Nelson Report on Election Results

An excerpt from the Nelson Report, a Washington insider report that gives a sort of precis of official views in Washington. As can be seen, in Washington, the problem in Taiwan-China relations is the DPP, showing once again that while democracy is destabilizing, hundreds of missiles are a force for stability *sigh*. It shows also how welcome a Ma victory is to Washington. On to the report:

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TAIWAN...despite analogies in the press, and especially in the recently concluded presidential campaign on Taiwan, the differences between Taipei and Lhasa are too obvious to require much discussion.

(Most fundamentally...while Tibet was basically independent for most of the 20th Century, but has not been since China's military take-over in 1951, Taiwan has been functionally independent of Beijing for the better part of 200 years. And unlike Tibet, of course, Taiwan is now a vibrant liberal democracy, with capitalism in full flower.)

It should be noted, however, that the KMT's president-elect, Ma Ying-jeou, managed to miss the obvious when confronted by a last-minute DPP charge that "Tibet shows what Taiwan is in for under KMT rule".

A more apt argument would have been that continued DPP agitation of Beijing risked leading to tragic excess by the Mainland, so that's one more reason why the people of Taiwan should favor the KMT.

(Indeed, one can argue that the Bush Administration implicitly...and sometimes very directly...made that point for the past six years. To arguments that the US didn't actively interfere, we'd respond that's true only if one's definition of interference required a cruise missile on DPP headquarters...)

In any event...the fundamental Bush concern was two-fold: first, that maintaining a good working relationship with Beijing was, to be brutally frank, obviously more important to the US, and to the world, than maintaining a good working relationship with Taipei; but second, that protecting the newly emergent liberal democracy on Taiwan was simultaneously a genuine US interest.

The dilemma became that DPP policies and actions increasingly put each of these interests at risk, due to the nearly universal assessment that for Beijing, nationalism as state policy potentially trumps all other interests.

Which brings us to the new government on Taiwan, headed by the avowedly more Mainland-focused KMT.

We had the pleasure and privilege of being on Taiwan as the guest of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the days leading up to the election, and we can personally testify to the vigor of democracy in action...and the seriousness of both the policy debate, and the alternatives presented by the contending parties.

Election of the KMT raises issues in management of US relations which we don't have time for tonite, but will definitely explore in a later Report.

To the basic theme of tonite's China/Tibet section, we'd argue that the task of Presidents Hu and Ma is to bridge the spiritual and policy disconnects between Beijing and Taipei.

Especially must the new KMT government work to meld consciousness of the now universal acceptance of "Taiwan identity" by the 32-million people on the island to the power realities represented by both Beijing and Washington.

That includes helping Washington and like-minded allies to persuade Beijing that WHO observer status (one very important example) is in everyone's interest.

Delegation colleague Denny Roy, of the East-West Center on Hawaii, has written a really thorough analysis of what our group saw and thought, so let's turn the discussion over to him for now, with a promise to pick-up later this week on things like F-16 sales, et al:

[the Denny Roy piece is linked in the post below]

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[Taiwan]