DATE=3/18/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=PROFILE: CHEN SHUI-BIAN (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-260320
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=TAIPEI
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Chen Shui-bian, who has just won election as
Taiwan's president, is a one-time advocate of
independence for his island and a constant thorn in
China's side. V-O-A correspondent Roger Wilkison
profiles the man who has fulfilled a once-impossible
mission of breaking the ruling Nationalist Party's 50-
year lock on power in Taiwan.
TEXT: Despite opposition from China and accusations
by his two main rivals for the presidency that he
would lead the island to war, Chen Shui-bian has
managed to persuade Taiwan's voters that it was time
for a change on the prosperous, democratic island.
The 48-year-old son of a farmer, Mr. Chen has spent
much of his adult life battling the Nationalist Party
and its tight links with the military and big
business. He was a young defense lawyer for editors
of a dissident magazine who were jailed for organizing
a pro-democracy march in 1979 that ended in a clash
with military police. That was eight years before
Taiwan became a democracy.
The organizers of that march emerged from prison in
1986 to form the Democratic Progressive Party that has
now catapulted Mr. Chen to the presidency.
In 1994, Mr. Chen won election as mayor of Taipei. He
cleaned up the city's red-light district, unsnarled
its gridlocked traffic and earned a reputation as a
corruption fighter.
He now vows to purge the government of graft and end
its cozy backroom dealings with big business.
Parris Chang is Mr. Chen's foreign policy advisor. He
says Mr. Chen's victory represents a departure for
Taiwan now that the Nationalists have been thrown out.
/// CHANG ACT ///
A new era is coming, and we are saying goodbye
to old-style politics.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Chen, a native-born Taiwanese, has capitalized on
the feelings of a growing number of the island's
people that they are different from their cousins on
the Chinese mainland and have little to learn from
what they see as a less prosperous, undemocratic
society. As Mr. Chang notes, most Taiwanese say they
are not interested in reunification with China and
would rather continue with the status quo, whereby the
island enjoys de facto independence.
/// CHANG ACT ///
I think most people in Taiwan believe small is
beautiful. We would rather be left alone and
not be a kind of a small fish in a big pond and
lose our identity. That's not what we want.
/// END ACT ///
It is just that kind of sentiment on the part of Mr.
Chen and his supporters that enrages Beijing, which
views Taiwan as a rebel province that must be brought
under China's sway.
Although Mr. Chen has backed away from his pro-
independence past and offered to build what he calls a
constructive dialogue with Beijing, he has never paid
lip service (EDS: pretend to acknowledge) to the idea
that Taiwan will one day reunite with China. And, as
far as Beijing is concerned, he is still a dangerous
separatist.
Still, Mr. Chen's foreign policy advisor, Parris
Chang, says Beijing will have to learn to live and
work with the president-elect.
/// CHANG ACT ///
Beijing will find Mr. Chen the man they will
like to deal with in the future because Mr. Chen
enjoys the trust of the Taiwanese people, and
therefore he has more room for maneuver in
concluding some sort of agreement across the
board down the road.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Chen promises to end Taiwan's ban on postal, trade
and transportation links with China, and he has
invited China's leaders to visit Taiwan. He also says
he wants to go to China before he is inaugurated in
May in a bid to improve relations across the Taiwan
Strait. But it is not likely that Beijing will take
him up on any of those proposals anytime soon.
(signed)
NEB/RW/JP
18-Mar-2000 10:57 AM EDT (18-Mar-2000 1557 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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