The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has worsened; public grievances are boiling over; and President Tsai Ing-wen's approval ratings continue to falter. There are now two types of criticisms against President Tsai: First, why has she failed her baseline responsibility of protecting public health? Second, why has she not responded directly and thoroughly to public concerns? The complaints of “irresponsibility” and irresponsiveness” point to a deeper question: Is Taiwan's democracy also seriously ill?
When I served in the government those early years, I whole-heartedly supported Taiwan’s democratization and cross-Strait reconciliation. Witnessing the ongoing, slow but sure wreckage of these two major historical achievements from within Taiwan itself saddens me to no end.
Ironically, it was President Lee Teng-hui who fired the first shot at Taiwan’s democracy despite his "Mr. Democracy" moniker. In 1997, one year after Taiwan held its first direct presidential election, Lee pushed through a constitutional amendment turning the President of the Republic of China into a "quasi-emperor," with powers far greater than the presidents or prime ministers of any and all Western countries. From then on, without the consent of any other institution, he (or she) could appoint and dismiss the premier, vice premier, and ministers of the Executive Yuan at will. The President also need not appear before the Legislature to explain his (or her) major policies. Nor is it necessary for him (or her) to hold press conferences to answer media inquiries. In other words, the President can run the country sequestered in the Presidential Palace as a "quasi-emperor," endowed with all the executive powers but no accountability. The only check on his (or her) powers is the popular vote every four years.
Soon enough the drawbacks of this new “quasi-emperor” system came into the full view of the public. First, the President oftentimes prepared bombshells secretively within the Presidential Palace that would shock other government officials, the Taiwan people, even the world. President Lee’s "Special State-to-State Relationship (1999)," President Chen Shui-bian’s "One Country on Each Side (2002)", "New Name for the country (2003)", and "New Constitution (2003)" are prime examples.
Second, because the "quasi-emperor” commands so much power while the opposition parties enjoying so little and the electoral system allows the winner to take all, however small the margin of votes is, Taiwan’s elections quickly degenerated into cutthroat battles with full throng of dirty, cheap, and mean tricks. Instances of questionable behavior quickly proliferated, most notorious being "audiotape incident (1998),” “319 shooting incident (2004),” and "vote buying incident (2006)." Without exception, all those suspected of concocting those incidents eventually laughed all the way to elected offices. With the political arena so rife with suspicions and hostilities, how can one expect the political parties to work together and unite against external threat?
Third, since the fruit of power is so sweet and electoral battles all-consuming, politicians of all stripes concern themselves more with elections than the people’s well-being. It is therefore not surprising that ever since the late 1990s Taiwan’s “economic miracle” began to slide nonstop into stagnation, flat wages, water/electricity shortages, public safety disasters, among others.
Fourth, between presidential elections, the "quasi-emperor" makes all major decisions free from any accountability. President Joe Biden was severely criticized by the U.S. media for holding his first press conference as late as two months after taking office. He would have been so envious of Taiwan’s President if he had known that Tsai has no legal or political obligation whatsoever to appear before the media and that she has executed quite a few policy U-turns completely unscathed.
Compared with her three predecessors, President Tsai best lives up to the title of “quasi-emperor.” After the 1997 amendment, President Lee's time in office was short, and his surprise announcement of "Special State-to-State Relationship" caused his other constitutional drama to fail. President Ma Ying-jeou sat more like a judge, always self-disciplined and cautious not to cross a red line any time. By contrast, President Chen, with a lawyerly temperament, all too often led the charge into fierce political battles personally, angering the U.S. and mainland China at the same time.
Tsai learned from and improved upon these precedents. She never ventured to charge into battles herself, only giving orders from her palace. Upon her instruction, the Executive Yuan, Legislative Yuan, Ministries, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its front groups carried out the subversion of the cross-Strait "status quo" as well as the domestic infighting. This allowed her decisions on external and internal transformation to escape the attention of international media. And Washington could pretend that nothing has happened, if it so chose. Meanwhile, the utterly outraged Beijing would hardly find an easy excuse to react.
Incrementally, Tsai’s "doing without saying” of the last five years accumulated to a new Taiwan without setting off alarm bells along the way. Two Harvard professors, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, did an impressive study of “how democracies die." Using soccer game as a metaphor, they showed how some elected leaders moved toward authoritarianism with the appearance of legality by “capturing the referees,” “sidelining the star players” of the opposing team, and “rewriting the rules of the game.”
Amid the chorus of applause by distant Western observers, Tsai managed to pull all three of the above-mentioned power levers, as with other authoritarian leaders. First, the “referees” of Taiwan's democracy, such as the Central Election Commission (CEC), judicial system, Control Yuan, National Communications Commission (NCC), and Fair Trade Commission, etc., have all come under the control of the DPP unabashedly. She has even forged two additional sharp swords: the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee and Transitional Justice Committee.
As for "the star players" of the other side, Tsai has sought to suppress, from the outset, the opposition parties, National Women’s League, farmers associations, other non-governmental organizations, even the retired military, civil servants and teachers who have been the most ardent supporters of Taiwan's security. She has also coopted the mass media, forcing CTI TV to be removed from the screen, and subdued the business community with the banking system and the judicial arm of the government.
Finally, with the DPP controlling the Central Election Commission, the “rules of the game” such as the election dates, qualifications of the candidates, and other subtle but important details of balloting are entirely up to the DPP to manipulate. When the referendums yielded results contrary to Her Majesty’s wish in 2018, such as those supporting nuclear power plants and opposing same-sex marriage, they were simply ignored by the Tsai administration. And a new round of constitutional revision is being kicked off recently.
Taiwan’s GDP fell behind Fujian Province (ancestral origin of most of Taiwan people today) last year for the first time in history and its per capita income is soon to drop below that of some Mainland cities. With Taiwan’s hard-won democracy eroded by an elected "quasi-emperor" to this degree, what is left for us in Taiwan to be proud of?