ABSTRACT
After the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had taken over power from the Kuomintang (KMT) in mid-2000, and particularly after the inauguration of the second administration of Chen Shui-bian in mid-2004, a “Taiwanization agenda” (Taiwanhua) was put forward with the aim of asserting Taiwan’s claim to sovereignty and national identity. This did not only impact negatively on cross-Strait relations and stability in the Taiwan Strait, but also led to strained relations between Taiwan and its major ally, the U.S. (Chu 2007, 2008). Soon after the re-election of Chen Shui-bian as president of the ROC in early 2004, the DPP regime’s domestic reputation suffered a tremendous blow in the form of a dismal series of corruption scandals involving some of the president’s closest associates and members of his family. Shaken by a protest movement initiated by the former DPP chairman and long-time political prisoner, Shih Ming-teh, in September 2006, and almost paralyzed in the Legislative Yuan by the Blue camp opposition, it seemed for a while as if the second Chen administration would not be able to survive. However, Chen Shui-bian proved himself to be a strong-minded fighter with the ability to maintain firm control over the DPP, and made the party follow his course until the end of his second term. The DPP paid dearly for his imperturbability, however, failing miserably in the Legislative Yuan elections in January 2008 and suffering a shocking defeat in the presidential elections a short time later, in March, against the KMT’s candidate, Ma Ying-jeou. With the departure of Chen Shui-bian from the scene and the old party elite in political retreat, the DPP was forced to engage in serious soul-searching in order to try to map out its political future. The DPP slowly began to gather strength again, electing a female politician, Tsai Ing-wen, to the position of party chairman for the first time, and thus smoothing out the ground to stand as a “responsible” opposition. However, this has not yet resolved the party’s dilemma, which has resulted from its ideological stance of leaning towards Taiwan’s independence while, at the same time, being forced to come to terms with the accelerating economic and social integration over the Taiwan Strait. This chapter traces the evolution of the DPP’s identity politics and its mainland policy approach during and after the two Chen administrations. These were shaped by major challenges both internally and externally: a populace becoming increasingly wary of ideological warfare between the two opposing party camps; a political rapprochement and successful party-to-party negotiations between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party; political corruption involving top officials in the DPP which quickly destroyed the nimbus floating around Chen Shui-bian in the final years of his presidency; an unfriendly international environment with many countries, headed by the U.S., who were opposed to Chen’s Taiwanization agenda; and finally, a new KMT government since mid-2008 which holds a strong mandate to drive forward the process of cross-Strait integration. It is argued that the DPP’s future course on national identity and Sino-Taiwanese relations must be less ideological and more pragmatic if the DPP seriously wants to return to power one day. To some extent, this requires a reinvention of the party in the sense that Taiwan independence and cross-Strait integration are no longer treated as trade-offs, and that the KMT is no longer simplistically discredited as selling out Taiwan’s sovereignty to the PRC. Since the political space in Taiwan for a party which confronts sovereignty with integration is diminishing, the DPP’s future depends on the formulation of an intelligent approach to reconcile the claim for independence with pragmatic policies in order to secure more international space for the island republic and, by this means, to gradually gain more credibility than the KMT with the Taiwan people.
