How Democracies Die: The Case of Taiwan

This is a translation from the original 民主國家如何死亡──當局外人奪取國家大位 by Ho Ming-hsiu (何明修), a professor of sociology at National Taiwan University. Originally published by Voicettank. Translation by K.K..

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What did the likes of Hitler, Mussolini, Fujimori, Chavez have in common?

They were dictators, and as such they understood how to use public discontent to destroy democratic political systems. From the very start of their political careers, they did not shy away from radical rhetoric to mobilise politically marginalised groups. They gained momentum by taking advantage of the political Zeitgeist at the time, and were able to do so despite opposition from “the mainstream.”

With their book How Democracies Die Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt seek to shed some light on how politically marginalised people hand power over to these “political newcomers.”

Levitsky and Zielblatt found that the key to their rise is often earning the endorsement by mainstream politicians, not only because they share similar ideological views, but also because the mainstream politicians deem these so-called ‘newcomers’ to stand a better chance at mobilising political sceptics. In most cases, mainstream politicians underestimate these political “newbies” and merely view them as manageable puppets they can use to push for their own political agenda, but this ignorance often leads to dire consequences.

How Democracies Die analyses this phenomenon from a historical perspective, as well as reflects on the democratic crisis facing the United States right now. The President of the United States Donald Trump primarily rose to fame due to his various TV appearances rather than his success as a real estate developer. A man renowned for his numerous marriages and affairs and wanton and lavish lifestyle, he is not exactly in line with the Republican Party, the supposedly staunch supporter of “traditional family values.” But in reality, Trump’s home base New York predominantly supports Democrats, and he himself has been a long time supporter of the Democrats. He had been toying with the idea of getting involved in politics on numerous occasions, but his real entry into politics turned out to be questioning former president Barack Obama’s US citizenship by birth, and he finally ended up joining the Republican Party as a far right populist.

Initially, no one in the Republican Party paid any attention to him. No one thought that this ‘newcomer’ with his incoherent rambling, sexist and racist polemic, combined with his lack of understanding of basic politics, would even stand a chance. It wasn’t until Trump won the Republican primaries and became the official presidential candidate that people in the party starting taking him seriously with only a small contingent of Republicans refusing to endorse Donald Trump. Most of the party came to see Trump as someone capable of restoring the party’s status as a political powerhouse, while defeating the Democrats.

When Trump was elected as President of the United States, the tables turned and the Republican Party suddenly became his personal tool, loyally supporting his numerous unconstitutional and highly controversial policies such as the US travel ban on Muslim countries or his declaring a state of emergency to build a wall along the US-Mexican border.

Flip-flopping Han Kuo-yu

Since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) won a landslide victory in the local elections last year, the party’s chances of returning to power in the 2020 national elections have greatly increased. We see Eric Chu (who ran for president in 2016) and Wang Jin-pyng (long time speaker of the parliament) announce their candidacy for the presidential elections with the likes of party chairman Wu Den-yih and former president Ma Ying-jeou toying with the idea of standing for the next elections as well. But all eyes are on recently elected Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu, with his rising popularity and ever growing fanbase, to become the savior of the KMT.

When he campaigned for Kaohsiung mayor, Han strategically played the the economy card. His slogan was straightforward: “Politics 0%; Economy 100%.” He said Kaohsiung was decrepit and poor, but he’ll help everyone “Get Rich.” His message had a wide mass appeal and really resonated directly with the voters. After he became mayor, he made headlines constantly with his wild ideas: a ferris wheel, drilling for oil in the South China Sea, horse racing, Formula-1 racing—all of which immediately proved to be empty promises.

But that hasn’t stopped Mayor Han from running his mouth, especially on Taiwan-China relations, which was 0% of his campaign (Politics 0%, remember?). As mayor, he often spoke of the “1992 Consensus” (agreeing with China that Taiwan is part of China), which he never uttered during the campaign. He said that Taiwan and China were “fated to marry” which went even further than Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je’s idea of “one happy family” for Taiwan and China.

When Chinese president Xi Jinping said that the “1992 Consensus” really just means Taiwan being ruled by China under the One Country Two Systems framework, KMT candidates had to explain themselves. Han Kuo-yu’s seemingly firm, yet vague response “Do not doubt the Chinese Communist Party’s determination to recover Taiwan”, and “Do not doubt the determination of the Taiwanese to pursue democracy and freedom” left a lot of room for speculation regarding his stance on the “One Country, Two Systems” question.

Outcasts politics in Taiwan

Han Kuo-yu is not a “political newcomer” per se. He was already a member of parliament in the 1990s, but his political career was nothing out of the ordinary, a rather unremarkable minor character within the KMT. Prior his second political prime, Han Kuo-yu worked as general manager of the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Company, a semi-government owned entity that is regarded as anything but a political springboard. Instead, it is a place where bygone politicians are banished, out of sight from the center of power. If the DPP had not been so desperate on taking control of the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Company from the KMT, Han Kuo-yu would probably still be a simple produce vendor today. Shortly afterwards, Han Kuo-yu ran for chairman of the KMT, and had his mind set on the Taipei mayoral candidacy. As the KMT was unable to find a local candidate to run in Kaohsiung, Han was drafted as a final ditch effort. To everyone’s surprise, he won the mayoral election in the biggest city in southern Taiwan, a DPP stronghold for twenty years.

In many aspects, Han Kuo-yu is the KMT’s outcast. Other prominent KMT members such as Ma Ying-jeou, Eric Chu, Jason Hu, and Ting Shou-chong were all born into elite families within the Mainlander society that resettled in Taiwan from China after the second world war. They grew up with privilege, groomed by the one-party state, with many of them having obtained doctoral degrees from prestigious universities in the United States or the United Kingdom. But as Taiwan became democratic, these aristocratic rulers can no longer afford to be out of touch with the commoners. At best, at most they can pretend to find the common Taiwanese people “likeable.” Whether it was Ma Ying-jeou’s “Long Stay” campaign living in the countryside, or Jason Hu’s cringy jokes, their attitude was always one of “I tried my best to come down from my pedestal to be with you plebeians, I should get an A for effort!”

On the other hand, Han Kuo-yu was not born into a prominent family. He is a self-made man. He went to a military academy, which is often an alternative for those who are not very academically gifted. He does not mince his words; he is to the point, unlike typical bureaucrats. Someone who is so different from the traditional KMT elite resonated with KMT supporters, who believe that their usual leaders are “too nice” or “too gullible” to stand up to the opposition DPP politicians, many of whom were street protest leaders. The KMT supporters wanted to someone more uncouth and more aggressive to teach the DPP a lesson.

With cringeworthy slogans such as “Bald as the Moon,” it became clear that Han Kuo-yu doesn’t shy away from using his baldness as a political ploy in order to attract voters. No self-respecting traditional KMT leader can do that.

Furthermore, traditional KMT politicians of the KMT are more or less still carrying the so-called legacy and burden of the old Republic of China, which originally saw the People’s Republic as a sworn enemy. No matter how often KMT leaders visit Hong Kong or Macao, they will not yield to the demands of China to formally recognise the legitimacy of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong S.A.R. or Beijing’s ‘One Country Two System’ plan. But Han Kuo-yu, with this popular support, doesn’t care for formalities like sovereignty and diplomacy. His not only visited the Hong Kong’s Liaison Office, he heard a presentation of how Beijing’s One Country Two Systems worked for Hong Kong from Chinese officials. How is that not a signal of his acceptance of China’s designs on Taiwan?

Taiwan’s politics has seen many larger-than-life political characters and their diehard fanclubs, but Han Kuo-yu supporters are even more loyal or radical. Their political frenzy bears resemblance with the spirit of staunch Chinese communists, violently threatening those with different opinions. Because of Han Kuo-yu’s strong fanbase, the KMT seems set on having Han run as president next year, by a proper primary or not. Despite efforts by the KMT to thwart extreme politicians during the last party primaries in 2015, they were unable to stop radical candidate Hung Hsiu-chu from winning the KMT’s nomination, which resulted in her being replaced by fiat at the last minute anyway. This time around, the KMT seems to have learned its lesson: one must endorse and promote the most popular political candidate at all costs and the rules of the primary election have specifically been re-written for Han Kuo-yu.

What happens when political outsiders rise to political prominence? One only has to look back in history to find the answer. Whether Taiwan goes down the same path is a matter that should concern all of us.

(Feature photo by Samira Bouaou for The Epoch Times, CC BY 2.0)