Taiwan’s democratic progressive party and its mainland china policy

Abstract

Taiwan has successfully changed its political system from dictatorship into a democracy since the end of 1980s. Some people do not like 'Taiwan's democracy' -some candidates get elected by bribery in election, parliamentary fighting., but the majority of the Taiwanese people really enjoy their freedom in their homeland. They do know, at least, they have the right to oppose the government, no one would be shot by the national military force in a demonstration. The political systems are totally different between Taiwan and Mainland China, one is democracy, another is communism. Even the majority of the Taiwanese people are Chinese in ethnic origin, but their life experience are different over the past 50 years, it is difficult for any side to persuade the other side which one is better. Some Chinese Taiwanese people believe that they can have a better life, if their homeland—Taiwan can be really independent in the international community. Taiwan’s political opposition built Taiwan's first opposition party— Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) 13 years ago, and with the dream of establishing a new independent country on Taiwan. The establishment of the DPP is the result of the political opposition movement in Taiwan. Most of the members of the DPP have a strong Taiwanese identity, which is very different from the ruling KMT in Taiwan and the ruling CCP in China. The DPP gains more influence in Taiwan, the uncertainty across the Taiwan Straits increase at the same time. The DPP waited and saw between being the ruling party and establishing an independent country on Taiwan, finally it chose to complete the political aim of replacing the position of the KMT at present. The purpose of the study is to assess the DPP's policy-making in its Mainland China policy. I try to give a full picture of the policy-making process in the party. The most important factor in the formulation of the mainland China policy is the relationship between the factions within the DPP, therefore, I adopt the historical and document review approach on doing this study, and describe how the interaction between the factions worked and how they made the decisions on the policies? I found that the DPP will insist on its 'one Taiwan, one China' policy before becoming the ruling party in Taiwan. However, the DPP's insistence on the 'one China, one Taiwan' policy could bring conflicts across the Taiwan Straits and obstruct the possibility of replacing the ruling KMT's position. Hence the DPP tried to explain again the party's Taiwan independence platform, and to 'purify' the party’s ideology in order to achieve its present political aim. Because the cross-Straits relationship is still developing, the DPP's mainland policy would be affected by various factors across the Taiwan Straits. There is no final text of the DPP's mainland China policy at present. Therefore, I predict the future development of its China policy could tend in two ways. Firstly, if the cross-Straits exchanges increase, and Beijing reduces its hostility, the DPP's stand of 'one Taiwan, one China' will become more flexible, and it would keep on developing a more perfect China policy. Secondly, if the cross-Straits exchanges decrease, and Beijing increases the force of threatening to Taipei, the DPP's stand of 'one Taiwan, one China' policy will be more radical, even though it would not turn its back on the business affairs. At the end of this work, I suggest the DPP rethink its insistence on a Taiwanese independence position, this could not break Taiwan's isolation in international community, but could endanger Taiwan's security. As the factional fight has reduced the force of the DPP, to condense the powers of the party would be an important issue for the DPP.