions emerged throughout the 1990s.
Here it is worth comparing Taiwanese and mainland Chinese democratization in and since the 1980s. Both share similar origins, yet have had dramatically different outcomes.
Since the high point of gengshen reform in 1980, the mainland has had two democratic movements. The first mini-wave of democratization came with the Democracy Wall movement of 1978-1981; the second was the student protest and democratic movement, which began in 1986 and reached its zenith in 1989.
In Taiwan, mass demonstrations against the Kuomintang (KMT) in Kaohsiung in December 1979 can be seen as the first wave of the island's democratization. The second wave began with the formation of government-tolerated quasi-opposition parties, the tangwai ("outside-the-party") in May 1984, followed by talks between the KMT and tangwai in May 1986, and the formation of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in September 1986.
One similarity between democratization in the mainland and on Taiwan lies in the fact that the first wave in both places was suppressed. However, the greatest difference occurred when the leadership in Taipei was changed. General Wang Sheng was removed from his post as director of the General Political Warfare Department of the Ministry of National Defense in May 1983, signifying the displacement of hard-liners. Taiwan-born Lee Teng-hui was nominated as vice president in March 1984, thus accelerating "Taiwanization" of the central government. Most importantly, then ROC President Chiang Ching-kuo decided on liberalization and went on to rescind martial law in 1987. The passing of Chiang Ching-kuo, the succession of Lee Teng-hui in January 1988, and the re-election of Lee Teng-hui in March 1990, have resulted in the ascent of reformers.
In 1991, Lee Teng-hui terminated the Period of National Mobilization for the Suppression of the Communist Rebellion. The ROC's mainland-elected parliamentarians were forced to retire the same year. The DPP won 31 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections of 1992, 41.03 percent in the 1993 local government elections, and 43.67 percent in the Taipei mayoral election of 1994. It lost the 1996 presidential election, won the local elections in 1997, and faced a small setback in the December 1998 legislative and mayoral elections. Needless to say, to explain these different trajectories, various factors such as the level of economic development, income, growth of the middle class, education, international relations, and the return of overseas students have contributed to different outcomes. However, the roles of the national identity question and nationalism should also be stressed.
Mainland China has faced a more complex and difficult national identity problem than Taiwan. The CCP has come under monumental internal and external pressures: student protest movements in 1986-7 and 1989, the breakdown of the Soviet Union, unrest on the peripheries of China, and conflict with the UK over Hong Kong since the 1984 bilateral agreement with regard to its future.
Particular attention should be paid to secessionist movements. Popular demonstrations of support for Greater Mongolian nationalism took place in 1990 on both sides of the border. In March 1992, a group of 500 Buddhist demonstrators marched in Lhasa in support of independence. In mid-May of that year, sixty-nine people were reportedly arrested in a series of street demonstrations led by monks and nuns carrying Tibetan flags. In February 1992, Muslim separatists in Urumchi blew up a bus, killing six and wounding more than twenty. All these events certainly did not lessen the CCP's fear of the disintegration of the PRC. By contrast, the ROC lost its seat at the UN, and was derecognized by the United States in 1979. This had great implications for the politics of national identity.
If the KMT did not represent China in the UN, it no longer had a claim over the whole of China. As a result, Chinese national identity, which constituted a legitimate basis for the regime, was fundamentally eroded. While relying on the success of economic development as the basis for legitimacy, the KMT also supported liberalization and democratization in Taiwan in order to regain legitimacy, win international sympathy, and overcome Taiwan's isolation. In short, the KMT promoted democratization as a strategy to regain legitimacy, while the CCP resisted democratization as a strategy to avoid disintegration.
There is a huge difference with regard to the forces of democratization in Taiwan and mainland China. Students and liberal intellectuals were driving forces in mainland democratization, but they have established only a weak coalition with workers. They did not and could not establish coalitions with ethno-nationalists who demanded secession. Moreover, mainland Chinese neo-nationalists are not driving forces for democratization; rather, they have been hostile to democracy. It is not surprising that mainland writings on nationalism seldom mention the term "democracy," while Taiwanese writings on nationalism discuss some aspects of democracy and democratization. Taiwanese independence activists have been pushing for democratization and have successfully established coalitions with liberal intellectuals. Indeed, the tangwai movement was a product of liberal- and independence-minded movements.
What if mainland China were to embark upon democratization? How would it affect Taiwan? For one thing, it is likely that mainland democratization would create political systems and institutions compatible with those in Taiwan, thereby facilitating unification. It is also likely that democratization would enhance Beijing's international reputation and improve its relations with the United States. Democratization would also intensify pro-unification pressure on Taiwan, as it would reduce the differences between political institutions, and increase confidence in a peaceful solution among the island's people. A democratic mainland, with decentralized powers and perhaps a confederation, would foster trust between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. Moreover, mainland Chinese leaders would push unification further if they had an electoral mandate.
The democratization of mainland China, however, would not necessarily guarantee successful unification with Taiwan. It might even facilitate the independence of Taiwan. Democratization cuts two ways when dealing with the national boundary question: it can facilitate independence or strengthen the unity of states. Spain, the Philippines, South Africa, St. Kitts and Nevis, Papua New Guinea, Nigeria and Turkey have entered the third wave of democratization, and all of them have maintained the unity of their states and contained secessionism. National elections legitimize the political unit and support the regime's claim to legitimacy. Democratic "packages" (such as decentralization and regional autonomy) have also accommodated secessionist demands.
On the other hand, democratization processes can themselves make independence or secession much more likely to succeed. Twenty-six out of forty-seven new states recognized by the UN between 1974 and 1997 (more than 55 percent) were related to the democratization of parent states. Democratization has facilitated secession in contexts such as the former Soviet Union, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Yugoslavia. It becomes apparent that all successful secessions, without exception, have happened in the period just before to just after the initiation of democratization--usually within the first three years. When democratization is consolidated, however, it becomes harder for secessionists to succeed.
What does all of this imply for Taiwan? The following hypotheses are worth considering. If the democratization of mainland China is prompted by popular mobilization, Taiwan is more likely to remain a sovereign state, if not become an "independent" nation. An historical precedent for this pattern can be seen in the case of the successful independence of Mongolia from the Ching Dynasty (1644-1911), when the Manchu ruler's resistance to democratic reforms led to a revolution from below. The reason this kind of thing tends to happen is that popularly mandated democratization weakens the power of the center and creates an opportunity for independence. If, on the other hand, mainland China's democratization is "im posed" from above (that is, through elite negotiation), the legitimacy of Taiwan's current status as a sovereign state would continue to be challenged by the leaders in Beijing--and conditions for a declaration of independence would likewise not be favorable. Democratization from above can boost the legitimacy of the government and even strengthen state power.
Moreover, mainland China would have a better chance to unify with Taiwan if it were to follow Stepan and Linz's model of "sequential democratic reform": statewide elections precede provincial elections, and are followed by the negotiation of some sort of autonomy statute with Tibet and a confederal arrangement with Taiwan. The mainland would risk disintegration if the first competitive election were at the provincial, rather than the state, level.
In the Soviet Union, democratization started with the republics, for example in the Baltic states, not with the center. Thus the center had no legitimate authority to manage the boundary problem, and democratization in the republics assisted secession. The result was the disintegration of the USSR. In fact, mainland Chinese leaders seem to have already learned a lesson from this sequence of events. In 1993, "multiple-candidate" elections for provincial leaders, by ballots in regional "parliaments," in two provinces (Zhejiang and Guizhou) resulted in officially designated candidates for governors being voted down. The central leadership therefore decided that such multiple-candidate elections for provincial leaders should be halted.
One immediate effect of mainland Chinese democratization would be that dissidents--particularly those who do not care about "the Taiwan question," as well as those who advocate Taiwan's independence--could more freely express their views. Thus the mainland Chinese myth that there is an indisputable consensus on unification might be shattered. There would be competitive political parties, and the emergence of "pro-Taiwan" and "anti-Taiwan" parties or social groups. The dominant party would likely be a pro-unification party. Under pluralistic and competitive politics, it is tempting to speculate that either some democratic party members or officials of the mainland government might strike a deal with Taipei that would acknowledge its status as a sovereign state in exchange for various kinds of support from Taiwan. If this were done quickly and wisely, peace would be assured. Historically, Sun Yat-sen made just such a deal in secret with Japan over northern China in the second decade of this century, and Boris Yeltsin supported and encouraged the Baltic States to secede in order to gain power over his rival, Gorbachev, in 1991.
In short, democratization tends to favor political divorce, rather than marriage. Of the reunifications that have taken place since 1974, only those of the two Germanies and the two Yemens have had any connection with democracy. Such asymmetry renders it easy to understand why mainland China does not favor democratization, which it plainly perceives as detrimental to reunification. In Taiwan, on the other hand, democracy and democratic freedoms have helped nurture a new spirit of self-determination and a solid sense of national identity.
Baogang He is an associate professor in the School of Government at the University of Tasmania. He is the author of The Democratization of China (Routledge, 1996), The Democratic Implications of Civil Society in China (Macmillan, 1997), Nationalism, National Identity and Democratization in China (Ashgate, 1999, with Yingjie Guo), and Democracy and Boundaries in East Asia (Routledge), to be published next year.
Copyright (c) 1999 by Baogang He.