The reality in ‘other China’
By :- Shyam Saran 
Recently, I was in Taipei to speak on India’s perspective on the rise of China, one giant eyeing the other. What struck me, however, was the unmistakable reality of this being the “other China”, an open and liberal society, a successful multiparty democracy with a free Press and a vibrant culture of debate.
There was no skirting of difficult and uncomfortable questions, including the sensitive issue of cross-Straits relations with an increasingly powerful China.
The economic embrace of China is becoming pervasive. It is now unlikely that the island’s destiny can ever be decoupled from the Chinese mainland. The looming presence of China is manifested in the growing dependence on China-related trade and investment, the rapidly expanding number of Chinese visitors thanks to direct air and shipping links and the domination of mainstream media by developments across the Straits.
This is generating a conflictual ambivalence about Taiwan’s future which hangs like a question mark over the island, despite its first world prosperity, its strengths in technological innovation and the obvious excellence of its higher education.
A comment which one came across frequently, whether in conversations with KMT leaders, government officials and even defence personnel, was that the political status quo would continue even as Taiwan moved ahead with the rapid expansion of trade, investment and people-to-people relations with China. In other words, Taiwan was not ready to consider reunification with China even with a very high degree of autonomy.
When I was asked to comment on this, I pointed out that one could not, for any length of time, insulate just one part of the relationship from all others and that, too, its most significant component, when other elements were getting rapidly transformed. One was also not certain that China would accept an indefinite deep-freeze on the political and highly emotive issue of Taiwan returning to the motherland.
To these comments there was usually no answer, though some argued that the greater exposure of mainlanders to the virtues of Taiwanese democracy would help remake China in the image of Taiwan, rather than the imposition of the current Chinese brand of political authoritarianism on the island’s population. I believe this is mostly wishful thinking. The Americans and the Europeans were once convinced that with prosperity and globalisation, China would inevitably be refashioned in the Western image. They harbour no such illusions today.
The audience I addressed was made up of mostly university students, academics, senior journalists and former and serving diplomats. There was a fair sprinkling of Chinese exchange students and visiting professors from universities on the Chinese mainland. Some of the questions were revealing as were the reactions of the mostly Taiwanese audience to my responses.
A Chinese professor referred to India’s failure to eradicate poverty through rapid industrialisation as China had done, moving away from traditional agriculture. He cited a media report that an Indian farmer had got his land back from the government, which had acquired it for building road infrastructure, by going to a law court. If this continued, he said, India’s development would be significantly slow and the gap with China would increase.
My reply was that most people in India and other democratic countries which value individual rights would applaud rather than bemoan the farmer’s success. This remark was greeted with approving applause and soon thereafter a young Chinese student addressed the same professor and asked whether China should not learn from India in this respect.
There was another question relating to India’s GDP growth rate compared to that of China and whether India was not apprehensive that despite doing well, it was falling behind its giant neighbour. A follow-up question wondered whether the Chinese model would not be more appropriate for a developing country like India rather than the now discredited Western model.
I said that while there was much for India to learn from China and that we admired China’s remarkable successes, we did not believe that people in India would accept the Chinese brand of political authoritarianism combined with economic liberalism. My sense was, I said, that Indians would happily sacrifice a couple of percentage points in GDP growth if this were the price to pay to retain their hard-won democratic freedoms and individual rights. This, too, was greeted with approval by the assembled crowd.
There was a question from a Taiwanese official about the Dalai Lama. He asked for India’s advice on how to treat the “big headache” that His Holiness had become for the Taiwanese authorities, because he had many devotees in Taiwan but the government did not wish to annoy China by allowing him to visit Taiwan.
I said that India did not regard the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan community in India as a headache. His Holiness was a highly respected spiritual leader and teacher. Again there was a wave of approval from the audience.
The last question was poignant and reflective of the mood of resignation that one sees in some sections of Taiwanese society. A young student asked what India’s reaction would be if Taiwan became a part of China and its democracy was “snuffed out “ in the process. My answer that it was really for the people of Taiwan to decide their own destiny, that we wished to see democracy everywhere, seemed inadequate and even insincere.
The truth is that Taiwan has now embarked on a journey from which there appears slim prospect of turning back. China is becoming Taiwan’s future, unmistakably, relentlessly and there is very little that the world can or will do to help it write a different script.
(The writer, a former Foreign Secretary, is currently Acting Chairman, RIS, and a Senior Fellow at the CPR. Article courtesy: The Tribune)
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