Chen Shui-bian

Chen Shui-bian (Traditional Chinese: 陳水扁; Hanyu Pinyin: Chén Shuǐbiǎn; Wade-Giles: Ch'en Shui-pien; Pe̍h-oē-jī: Tân Chúi-píⁿ) (born October 12, 1950), Taiwanese politician, has been the President of Taiwan since May 20, 2000. He is colloquially referred to as A-Bian (阿扁; Ābiǎn; Taiwanese: 阿扁仔 A-píⁿ--a).

Chen, whose Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has traditionally been supportive of Taiwan independence, took office in 2000 ending more than fifty years of Kuomintang (KMT) rule in Taiwan. Though he moderated his stance and took conciliatory gestures, Chen remains a divisive figure for his position of Taiwan independence.

On November 3, 2006, his wife and three other high ranking officials of the Presidential Office were officially charged with corruption of NTD14.8 million (~USD $460,000) of government funds using faked documents.^[1]

Early years

Unlike most prominent politicians in Taiwan, Chen came from an impoverished background. Chen was born to a tenant farming family in Kuantien Township of Tainan County on the second day of the ninth lunar month in 1950 but was not formally issued a birth certificate until February 18, 1951 because of doubts that he would survive.

In June 1969, he was admitted to the National Taiwan University. Initially a Business Administration major, he switched to Law in his first year and became editor of the school's law review. He passed the bar exams before the completion of his junior year with the highest score, earning him the distinction of being Taiwan's youngest lawyer. He graduated in 1974 with a LL.B. in Commercial Law.

In 1975, he married Wu Shu-chen, the daughter of a physician. The couple have a daughter, Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤), who is a dentist and son, Chen Chih-Chung (陳致中), who, after having been received a law degree in Taiwan, studied at and graduated with a Master of Laws degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005.^[2]

From 1976 to 1989, Chen was a partner in Formosa International Marine and Commercial Law, where he specialized in maritime insurance and held the firm's portfolio for Evergreen Marine Corporation.

Entrance into politics

Chen became involved in politics in 1980 when he defended the participants of the Kaohsiung Incident against a military court. While his client Huang Hsin-chieh (黃信介), the leading opposition dissident, and seven co-defendants, including his future Vice President Annette Lu, were all found guilty, Chen came to be known for his forceful and colorful arguments. He has stated that it was during this period that he realized the unfairness of the political system in Taiwan and became politically active as a member of the Tangwai movement.

Chen won a seat in the Taipei City Council as a Tangwai candidate in 1981 and served until 1985. In 1984, he founded the pro-opposition Civil Servant Public Policy Research Association, which published a magazine called Neo-Formosa.

On January 12, 1985, Chen was sentenced to a year in prison for libel, when, as editor of a Neo-Formosa magazine, he published an article critical of Elmer Feng, then a college philosophy professor who was later elected a Kuomintang (KMT) legislator. As he was appealing the sentence, he returned to Tainan to run for county magistrate in November 1985. Three days after losing the election, his wife, Wu Shu-chen was hit by a truck, twice, as they were thanking their supporters, which left her paralyzed from the waist down. His supporters believed this was part of a government campaign to intimidate him. Chen writes in his autobiography that he feels guilty to his late father-in-law for this incident because of his failure to keep up to the promised that his actions in politics will not harm his family and ignoring repeated death threats from his opponents.

Chen lost his appeal in May 1986 and began serving his eight months in the Tucheng Penitentiary (土城看守所) along with Huang Tien-fu (黃天福) and Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋), two other defendants in the same case. While he was in prison, his wife campaigned and was elected to the Legislative Yuan. Chen also reflects how the various visits his wife made to him in prison overwhelmed him as she often fell off from the wheelchair with no one to assist her. Upon his release, Chen served as her legislative assistant and practiced law.

In 1989, Chen was elected to the Legislative Yuan and served as the executive director of the Democratic Progressive Party Congress. With the support of some KMT colleagues, Chen was also elected convener of the National Defense Committee. He was instrumental in laying out and moderating many of the DPP's positions on Taiwan independence, including the four ifs. He was reelected to another three year term in 1992, but resigned in two years to become mayor.

Mayor of Taipei

Chen was elected as the mayor of Taipei in 1994, largely as the result of a vote split between the highly unpopular KMT incumbent Huang Ta-chou (黃大洲) and the KMT-spin-off New Party (NP) candidate Chao Shaokong (趙少康). Unable to find experienced bureaucrats from his own party, Chen and his inner circle of young law school graduates retained many of the KMT administrators and delegated considerable authority.

During his term, Chen received accolades for his campaigns to drive illegal gambling and prostitution rackets out of Taipei. He levied large fines on polluters and reformed public works contracts. He closed brothels and demolished the slums to create a new park. Chen renamed many of the roads in Taipei, most notably the road which runs between KMT Headquarters to the Presidential Palace from "Chieh-shou Road" (介壽路 jiè shòu lù) (Longevity for Chiang Kai-shek Road) to "Ketagalan Boulevard" (凱達格蘭大道) in an effort to acknowledge the aboriginal people of the Taipei basin. Chen also made highly publicized evictions of longtime KMT squatters on municipal land, and ordered Chiang Wei-kuo's estate demolished. Chen was also named one of Asia's rising stars, and Taipei became one of the top 50 cities in Asia according to Time Magazine's Asia version.

Despite receiving more votes both in absolute and in percentage terms than his 1994 campaign, Chen lost this position in 1998 to the KMT's rising star Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in large part because the KMT was able to get the support of New Party supporters. In his first autobiography, "The Son of Taiwan", Chen wrote that he was not entirely upset about losing the reelection as it gave him opportunity to find out what areas in his political career he could improve. For example, he wrote that Mainlanders generally approved of his social and economic improvements in Taipei, but they ultimately voted for Ma because of ethnic tensions. He also traveled extensively nationwide and abroad. In South Korea, he met with President Kim Dae Jung, who presented him with an award.

He also met with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who promised that he would celebrate if he won the 2000 presidential elections. Due to obvious complications, this promise was not fulfilled until late 2003.

First term presidency

In an election eerily similar to Taipei's in 1994, Chen won the 2000 presidential election on March 18 with only 39% of the vote as a result of a split of factions within the Kuomintang, when James Soong ran for the presidency as an independent against the party nominee Lien Chan.

Lacking a clear mandate and inheriting a bureaucracy largely loyal to the KMT, Chen tried to reach out to his opposition. He appointed the KMT conservative mainlander Tang Fei, a former general and the incumbent defense minister, as his first Premier. Only half of Chen's original cabinet were DPP members, as few DPP politicians had risen above the local level. Although a supporter of Taiwan independence, Chen moderated his stance during his campaign and pledged the Four Noes and One Without in his inaugural address—that as long as the People's Republic of China has no intention to use military force against Taiwan, he would not declare independence nor change the national symbols of the Republic of China. He also promised to be "president of all the people" and resigned his chairmanship from the DPP. His approval rating reached 70%.

Chen's administration ran into many problems, and its policies were constantly blocked by the Pan-Blue Coalition-controlled legislature. The stock market lost over half its value within a year and unemployment reached 4.5%. While Chen's detractors blamed Chen's poor leadership for the economic crisis, the administration blamed the legislature for blocking its relief efforts.

More troublesome for Chen was the political showdown over the construction of the Number Four Nuclear Power Facility (第四核能發電廠). This multibillion dollar project in Kungliao (貢寮) was already one-third completed and favored by the pro-business KMT as a means of avoiding an energy shortage. However, the environmentalist DPP strongly objected to the expansion of nuclear power. Premier Tang had threatened to resign if the project were cancelled, and Chen accepted his resignation on October 3, 2000, only four and a half months after both had taken office. Chen appointed his political ally Chang Chun-hsiung as Tang's replacement. On October 27, Chang announced that the government would halt construction. But less than an hour before, President Chen had met with Lien Chan to reconcile differences. Lien had asked Chen to leave the matter for the Legislative Yuan to decide and Chen seemed receptive to the suggestion. When Chang's announcement came out, Lien was furious and the KMT began an effort to recall the President. The Council of Grand Justices intervened and declared that it was the legislature and not the cabinet that had the power to decide on the issue. This was widely seen as the end of Chen's attempts to face the pan-blue groups head on. By the end of his first year in office, Chen's approval ratings had dropped to 25%.

During summer of 2001, Chen flew to Los Angeles, Houston, and New York City, where he met with members of the U.S. Congress. The mayor of Houston presented Chen with a key to the city and gave him cowboy clothing. His trip to the Big Apple was a first for a head of state from Taiwan as there was unwritten agreement between the US and China that no head of state from Taiwan would be permitted to visit either New York or Washington, D.C.

After his first year in office, Chen seemed to move away from sending conciliatory gestures. In the summer of 2002, Chen became the chairman of the DPP. During his tenure, images of Chiang Kai-shek, and Chiang Ching-kuo (and to a lesser degree Sun Yat-sen) have disappeared from public buildings. The word "TAIWAN" is now printed on new ROC passports. Also continuing a trend from the previous administration, the Education Ministry has revised the school curriculum to be more Taiwan-centered. Government websites have also tended to promote the notion that China is synonymous with the PRC. The "Free China Review" has been renamed the Taiwan Review and Who's Who in the ROC has been renamed Who's Who in Taiwan. In January 2003, a new Taiwan-Tibet Exchange Foundation was formed but the Cabinet-level Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (蒙藏委員會) was not abolished. Though Chen has proposed talks with the PRC, relations remain deadlocked as Chen has refused to pledge to the One-China Policy, as required by the PRC for talks to begin. Such a pledge seemed unlikely for Chen since there remains strong opposition within his own party. Despite these symbolic gestures, Chen moved away from "no haste, be patient" policy and opened the three mini links.

Position on Taiwan's status

Chen's and the Democratic Progressive Party position on Taiwan's political status is that Taiwan is already an independent, sovereign nation named the Republic of China. This has the implication that a declaration of independence is unnecessary as Taiwan is already independent. This view point, however, is subjected to change in each election campaign. At the same time, it also has the implication that the pledge by Chen to preserve the status quo or not change Taiwan's sovereign status would not preclude a declaration of independence but would preclude acceptance of the one China policy.

It is generally accepted that Chen's position on this issue is intended and to a large degree has succeeded in placating his pro-independence supporters without crossing any red lines that would trigger war. His supporters see these positions as creative and indicative of a willingness to compromise. However, it is also common among his opponents in Taiwan, as well as among policy makers in mainland China and the pro-PRC United States politicians to see his statements in their own much darker terms. Many among his critics believe that his positions and actions reveal Chen to be an old style Taiwanese politician and promote that his seemingly conciliatory statements are merely a smokescreen to advance a hidden agenda of advancing de-facto Taiwan independence. These suspicions appear to arise from the actions of his KMT predecessor Lee Teng-hui who now readily admits to secretly trying to advance de-facto Taiwan independence during his presidential terms.

President Chen admits that he leans towards independence but his main position is opposition to adopting the One China principle since it prevents Taiwanese people from being able to decide upon their own future. From this it is speculated that if a large majority of Taiwanese did vote for unification in a referendum without the PRC putting any diplomatic or military pressure on Taiwan during the referendum, Chen would abide by the result.

In an interview in July 2005, Chen explicitly repudiated the position of all former Taiwanese leaders that the Republic of China was still the legitimate government of the whole of China. "The republic of China on Taiwan and the People's Republic of China on the mainland are two separate countries with divided rule and do not exercise sovereignty over each other," he said. "Under the principle of popular sovereignty and self determination, we consider that the question of whether Taiwan should be united with China should be the decision of the 23 million people of Taiwan." [1]

On February 28, 2006, Chen announced the National Unification Council, set up in 1990, and its guidelines, which had committed Taiwan to unification if China adopts democracy, would "cease to function". He took care to use the phrase "ceased to exist" rather than abolish when he made the announcement because he had promised in 2000 that he would not abolish the council or its guidelines. Newspapers on both sides of the Taiwan strait criticized Chen severely for scrapping the unification council.

On March 2, 2006 in a stern announcement, Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman of the US state department, said that the US expected the Taiwan authorities to publicly correct the record that there is no distinction between "abolish" and "ceasing activity" and unambiguously affirm that the February 27 announcement did not abolish the National Unification Council and did not change the status quo and that the assurances remain in effect. American Institute in Taiwan - Official Texts

Re-election campaign and referendum

In late 2003, he signed a controversial referendum bill, which he had supported but was heavily watered down by the Pan-Blue majority legislature. One concession that the legislature made was to include a provision for an emergency defensive referendum and during the legislative debates it was widely believed that this clause would only be invoked if Taiwan was under imminent threat of attack from China as has been so often threatened. Within a day of the passage of the referendum bill, Chen stated his intention to invoke this provision, citing PRC's over 450 missiles aimed directly at the Taiwanese. Pan-Blue believed that his bill was only intended to benefit Chen in the coming election, as whether PRC removes the missiles cannot be decided by ROC's referendum result.

In October 2003, Chen flew to New York City for the second time. At the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, he was presented with the Human Rights Award by the International League of Human Rights. In the subsequent leg of the trip to Panama, he met with US Secretary of State Colin Powell and shook hands with him. This high profile trip raised Chen's opinion polls ahead of his opponent Lien Chan for the first time at 35%, according to Agence France Presse.

His use of the referendum in combination with his talk of a new constitution lead many among his reunification critics to believe that he would attempt to achieve Taiwan independence in his second term by invoking a referendum to create a new constitution that would formally separate Taiwan from any interpretation of China. This caused the Bush led government of the United States to follow the lead of Chen's political critics and issue a rare rebuke of Chen's actions.

Chen was shot in the stomach while campaigning in the city of Tainan on Friday, March 19, 2004, the day before polls opened on Saturday. According to Chen, the bullet left a flesh wound that was 8 cm long and 2 cm deep and was found in his clothes. He left the hospital on the same day with 14 stitches. His Vice President Annette Lu was shot in the leg in the same incident. Many believe that the shooting was a set-up to help Chen win the election by earning sympathy votes. Since the incident, a large quantity of rumors, conspiracy theories, claims and counter-claims have been generated and propagated both on the Internet and in the Taiwanese media, though to this day they remain unsubstantiated allegations.

The following day, Chen narrowly won the election with a margin of less than 30,000 votes out of 12.9 million votes counted. Both of his referendum proposals were rejected due to insufficient turnout. The Pan-Blue candidate Lien Chan refused to concede and sued both for a recount and for a nullification of the outcome while supporters held a week-long protest in front of the presidential office in Taipei due to alleged election irregularities throughout the island. He also claimed that the shooting was staged by Chen to win sympathy votes. Chen claimed that the shooting could not have been staged because it would be too dangerous to have himself shot in a moving jeep and also challenged Lien and Vice Presidential Candidate James Soong to try their luck with a shooter in a stationary jeep. However, most theories on how the shooting could have been staged do not center on Chen's injury having occurred while he was in the moving jeep. Most theories go along the lines that his wound was made beforehand and/or afterwards. Of course, this does not explain the sudden appearance of bullet holes in the window of the jeep.

Throughout the election, Chen planned to hold a referendum in 2006 on a new constitution to be enacted upon the accession of the 12th-term president in May 2008. After the election, he sought to reassure critics and moderate supporters that the new constitution would not address the issue of sovereignty, and that the current constitution was in need of comprehensive reform after more than a decade of patchwork revision.

There have been two interpretations of Chen's actions during the election in terms of independence politics. The first is that he is ideologically committed to advancing Taiwan independence and that his actions are intended to systematically remove the constraints which prevent this from occurring. Seen in this light, his actions are intended to provoke a crisis in which the PRC must either start a war or accept independence, with the expectation that the PRC would back down. Ironically, this interpretation of his actions is shared both among his most fervent supporters (who think it is a good thing) and his most bitter opponents (who think that it is a bad thing). It is largely to counter this possibility that the PRC has issued statements that it will definitely go to war if certain red lines are crossed. However, they in reality carry little meaning, as Beijing has made such statements warning against electing former President Lee and Chen in the 1996 and 2000 elections, which both failed to materialize. Some people regard these statements now as reverse psychology, as Lee and Chen may help to weaken ROC and advance the unification process.

The second interpretation is that Chen's actions are primarily intended to placate his core supporters rather than provoke a crisis. People who subscribe to this interpretation point out that Chen's early efforts to moderate his pro-independence position did not create a positive reaction either from Mainland China or from his anti-independence opponents on Taiwan. He also alienated some pro-independence supporters. Therefore Chen was forced to take a more assertive approach both as a negotiation tactic with the PRC and to keep support from his core supporters. This strategy is consistent with the oft-stated position that Taiwan would only seek independence as a preemptive measure in the face of evidence of PRC military aggression. However, even this interpretation provokes unease among many people, especially among policy makers in Mainland China and the United States. The first problem is that this interpretation makes Chen seem like an old-style Taiwan politician that seems to say whatever pleases people. The second, more serious problem is the fear that through misunderstanding and misinterpretation, Chen may provoke a war without intending to do so, as Mainland China has repeatedly claimed that any progress towards independence would provoke war.

Second term presidency

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