BEIJING, 22 December 2004 — China’s leadership is two for two over the past six months at “winning’’ elections in which it hasn’t a candidate.
In Taiwan, for the first time in years, voters didn’t disappoint the mainland, delivering a defeat in legislative elections last week to pro-independence President Chen Shui-bian. Voters in Hong Kong also delivered a setback to the pro-democracy camp in September. After two years of democracy marches, broad calls for universal suffrage and growing support for pro-democracy candidates, the tide seemed to reverse as Beijing’s allies did far better than expected.
A postmortem of Beijing’s action — or, more accurately, lack of it — in the two elections suggests it is becoming more nuanced at the democratic game than in elections past. Although it hardly has lost its appetite for throwing its weight around, it also has learned to dance a little better.
Beijing waited until Wednesday, four days after the election, to criticize Chen’s campaign rhetoric. And then it did so in a relatively restrained way compared with its bitter denunciations in past Taiwanese elections and its intimidating missile tests before the 1996 presidential contest. China views Taiwan as part of its territory and is extremely suspicious of any moves toward independence.
Likewise, leading up to Hong Kong’s September legislative elections, China used a combination of carrots and sticks that were more subtle and effective than in the past.
It paraded a host of luminaries through Hong Kong to engender patriotism and closer ties with the mainland, including visits by Olympic stars, astronauts and People’s Liberation Army honor guards. And it opened the economic taps by loosening rules on mainland tourists and expanding economic integration with neighboring Chinese provinces.
“They’re getting a better sense how the election game is played,’’ said Michael DeGolyer, a political scientist with Hong Kong Baptist University and head of a multiyear project monitoring democracy in the former British colony. “They’re focusing on playing the game rather than just giving orders.’’
People looking for clues to the shifting power balance across the Taiwan Strait following the latest election need look no further than the body language coming out of Beijing and Taipei over the past few days.
In breaking Beijing’s official silence Wednesday, Li Weiyi, a spokesman at Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, confidently criticized several of Chen’s core election themes. His assured presentation for the cameras followed by fewer than 24 hours Chen’s “mea culpa’’ in Taipei, the Taiwanese capital, in which he stepped down as party chairman of the ruling Democratic People’s Party, took responsibility for the poor showing and admitted to several election-related mistakes.
Members of his pro-independence camp, known as the Pan Greens, have been busy licking their wounds and figuring out their next move, evidenced by several canceled speeches in which Chen and key allies presumably had hoped to trumpet their victory.
Democrats in Hong Kong, meanwhile, find themselves in a similar mode three months after their own setback. The head of Hong Kong’s main opposition Democratic Party, Yeung Sum, recently stepped down to take responsibility for their poor showing.
Others are trying to unify the pro-democracy movement and find new themes in order to regain the momentum lost when China effectively blocked their calls for universal suffrage by 2007 and 2008.
Most analysts doubt China has changed its fundamental outlook toward democracy. Indeed, it has been the first one to say it reserves the right to do whatever it takes if things go beyond what it considers acceptable. That includes de facto independence in Taiwan, or outright opposition to Beijing’s policies in Hong Kong.
Nor is it clear to what extent Beijing’s more nuanced approach is ultimately responsible for the recent legislative outcomes in Taiwan and Hong Kong, or whether the movements hit a wall of their own accord due to infighting, voters’ desire for greater political balance and technical factors associated with the complex voting systems in both jurisdictions. Furthermore, although Beijing’s adversaries in Taiwan and Hong Kong might be down, they’re far from knocked out. “It doesn’t mean they’ve turned the tables,’’ said Liu Kin-Ming, editorial page editor with Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper.
Although arrogance got the better of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy legislators and Taiwan’s Pan Green camp in the most recent elections, both movements have grass-roots appeal that over time could strengthen their popularity.
China has argued that the middle kingdom is not yet ready for democracy given low education levels and a lack of maturity. Yet the area where it has allowed polling is at the village level, presumably among the least educated parts of China.
For the time being, Beijing has gained a bit of breathing room. And for that, it can thank the judgment of the very voters of whom it often has been distrustful.
