Taiwan Political Dissent Rises but New Generation of Leaders Is Slow to Emerge

A few months ago, China’s top leader Deng Xiaoping revamped the Communist Party Politburo in an effort to install younger leaders capable of running the country after his death. But on Taiwan, no such changes are in evidence.

Despite his continuing health problems, Taiwan’s President Chiang Ching-kuo, 75, the son of the late Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, has yet to put into place a younger generation of successors who can take control of the Nationalist Chinese regime when he dies.

In fact, to fill vacancies, he has often turned to members of his own generation. When Taiwan’s premier--the second in command--suffered a stroke last year and became unable to carry on in his job, President Chiang chose Central Bank President Yu Kuo-hua, 71, an associate of the Chiang family since its days on the mainland and the family’s trusted financial adviser, to be the new premier. Last February, Chiang brought back from Japan a veteran diplomat who is 76 years old to be the new secretary-general of the ruling Kuomintang (Nationalist Party).

Chiang’s regime has managed to survive two acute political crises during the past year. Taiwan’s former intelligence chief was found guilty of involvement in the plot to murder Chinese-American writer Henry Liu, and the island’s leading financial institution collapsed. Despite these difficulties, the Nationalists got about 70% of the vote in the Nov. 16 election, roughly the same as in other recent elections.

Political Stagnation

But now Chiang is faced once again with the longstanding problem of overcoming political stagnation here.

The Nationalists have had considerable success in bringing ethnic Taiwanese into the party. Their ranks include increasing numbers of young, highly educated technocrats attuned to the economic development of Taiwan, which in 1984 was the world’s 15th-largest trading nation. But political analysts here agree that power still remains in the hands of the older generation of Nationalist officials who came with Chiang and his father from the Chinese mainland in 1949, after their defeat by the Communists.

Complaints about the malaise in leadership here are pervasive, both among ordinary people and within the ranks of the Nationalist Party. “The present Cabinet is the weakest in the past 40 years,” one Nationalist official confided after obtaining assurances that he would not be quoted by name.

Despite intermittent crackdowns, the Nationalist Party these days is generally willing or constrained to allow increasingly robust political debate on Taiwan. During the recent election campaign, some political opponents attacked Chiang and his family and urged public scrutiny of the family’s finances.

Criticism Now Allowed

“Ten years ago, a person who said Chiang Ching-kuo should disclose his assets was put in jail. Now, citizens can criticize Chiang Ching-kuo,” said Daniel Huang, chief editor of Care magazine, an opposition publication that examines Taiwan’s treatment of political prisoners.

As a result, visitors who cross the Taiwan Strait to compare the regimes of China and Taiwan find a startling contrast.

On the Chinese mainland, political change is more visible in the top leadership than it is in the way ordinary business is conducted from day to day. On Taiwan, the reverse is true. A sense of energy and dynamism can be detected far more readily in street-level political ferment or within the lower levels of the government than it can within the regime’s top leadership.

During the past two years, the Nationalist regime’s political opponents (known as tangwai, Chinese for “outside the party”) have begun to function more and more openly in the fashion of an organized political party. They hold meetings and rallies, try to draft joint position papers and attempt to coordinate candidates’ efforts at election time.

Meanwhile, dissident magazines have begun to publish muckraking stories about financial shenanigans on Taiwan, about the Henry Liu case, and even about President Chiang’s Russian wife and his children.

Limits to Dissent

The Nationalists have tolerated political dissent, but only up to a point.

In the first half of this year alone, authorities banned well over 100 issues of opposition publications. More importantly, the regime has continued to maintain martial law on the island. As a result, the formation of new political parties is prohibited and the opposition’s actions remain under the scrutiny of the Interior Ministry.

The official rationale for martial law remains essentially the same as it has for decades. The government says martial law is made necessary by the threat from the Communist regime on the mainland.

“We are faced still with an enemy that makes no secret of it, they would like to take us over, whether by a ‘one-country, two-system’ formula, by united front tactics or whatever,” Dr. Chang King-yuh, director general of Taiwan’s Government Information Office, said recently.

“The government does not believe having many political parties would help our security or democracy. It would be highly destabilizing. So I think at this time the government will continue the present policies.”

Other Theories

Others on Taiwan volunteer their own explanations for why the Nationalists, despite the evolution of more lively political dialogue on the island, refuse to open the way for Western-style democracy.

“They (the Nationalists) want to be able to use martial law as a last resort, and to let the tangwai know that permitting them to operate is doing them a favor,” said Hu Fu, a professor of political science at National Taiwan University. “And they have said so often that martial law is necessary to Taiwan’s stability, security and prosperity that to give up martial law would be a big loss of face for them. It would be admitting what they said before was a lie.”

For their part, leaders of the tangwai believe the Nationalists not only have no intention of lifting martial law, but would like to clamp down further on their opponents’ feisty critiques of the regime.

“I don’t think they really permit criticism,” said Chou Ching-yu, a leader of the moderate wing of the tangwai and a member of Taiwan’s National Assembly. “They can’t stop it. They’re very upset about it. That’s why they ban the magazines. If they have a chance, they will still crack down. Any minute, they can try. They’re just more cautious these days.”

Ailing Leader

President Chiang, who assumed power in Taiwan after his father’s death in 1975, has suffered for years from diabetes and underwent a cataract operation last summer. On Oct. 10, the anniversary of the founding in 1911 of the Republic of China, Chiang appeared briefly in public at a Taipei rally to declare that the Communist government on the mainland cannot “escape its own devastation.”

Yu, the current premier, has had a close association with the president’s family since he went to work as Chiang Kai-shek’s personal secretary at the age of 22 in 1936.

Since assuming his current post in May, 1984, Yu has been the target of increasing criticism from both inside and outside the ruling party. Lower-level officials complain that he has failed to show initiative in countering serious problems such as the Liu case and the banking scandal.

There have been reports on Taiwan that Yu will step down soon, although no one is sure exactly when this might happen.

“He could retire tomorrow or hang on for six or eight months,” said one well-connected Taipei resident. “There’s no question the premier is the subject of ridicule here. There’s also no question he is a longtime associate of the president.”

Reports Denied

Chang, the government spokesman, said recently that there is no foundation to the reports that Yu is on his way out.

Over the past few months, government-controlled publications have begun to give increasing prominence to the activities of Vice President Lee Teng-hui, 62, a native of Taiwan and a Cornell-trained agronomist. Under the constitution, he would automatically become president if Chiang should die or retire before his six-year term expires in 1990.

But political analysts here believe Lee would probably become merely a figurehead chief of state. The most important question, they say, is who will control the Nationalist Party. Chiang has held the title of chairman of the Nationalist Party since his father’s death; he did not assume the government post of president until three years later.

“We don’t see any evidence Lee is a tough guy who can beat back the tough guys from the mainland,” one source said. “It’s not going to be a Taiwanese who runs this place after Chiang Ching-kuo dies--whatever the titles and labels may be.”

Taiwan’s armed forces will probably have some influence on future political developments here. One important figure, for example, will be Gen. Hau Pei-tsun, the armed forces chief of staff.

Another Chiang in Wings

Some analysts also believe it is possible the president’s son, Chiang Hsiao-wu, will play a significant role in the maneuvering for power, despite the eagerness of Taiwan’s educated elite to avoid the perpetuation of a Chiang dynasty. Chiang Hsiao-wu, the president of the Broadcasting Corporation of China, has no official role in the Nationalist Party, but has close ties with the party’s secretary general, Mah Soo-lay.

Last September, in written responses to questions from Time magazine, President Chiang said, “As to the succession to the presidency by a member of the Chiang family, I have never given any consideration to it.” The president did not say whether he had ruled out other leadership posts, such as head of the Nationalist Party, for his family.

The younger Chiang, for years a reclusive figure on Taiwan, has recently begun to emerge in public on occasion. He was in the limelight recently as the sponsor of a local baseball tournament. “He has good connections to people with guns (in the army) and to people with checkbooks,” one veteran political observer said. “He’s going to be a player in the game.”

The Nationalists are planning a major party conference next February or March, and it is possible the president will use the opportunity of this meeting to try to settle some of the uncertainty over who will succeed him.

Chang, Taiwan’s government spokesman, said this week that the problem of political succession in Taiwan is different from that on the Chinese mainland. “Here, the leaders are not to be chosen by any particular person,” he asserted. “We don’t depend on any one leader here.”

But Hu, the political scientist, disagreed.

“Fundamental reform may come to Taiwan after the death of Chiang Ching-kuo,” he said. “For now, I don’t see any leaders emerging, because there is no democracy here. Everybody must be loyal and submissive to one man. No talented people want to do that.”