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Publish Date: 03/01/2000
Story Type: PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
Byline: JIM HWANG

Cheng Pang-chen is the chairman of the Taiwan
Independence Party (TAIP). He received his doctorate in
Chinese literature from National Taiwan University in
1987 and is a professor in the Department of Chinese
Literature at Providence University in Taichung. He was
interviewed on Christmas Eve at TAIP headquarters in
Taipei. Cheng only managed to obtain 140,000
signatures by the time the curtain came down on
January 6 (he needed 220,000 before he could be
accepted as a candidate), but he insists that requiring
signatures is unconstitutional, and that the TAIP's voice
should be heard in this important election.

Cheng Pang-chen: There are several. The first one is an unfair social welfare policy that has been lavishing too much care on government employees, servicemen, veterans, and teachers at other people's expense. Take housing loans. The bank is not about to make less money out of granting government employees low-interest mortgages. It makes up the difference by charging its other customers a higher rate.

I'm not saying the government shouldn't take care of these people, but it shouldn't confine itself to specific groups. You can liken it to the four legs of a chair. Here, one leg is longer than the others. To make the chair stable, we have the choice of either adding something to the other three legs, or cutting this one shorter. When we don't have the resources to lengthen the shorter legs, we have to trim the longer one.

None of the other candidates wants to bring up this issue. Those government employees, teachers, servicemen and veterans, together with their families, add up to a couple of million votes.

The second problem is flawed economic development and land-use policies. Why should Taiwan limit itself to becoming a regional operations center [a reference to the government's APROC regional-hub plan] when it can become an international marketing center? We've all heard how the Taiwanese businessman trots off with his briefcase to develop global markets. That's first-class marketing ability.

Wrong-headed land policies have resulted in high land costs. In many other parts of the world, people can buy their own residences after five to seven years of work, but one needs to work for thirty-five years to buy an apartment in Taipei city. In the meantime, lots of people are making quick money illegally.

Education is also an issue I'd like to raise. We teach our students about the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, but very few students can name the five longest rivers in Taiwan. When I visited the mainland, I found that a typical college student majoring in Chinese could tell me as much as a tour guide, because he was totally familiar with the history and geography of the place where he lived. But it seems that departments of Chinese literature in Taiwan's colleges have little to say about the history and literature of Taiwan. This is really not about literature, but about country identity.

The people who are still living in tents after the September 21 earthquake don't care about the feng shui of the tent, because the tent is only a temporary shelter--that's how we see Taiwan, a tent.

What is your mainland policy? How about national defense and diplomacy?

It's clear to me that Taiwan is not part of the mainland. After 1895, when the island was ceded to the Japanese government, it was no longer under Chinese control. In 1912, when the Republic of China was established, it therefore inherited from the Ching court a territory that did not include Taiwan or Penghu. In 1945, at the end of World War II, Japan was forced to give up Taiwan, but there was never any record or treaty showing that Taiwan was returned to China. [Under the Treaty of San Francisco, 1952, Japan surrendered sovereignty over Taiwan without specifying to whom it was yielding that sovereignty.] It's like when a house is on fire or becomes a crime scene, and firefighters or the police "take over" the house temporarily, to deal with the situation. But that doesn't mean they own the house. They have to give it back to the owner once the situation is resolved. Since the nationalist government moved to Taiwan in 1949, it has become even clearer that Taiwan and the PRC are separate entities.

We all realize there is a huge gap between the economic power of Taiwan and mainland China. If the two sides are unified, Taiwan will be facing an immediate crisis, in that one Taiwanese will have to support sixty mainlanders financially. Is this what we want? I have no objection if people fifty or one hundred years from now say it's okay and let's unite. But I don't want to have to support sixty mainlanders who contributed nothing to Taiwan's economic success.

The mainland has never given up the idea of taking Taiwan by force. An irrational Communist government doesn't need an excuse to start a war. The only reason it hasn't done so is that its military capability hasn't yet got to that level, but according to Japanese and US analyses, it will reach that level sometime between 2005 and 2010. Therefore, as far as national defense is concerned, I think we should have our own offensive weapons, as well as defensive arms. Perhaps even nuclear weapons. There's no reason why Taiwan can't develop nuclear weapons, when it is under nuclear threat from the mainland. I believe in an eye for an eye, if the mainland hits us.

Of course, just because the mainland has the necessary military might, it doesn't necessarily mean it will use it, and if a cross-strait war does break out, Taiwan isn't bound to lose. The problem is, who are we going to be when we're fighting the mainland? Few people will interfere if a father beats his son, but if I beat up one of my neighbors, it's a matter for the courts. Similarly, other countries won't interfere in a Chinese civil war, but if one country invades a neighboring country, the affair takes on an international dimension. My point is that we need to make clear to the world the establishment of the Republic of Taiwan. It will be too late to do that once war breaks out.

Establishing Taiwan as a separate country would also be good for our diplomatic development in the global community. Take the UN. The UN only accepts countries as members. When it was first established, there were only fifty-one member states, but now there are nearly two hundred. Many of these new members applied to join as "newcomers." Taiwan, on the other hand, is asking the UN to let Taiwan "regain" its membership. But as long as we say that Taiwan is part of China, how can the UN possibly accept our application? Why don't we apply as a newcomer under the name of the Republic of Taiwan? That would at least show the international community that Taiwan is a separate country from China.

As a matter of fact, making it clear that Taiwan and China are two countries could even help Taiwan and the mainland work closer together. Good fences make good friends.

Why did you decide to run? Why should people vote for you?

There's a big difference between being independent and establishing a country. Being independent means we are not under anybody's control, but being a country means we are adults and we take on responsibilities and share duties. The duty of the TAIP is not to establish a country by itself, but to urge capable and powerful people to do it.

I don't think many people will vote for me. I don't even know if I can raise enough signatures to get me started, but I'll still give it a go. The reason is that a lot of people are talking about Taiwan independence, but the TAIP is the only party to talk about establishing a Republic of Taiwan. I wouldn't have to jump in if any other candidate had raised that idea and stressed the vital importance of not only making it clear that Taiwan is independent, but also establishing Taiwan as a country. And whether Taiwan wants to establish itself as a country is for the Taiwanese people to decide. If they decide to become a country, the mainland can send congratulations or not, that's up to them, but it hasn't got any right to interfere.