Rejecting Kadeer — and credibility

The government’s undertaking to block World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer from entering the country — if, as promised, she applies for a visa — should hardly come as a surprise. What is notable about Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah’s (江宜樺) declaration in the legislature yesterday is the speed with which the government has drawn its line in the sand: It will not be portrayed as provoking Beijing, and certainly not a week out from China’s National Day.

The government is well within its legal rights to deny Kadeer entry, however obsequious its motivation. Regardless of the merits of the applicant, few governments would deny other governments’ fundamental right to call the shots at ports of call. For his part, Jiang may cite the national interest and the public interest until he is blue in the face, but he can be comfortable in the knowledge that this is unnecessary; in most democratic states the distinction between these interests and the interests of the government of the day is blurred.

The recent granting of a visa to the Dalai Lama, a similarly controversial figure for Beijing, was likely forced by a combination of the Dalai Lama’s stated wish to comfort victims of Typhoon Morakot and the government’s embarrassment over its appalling response to the storm, as well as the general respect with which the Dalai Lama is held in this theologically eclectic society.

Kadeer, a Muslim but not a religious figure, can claim no such sympathy or camaraderie among Taiwanese, despite the worthiness of her cause. The government’s refusal to allow her into the country will thus suffer little backlash — even among grassroots supporters of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), many of whom have much more pressing issues with which to concern themselves.

Turning its back on Kadeer, however, places the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government in an interesting, and possibly theoretically vexing, position. The challenge for the DPP is to make hay out of this issue in a way that does not bore the public or distract it from the core of the problem.

This is the problem: When Jiang unctuously associated Kadeer with terrorist activity in Xinjiang, he effectively invited sober observers to ask what policy the KMT has on Chinese affairs other than reaping the immediate benefits of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).

We have observed previously that the KMT’s ideology has hollowed out so dramatically that even its chairman and top party official on “mainland” affairs have demonstrated that they have absolutely no idea — or interest in — what is going on in China in terms of political dissidence and instability, let alone intellectual and ideological debate.

The KMT, once a party with a grand vision, if poorly realized, is now a party with no vision other than denying Taiwan self-determination.

But the government’s speed in dumping Kadeer and the cause of mistreated Uighurs in general in the too-hard basket drags out a paradox that DPP thinkers must exploit: By refusing to engage crucial issues and closing its eyes to the mounting difficulties facing China — whether or not minorities are involved — the KMT buys into the Chinese Communist Party’s bankrupt approach to governance, thus rendering itself irrelevant to the solving of China’s problems and its complex process of transformation.

Source: Taipei Times - Editorials 2009/09/26