Venting
A fully democratic state, with a president and a parliament elected in free, open elections, a national defense as strong as or stronger than most European countries fully capable of protecting its own territory and in fact doing so, and maintaining diplomatic relations with an (admittedly) small number of states.
Citizens are allowed to, and do, call their president a moron without being beaten up, sent to jail, or even sued before a court of law. The freest press in Asia, maybe with the exception of Australia and New Zeeland. Definitely freer than the Hong Kong press turned out to be after South China Morning Post followed up on Hong Kong's return to China by firing its editor Willy Wo-lap Lam, a man very outspoken regarding the shortcomings of the Chinese leadership, with sharp and well underbuilt analysis.
Now, what do we do with a place like this? If you are a member of the Nationalist Party here in Taiwan, a party that claims to be the protector of Taiwan's thriving democracy and the Republic of China, you say: "We should unite with the People's Republic of China." That means making Taiwan part of a totalitarian communist dictatorship, a regime that beats people up and throw them in jail for being members of the Falun Gong movement, or for saying that their leaders are morons, or that democracy might actually be a good idea, or for being Catholics, or for bringing to public knowledge the fact that the authorities are giving its own people blood transfusions with AIDS-infected blood...
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One of the ironies in this case is that the Nationalist Party -- which is the old dictatorship that led China until 1949 under the national title Republic of China and then brought that title with them to Taiwan when they occupied the island and held it under a bloody dictatorship for 50 years -- now seem to think that being a ROC nationalist means joining the PRC and giving up the title ROC, which is the foundation for their whole existence and their past dictatorship.
But that is only in line with the KMT's policies. Democracy in Taiwan, while vibrant and very far developed, is only 20 years old. That is less than a generation, and that means that the KMT leadership is still full of people that were top government officials in the party-state government that only fell in 2000. These people are all trained by a dictatorship, and that shows in their attitudes.
I watched a TV interview with Taipei Mayor Ma Yingjiu last night, and this guy who is generally seen as a progressive, reform kind of guy, boasted about (instead of having the sense to be ashamed of) his having been the secretary of Taiwan's last dictator, Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of Chiang Kai-shek, and a person ultimately responsible for many deaths and imprisonings of dissidents.
And Lien Chan and James Soong, chairmen of the KMT and the PFP, respectively, spent a long time after the 2004 elections talking about how incumbent DPP president Chen Shui-bian "stole the nation." Since you can only steal what belongs to someone else, it is very revealing that Lien and Soong would use this phrase; it amounts to saying that Taiwan was their personal property which they by rights should have inherited, which is why Chen must have stolen it to become president. That kind of attitude is not a very good foundation on which to build a democracy.
To further prove their dictatorial mettle and show how dismissive they are of democracy, the KMT has now sent a delegation to China, ostensibly to pay tribute to Sun Yat-sen at his grave in Nanjing, who both the PRC and the ROC see as the nation's father, but in fact to hold meetings with the PRC government. They have been given no authorization whatsoever by the government to negotiate with another government on the behalf of the Taiwanese people, and in doing so, they are by passing the whole democratic system. The government has been elected by the people, and has thus been authorized by the people to represent them for another term. No one else has been given that authority. If the KMT wants to get it, they have to win it in the next election, that is by definition how representative democracy works.
The clouds created by the dictatorial mindset of the KMT seems to make it difficult for the party to see clearly that the times have changed and that Taiwan now is a democracy.