Tug-of-war for Taiwan's identity

Taiwan's 16.5 million voters go to the polls Saturday in a presidential election that has polarized the island over two very different visions of Taiwan's future.

The tight race pits the party of incumbent President Chen Shui-bian, who champions a separate Taiwanese identity and swift democratic reforms, against the Kuomintang (KMT) party of Lien Chan, who will probably move more slowly on reforms and look more kindly on an eventual rapprochement with Beijing.

Heightening the stakes, and greatly angering China, is a controversial two-question referendum put to Taiwan's voters. The questions ask if China should "withdraw the missiles it has targeted at Taiwan," and whether Taiwan should "engage in negotiations with ... China ... for the welfare of the peoples." President Chen engineered the first-ever referendum last year over initial objections from Washington. Beijing views the referendum as an underhanded way of achieving independent status.

Despite what appear to be similar policies on key economic questions and on opening up direct trade with China, voters and analysts say the two parties offer such a different future that the election is being framed as the greatest battle in 50 years. A hefty 80 percent turnout is expected.

A main dynamic in the race centers on the question of identity and what is known as the "status quo," or the principles governing Taiwan's approach to the 1.3 billion nation of China, which claims Taiwan as its own.

In Taiwan, identity centers on the social split between ethnic Chinese mainlanders, an elite group who took control of the island in 1949, and the larger segment of native Taiwanese who argue that Taiwan has an identity separate from China.

"Four years ago the election was about a change of government - getting rid of the old KMT, which was in power so long and was criticized for corruption," says political analyst Andrew Yang. "This time, the issue is identity and it has polarized the electorate. The incumbent wants to assert Taiwaneseness. The opposition wants the status quo."

In the often fraught relations between China and Taiwan, status quo has stood for an agreement that Taiwan will allow no internal developments that threaten China's passionate hope to one day unify with the island. The status quo, which China worries Chen seeks to change, is language used between Washington, Taipei, and Beijing to define peaceful relations across the Taiwan Straits.

Yet the KMT and Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) define "status quo" differently. The DPP sees it as allowing democratic developments and a "move toward" independence. The KMT has tended to see status quo as a static concept. As one KMT official points out, "Chen Shui-bian wants to tell the Taiwanese people what to do; The KMT wants to let nature take its course. We don't want to change anything."

But during this hard-fought campaign, so popular were the reforms and appeals to Taiwanese identity politics championed by the DPP, the KMT has now promised similar reforms, including a new constitution.

This election, Taiwan's third, follows a decade of political and social upheaval. A reform movement has pushed the island away from its historic claims on China, and toward a new ethnic Taiwanese consciousness. Beijing has not acknowledged that these changes have occurred. Yet the evidence for them seems unmistakable. Lien Chan and James Soong, whose parties jointly make up a "pan blue" coalition, last Saturday actually kissed the ground of Taiwan during campaign rallies.

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