 Welcome back to Think Tech, and more specifically, welcome back to Asia in Review on Think Tech. I'm your host today, Jay Fidel. Our show today is called The Current Political Polarization in Taiwan. I'm going to talk about the administration of Tsai Ing-wen, and there are many issues in discussion and in controversy in Taiwan. If you want to ask a question, participate in the discussion. You can tweet us at Think Tech H.I., or call us at 415-871-2474. Now our guest for the show is the regular host for the show, Bill Sharp, the presenter of Asia in Review. Thank you so much for being here, Bill. Well, you're welcome. It's a pleasure to sit on this side of the table for a change. You can relax today. Yeah, kick back. Bill spent a year as a fellow in the national… I had the Taiwan Fellowship, and I did my research at a place called the Institute of Taiwan History at Academia Seneca. And Academia Seneca is a great place. It's very liberally financed by the central government. It's a huge complex. It looks like a major college campus. 35 institutes that cover just about every field of inquiry that you can think of. And very, very nice people, very supportive staff. It's a great place to be. It's a great national asset for Taiwan. How great that you were there, and then you can come back and talk about it. Yeah, it was really great. I really appreciate their support. They're supporting my research. Well, let's get the landscape on Taiwan for a minute. You know, Taiwan used to be, what'll you say, more of a protected ally of the United States than it is now? I mean, I don't think the United States is as protective of Taiwan as it used to be. At the same time, Taiwan used to be more of a controversial neighbor to China. But now 200,000 Taiwanese live in Shanghai. Did you know that? There are a number of Taiwanese live in Shanghai, a place just outside of Shanghai called Kunshan. And that's a lot of Taiwan businessmen have made that almost into a small Taiwan. Yeah. So, I mean, the relationship, although it's still kind of bittersweet, and you know that China would like to take over Taiwan at some point, and there's always, you know, saber rattling from time to time, and certainly the South China Sea is a part of that. But the fact is that they're friendly in some ways in business anyway, and there's a certain exchange of people and ideas and products and intellectual property that really hasn't existed until relatively recent years. And the question I want to put to you is, you know, China seems to think that everybody around it belongs to China, was once part of China, including the South China Sea. Was Taiwan part of China too? That's very interesting. You know, there's a scholar from Australia, formerly an American who took on Australian citizenship. In fact, he was a guest on this show. He has a very strong thesis that Taiwan was never part of China, and is very persuasive in his argument. And historically speaking, if you look at the relationship between Taiwan and China, Taiwan and China have never been all that close. Taiwan has always been sort of, oh, that's that headache island out there. We've got more problems to deal with here. And so it really was never, it never had a close relationship. Mao Zedong, this is something mainland scholars won't admit if they even know about it, because it's something that could have been expunged from textbooks and research materials and like that. Mao Zedong, I think it was in 1936, said, you know, after World War II, maybe we should let the Taiwanese go the wrong way. And it is true that Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, if nothing else, they agreed on the fact that the people in Taiwan were too Japanese for them. So their sense of Chineseness was lost, and if not lost and heavily deluded. So, you know, it's very interesting. I think the sense of Taiwanese identity is getting deeper and deeper and deeper as we speak. And this is a lesson in the mainland should pay very close attention to, because the more it pushes on Taiwan, the more it tries to intimidate it, the stronger and deeper that sense of Taiwanese identity becomes. I think sometimes the Xi Jinping doesn't quite understand Taiwan as well as he thinks he does. After the sunflower movement, he was saying, oh gosh, maybe we don't understand Taiwan so well. But prior to that, I'm not sure he still feels that way, but prior to that, he thought, well, I was the governor of Fujian Province, the province directly across the Taiwan Strait from Taiwan, and I dealt with a lot of Taiwan businessmen, so I understand Taiwan. Yeah, well, why were all those people protesting? Maybe you don't understand them. That was the sunflower movement. Yeah, the sunflower movement. It was in 2014, it was a huge demonstration. And it was also followed up by some other very big demonstrations too. And I'll call it an assault on the Executive UN, which is sort of like the cabinet office in Taiwan. And then there was a huge demonstration at this place called the Gongya Nuclear Plant. Nuclear power is a very sensitive issue in Taiwan. People in Taiwan pay extremely close attention to what's going on in Japan, and they know about Fukushima. And they don't want to see that happen in Taiwan. Yet at the same time, Taiwan needs energy. So they really put themselves into a rock and a hard place. We should understand a little about it. I mean, you mentioned a minute ago that it was two Japanese for a mouthful of time. And that was because the Japanese controlled the place during the war. And they made everybody learn Japanese in the schools and all that. And so the Taiwanese became very Japanese-like. And they still today, some people, especially in the South, right in Taiwan, they speak Japanese right now. And their body language is Japanese. And it's very interesting how you could make a distinction between a Chinese person, by way of ancestry and all that, by way of race in mainland China, is different in terms of culture from the people in Taiwan. You know, this is very interesting. I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, I think, but I'll take a chance. After you've been in Taiwan for a while, and if you've been to mainland China lots of times like I have been, you can pick out who is Chinese and who is Taiwanese. Isn't that interesting? Because the Chinese are more aggressive, more assertive. One might even say a little pushy. And the Taiwanese are more reserved and more laid-back. Country style. Yeah, and I see it, I call it the reflection of Japanese culture. Because there's a lot of Japanese ideas and culture that are still alive in Taiwan. And you can see it in the daily life of people. You can also see it in the way that the government is structured. It's still there. There's one step further. If you look at South Korea and you look at Taiwan, both were Japanese colonies. And you can still see a lot of, there's a lot of similarities between the two. And some of it is left over Japanese influence, I believe. The government structure of South Korea and Taiwan is very similar. And both are very young democracies. Well, speaking of that, after the war and after Shanghai made his crossing, the democracy, if you want to call it that, in Taiwan was pretty tumultuous. You've been studying that for years. Right. Well, I will say this. During the Japanese period of colonialism, there were elections at the local level. And this reflected some of the political beliefs going on in Japan at the time. And Japan's idea was to make Taiwan into a kind of a model colony that it could kind of show off and use as a lure to colonize countries in Southeast Asia. And then, of course, when Junkai Shek came there, he had one problem after another. And so he imposed martial law. However, he still had local elections. Everything else was very tightly controlled, newspapers and all that. But there were local elections. Of course, the only party running was his party. Although at a later time they allowed people with no party affiliation, independence to run, these independence later became organized and was called the Dong Wai Movement, which later became the Democratic Progressive Party, the ruling party of Taiwan today, Tsai Ing-Wen's party. Is it fair to call it a democracy now? Oh, yeah. I think it definitely is. I think we're very democratic. Some people say a little too democratic in some ways. And I think that there's more to democracy than just elections. And Taiwan is really big on elections. And actually the way it carries out elections is for something for the U.S. to study. I think there are no hanging chads and all that. And the results are known by 1030 the night of the election. So that's pretty good. I mean, compared to what we've got going on here, we have 50 disparate systems. Somehow, sometimes it seems like the left-hand doesn't know what the right-hand is doing. But democracy requires a lot of other things, too. The building of civil organizations, the building of institutions. And Taiwan's a very young democracy, only since 1989. And it's come a long way. It's come a long way. I mean, for example, in the case of human rights, it wasn't always us. But right now, the Taiwanese people are into human rights. Oh, they're very much in the human rights. And if you consider LGBT issues to be a manifestation of human rights in Taiwan, it's definitely at the forefront. Because same-sex marriage has been effectively legalized in Taiwan. And they're into the environment, too. They're very much into the environment. And especially the ruling party is very much into the environment. Their colors are not green, just as a matter of happenstance. But the thing is that despite democratization, there's polarization in Taiwan. Now, this has been something I've been studying for the last year or so, because it's greatly interested me. I first went to Taiwan in 1973 to study Chinese at Taiwan Normal University. And at that time, that was the bad old days. It was definitely a dictatorship. People were freaked out about the police. And it was a certain amount of oppression and brutality. Oh, yeah. Military police had their hands all over civilian society. And there was a particularly nefarious organization called the Taiwan Garrison Command, which was, if you got in trouble, especially if we're saying something about Taiwan independence or string up John Kaizhek or something like that, you got a visit in the middle of the night from the Taiwan Garrison Command and hustled off to effectively what was a political prison. And actually, I think anyone's interested in Taiwan, they should go and see these two political prisons, which today are preserved as museums. In Taipei. One is in Taipei. It's called Jingmei. And lots of leaders of the Democratic Progressive Party serve time in that jail. And then there's another one on a small island off the southeast coast of Taiwan called Green Island. I've been to both of these places. They're not Auschwitz, but they're not the Hilton either. And I've known people that have spent time there in both prisons. And they pay their dues big time. One person I interviewed, assuming he spent 25 years in jail. I really have to admire people like that for spending such a significant portion of their life in jail when he could have been given parole, but under conditions he wouldn't accept. But you know, this all drives at the question of national identity. How do Taiwanese feel about themselves today? Whether they feel separate from China, separate from Japan? Do they have their own identity? Are they proud? Do they see their country as a special place for them? And I guess the question of polarization that you mentioned would drive the other way. Such as in this country, we have polarization. We have polarization. It doesn't help with national identity for sure. And the next part of our discussion right after this break, we should talk about exactly what polarization is and how it plays in the development of the national identity of Taiwan. That's good. I'd like to talk about that. We'll be right back. Match day is no ordinary day. The pitch, hallowed ground for players and supporters alike. Excitement builds. Game plans are made with responsibility in mind. Celebrations are underway. Ready for kickoff, MLS clubs and our supporters rise to the challenge. We make responsible decisions while we cheer on our heroes and toast their success. Elevate your match day experience. If you drink, never drive. Hi, I'm Jay Fidel on Asia in Review, and our regular host is sitting just to my left, and that's Bill Sharp. The presenter of Asia in Review many years ago, doing all these years and studying a lot about China and about Taiwan. So, you know, you mentioned Bill in the first part of the show that there was a polarization in Taiwan. It's very interesting because that doesn't pull the country together, obviously by definition, that separates it. And I'd like to know more from you about, you know, and you've talked to a lot of people, you've talked to a lot of VIPs. You've been gathering the Gestalt of Taiwan for years and years. That's an old Chinese word. Yeah, I know. I'd like to know, you know, what this really is, this polarization? I mean, you mentioned me before that there's two kinds. One is historic division, which has roots in history, such as we saw in the soft underbelly of Europe a few years ago. And then contemporary polarization, which is now more political, it's more focused on issues that are happening right now, and it's, by definition, temporary. So, you know, which is it now, and how would you define and describe the polarization in Taiwan? Well, yeah, I think there's historic division, which is probably going to be there for quite a long period of time. There's huge differences between northern Taiwan and central, well, central Taiwan and southern Taiwan. And there's also differences between eastern Taiwan and western Taiwan. And so that's definitely there. And there's definitely tensions which have been, were exacerbated in 1949 when you had all these mainlanders that had all the political and military power come to Taiwan and run it to the dismay of indigenous Taiwanese who wanted independence. So, lots of times people will say, well, these ethnic tensions are going away. And I think they are with younger people, but for older people they're still there. And you can see those when there's elections, these older politicians that make political speeches, they play to these ethnic tensions. What ethnic divisions are there? Oh, well, here's a good one from the mayoral race. This is the mayoral race for Taipei. Taipei, the mayor's office of Taipei, is the second most important political position in Taiwan. And the person that was leading the charge for mayor, with the favorite, he was Taiwanese. He was running against the son of a prominent mainlander, Leon John, who's a former vice president. And a lot of older people were making speeches, well, you know, that Mr. Kou and his father was a running dog of the Japanese colonialists and that sort of thing. So this sort of thing, this sort of rhetoric comes up from time to time. Is this plenary? I mean, is this the polarization east, west, north, south, geographical or political or what have you? Is it ubiquitous throughout the population? Or is it just the VIPs? That's a very good question, that's a very good question. Let me talk a little bit more about this historic division. Okay, there's also the sense of what they're called the Dahan Jui, in other words, Chinese are number one and everybody else is sort of inferior. And I'm afraid that that still exists in Taiwan and much to the dismay of Taiwanese. And I think this is more prevalent with older people. Younger people, regardless of their Taiwanese or Chinese, they seem to get along a lot better. Is there a significant distinction between Taiwanese and Chinese? Aren't all the Taiwanese Chinese? No, because if you ask people the question, are you Chinese or Taiwanese? I am Taiwanese. And it's sort of politically incorrect these days to say I'm Chinese, because this is a question I asked this throughout everybody I met. Are you Chinese or are you Taiwanese? And most people say Taiwanese rather assertively. And then people were sort of sitting on the fence, well, I'm Taiwanese, but you know, my mother and father came from China. So I guess I'm a little bit of both. Hedging. Hedging all the way. Hedging all the way. Taiwanese identity is on the upswing, is definitely on the upswing. Some of the big distinctions between, you see between the North and South, and the Nationalist Party came to Taiwan, they sort of focused and concentrated all government funds in the northern part of Taiwan. So the northern part of Taiwan tends to be a lot more developed, richer than southern Taiwan. Southern Taiwan is, with the exception of Gaosheng, which is a bastion of heavy industry shipbuilding the animal model. Is that New Taipei? No, no, it's a two-hour train, you know, right away, or about 220 miles. And very southern Taiwan, southwestern corner of Taiwan. And that's basically farmland, okay? So you get these divisions between the developed part, the highly developed part of Taiwan and the less developed part of Taiwan. The corridor that goes from Taipei to Shinjyu is considered the wealthiest, most developed section of Taiwan. Sort of like the train route in Japan from Tokyo to Osaka. And then, you know, certain attitudes are different. And sort of the embrace of Japanese culture, which I believe is still prevalent, as I was saying, in the south. So you do have a lot of these, and then you mix into this the Aborigines, okay? The Aborigines, there's sort of a divided community, too. You have the mountain Aborigines and the plain Aborigines. These are the original Taiwanese. These are the original Taiwanese. These are the American Indians of Taiwan, if you want to put it that way. So you do have some historical divisions. And then you add on to some more, what you might call, more contemporary issues. And I think the greatest polarization started, a contemporary polarization started in 2000 when Chun Shui Bien was elected president because he was highly unpopular with the Nationalist Party. He just kind of kind of squeaked into office. And it was fearful that he would declare Taiwan independent and which went against the grain of a lot of what the Nationalist Party felt. And in actuality, he tried quite hard to get along with China. But people in his party, who does have a history of being pro-independents, were beginning to bolt the party and create their own party. So he had to bring him back in or to stop that outflow. He had to back off from embracing Taiwan. China. So there had been to be acrimony at that point. And then as Taiwan became engulfed in globalization, you began to see inequality and wealth grow. The issue that I mentioned earlier, the party assets, what they called the Dengchang, this issue kept popping up and popping up and really forcing people into the place. The party wound up with the assets from the time of the Japanese occupation rather than the country. The party got the assets, not the country. Right. When the Japanese left, the Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang, came in and scooped up all the Japanese assets and put those in their bank. And then, as I mentioned earlier, there's the issue of transitional justice, seeking to make things right from the past. People who suffered injustices, let's solve that issue. As I was saying, similar to the situation that prevailed in South Africa. But what I get here, what I get here is that this leader, I wrote it down, Chen Shui-Ban, Chen Shui-Ban. Right. In the year 2000, somehow took steps to begin the polarization that we now see unfolding. This is true. I think there was some polarization before that, but certainly with his step into office, it really exacerbated it. I mean, it goes to show you. I mean, we have the same kind of thing happening now in this country, where a leader can come in and somehow evoke polarization, somehow put people at opposite ends of issues and create controversy where there was no controversy before. And it sounds like what you're saying. Tell me if it's not true. Is that Chen Shui-Ban, Chen Shui-Ban, I get it, actually fomented the same kind of this unrest, this polarization that you're talking about. I think that's true. At least to some degree. I mean, he was, frankly speaking, hated by some people in the opposition party. They really didn't want him to win. I'm sure a lot of people thought, well, you're from a poor farming family in the South. And, you know, you're sort of a country bumpkin, although he had been mayor of Taipei. And even people I know who were really strongly supportive of the opposite party said he was a really good mayor. Excuse me. But when he became president, that was that's when I would say acute polarization in Taiwan began. Has it gotten more serious since he was in office? Well, when he left office, just before he left office, it was found that his corruption, that he was involved in corruption, he and his family, and I think particularly his wife. And his wife suffered some very serious damage, some physical, I should say, damaged injuries which put her in the wheelchair for the rest of her life. So I believe her attitude was you owe me, because in your politics I'm in a wheelchair the rest of her life. And she began to take handouts and expensive gifts from very fancy department stores and things like that. It sounds like corruption. And I think it was her, I don't think it was so much him, but other people tell me if you understood Taiwan society better, you would understand that he had to be involved. And other people said, I had an interview with a very leading TV personality commentator named Sissy Chun, extremely bright woman, very, very bright. And she invited me to her very nice house one day. I talked to her for about three hours and she's saying you have to understand his wife is the daughter of a Taiwanese country doctor. And it's always the duty of the wife to collect the money. So she was just taking after her mother. But a chance to write a band spent how many years in jail after he left office. He was wrapped up on corruption. He spent, I can't remember, he was given a 20-year sentence, he didn't serve all that in jail. He became somewhat debilitated in jail, although he wrote seven books. And sometimes I don't understand how he could become so debilitated if he wrote seven books. And now he's out on medical parole. He lives in Gaol Shung. But he's not in office. No, he's not in office. And he's certainly, I think it's fair to say, not the person that he was. He's very charismatic. He had great leadership, I have to say. Whatever everybody says about corruption, he's got charisma and he has leadership. You're going to have corruption and charisma at the same time. Yeah, I suppose you could. I mean Mayor Daley of Chicago did, right? That happens. So right now we have a new president, a woman, Tsai Ing-wen. Well, we had another president after Chen Shui-bian was Ma Ying-jeou. Ma Ying-jeou was very friendly to the mainland. He wanted to be friendly with the mainland. He created lots of trade deals with the mainland. But lots of people would say that drained Taiwan's economy. And that was responsible for the hollowing out of Taiwan economy and the loss of jobs. And this was a big cause of the sunflower movement, which was certainly, certainly, certainly added into Taiwan's polarization. Especially because it really impacted the opportunities of young people. Taiwan's economy is hurting. You know, the salaries are very low. Teaching salaries are really low. I hear people every day complain about those at Academia Seneca. And they haven't raised this in a really long time. And the opportunities are somewhat inefficient. Yeah. Well, that's too bad. And she inherits all this. She inherits all this. And she's really trying to turn the economy around. She's a lawyer who is more like an economist and an economics planner. She wants to build a new biomedical industry. She wants to build up Taiwan's indigenous defense industry. She's got a 29 billion dollar, US dollar, 29 billion US dollar incentive plan. I think she's doing a good job. She's taking on the really But what about the polarization? The polarization is still there. And it's going to take some time for it to go away. It's going to take some time. Is she working at that? I mean, is she having a salutary effect on that? Her idea of solving the polarization. I tried to get an interview with her one time, but I was unable to do so. But I believe her approach to polarization is you've got to create the Taiwan consensus. You've got to bring everybody together always. I read her book and she talks a lot about this. She's very methodical. It's interesting she got elected to office. We have other women in Asia who have gotten elected to office, but it's usually been because their father preceded them. The previous president of Korea, Park Kyung-hae, her father was president. If you look at Aung San Suu Kyi, her father was the founder of Burma, Myanmar. But Tsai Nguyen was on her own merits. Tsai Nguyen was on her own merits. So you really got to give her a credit for that. Indira Gandhi of India, she got there because of her family. Oh, I can't think of her name. Cory Aquino, she got there because of her husband. So where is it going to go, Bill? I mean, we have a hollowed-out economy, we have low wages, we don't have enough money to maintain the pension system. And we have China trying to box us out in the international space at every chance he gets. But the good news is, since it's been in office, the stock market is going up. I'll make a note of that. Yeah, so she's doing some things right. Okay, we have to follow it, Bill. You have to follow it on this show in every way and write about it and all that so we can see the future unfolding because we care. The United States cares about Taiwan, maybe not the same way as, you know, in the days after World War II or in the days of, the early days of Mao Zedong, but we still care and we want them to do well and that's one of the reasons you're there, I know. So I'm going to offer you this opportunity, Bill, to say goodbye to, you know, close with our audience, but I'd like you to do it in Mandarin, mind? This is Bill Sharp. He does speak Mandarin. Go ahead. I wasn't kidding. I wasn't kidding. I wasn't kidding. I wasn't kidding. I wasn't kidding. I wasn't kidding. I wasn't kidding. Okay.