Democracy advocates are concerned at press reports that Taiwan’s Kuomintang government is planning to “purge” the country’s democracy promotion foundation of programs that could allegedly antagonize the mainland’s Communist authorities.
Reports suggest that President Ma Ying-jeou’s nationalist government plans to replace senior staff at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. The political composition of the TFD’s leading staff is expected to reflect the balance in the country’s legislature, so a stronger KMT presence was anticipated following the party’s improved showing at the last elections.
But democracy and human rights activists are more concerned about policy than personnel, with reports suggesting that KMT officials have also criticized the group for supporting Tibetan and Chinese democracy activists. They have also reportedly claimed that TFD support for Cuban democrats and links with the US democracy watchdog Freedom House might harm U.S.-Taiwan relations, a curious suggestion given that TFD’s programs and priorities often mirror those of its U.S. counterparts.
“The TFD, along with Washington’s National Endowment for Democracy and innumerable other human rights groups, have for years assisted the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan rights groups, Chinese democratic and human rights activists and human rights defenders in Asia,” one account notes. But recent developments suggest that senior KMT figures “intend to muzzle Taiwan’s voice for democracy in order to curry favor with the PRC.”
While funded by the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the foundation is supposed to operate autonomously. But its board members accuse the KMT government of inappropriate interference. “For example, when we were organizing an event to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, we were told which speakers to invite and which to not invite,” one board member said.
The opposition Democratic Progressive Party notes that TFD financial support for Tibetan and Chinese democracy activists is in line with the organization’s objectives, and insists that the government should respect the organization’s autonomy.
“The foundation was established with the aim of promoting human rights and democracy around the world. Ma cannot reshuffle the organization and change its objectives because of the China factor,” a DPP spokesman said.
Some observers note that Taiwan’s press is notoriously partisan and, to that extent, often unreliable so observers should be wary of exaggerated reports.
Yet democracy advocates are fearful that a foundation that has in its short existence established a reputation for integrity and for punching above its weight, employing limited resources to disproportionate effect, will become a political football. They will be watching this space.
The Ma administration has set Taiwan on a backward trajectory that, left unchecked, will undo the democratic gains that were an integral part of the Taiwan miracle and return the nation to the autocratic ways of the past. What is happening to the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy is a microcosm of what is happening elsewhere in society: the media are being muzzled, officials of the previous administration have been indicted on what appear to be bogus charges accompanied by convenient leaks from the prosecutor’s office, and a controversial new Assembly and Parade law is being considered that would severely restrict the right of protestors to demonstrate. Even Ma’s former professor at Harvard Law School has been moved to publicly protest. A nation that took pride in being a lighthouse for democracy in Asia seems about to have its beacon extinguished.
The TFD is the canary in the coal mine for democracy in Taiwan. As one of the previous commentors said, this is not a partisan issue, but a matter of principle. For more than a generation, the KMT has been conflicted about democracy. Its unification ideology is fundamentally incompatible with democractic practice by Taiwan’s citizens, with the idea of popular sovereignty and the right of self-determination. Those contradictions simmered during the 1990s when reformers lead by Lee Teng-hui temporarily gained control of the party. But with the Ma government, the barons of unification have resurfaced, along with their resistance to authentic democratic practice. The establishment of the TFD was the natural outcome of the social and political reforms of the Lee era, and the generous impulse to spread those ideals. But the conflict with the KMT’s reactionary unification agenda and its preference for a single-party state have resurfaced with a vengeance. The TFD could become an early casualty of this conflict, unless the remaining democrats in the KMT get some backbone, and international pressure can shame Ma into reversing his intention to turn back the clock.