A United Daily News Commentary: Can the DPP Still Return to Its Past?

  A United Daily News Commentary

Can the DPP Still Return to Its Past?

 June 27, 2017

Though not speaking out, inside the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), recently there indeed permeates a wave of voices calling for cross-Strait policy review. Lai Ching-te publicly shouted "pro-China, loving Taiwan"; not only the Presidential Office echoed, other Green camp local chiefs chimed in by uttering phrases such as friendly to China, at peace with China, and knowing China. Premier Lin Chuan even said that "the signing of ECFA was correct." he said. People cannot but feel "what night is tonight?” with all this.

In fact, Lin Chuan was not the first person that did justice to ECFA among the Green camp. In the campaign leading up to the 2012 Presidential election, Tsai Ying-wen and Ma Ying-jeou debated the subject of ECFA. Tsai Ing-wen even declared that if elected, she would abrogate ECFA through a plebiscite. However, when she was later asked about this issue, she then said that she would not abrogate ECFA, nor would she definitely initiate a plebiscite.  

Serving in the Green camp and publicly affirming ECFA, Lin Chuan is still a rarity. Viewed against the development of the recent situation, it’s nothing other than the DPP's cross-Strait and foreign policy paths have entered a dead-end alley, eliciting a negative reaction from the public, thus resulting in such rhetoric. Before Tsai Ying-wen came to power, the Green camp bragged that "If the DPP assumed power, Beijing will have to engage in a dialogue with the DPP government." Now, this rhetoric has been proven to be wishful thinking, leaving people sighing with disbelief.

The DPP has always held politics as supreme, viewing cross-Strait relations through the prism of reunification/independence ideology, having successfully labeled the Kuomintang (KMT) as Red, and ultimately won the Presidential election. However, whether an advocacy when in ​​opposition could be fulfilled when in power, looking at the present, it has been running into a brick wall. The Tsai government is facing a crossroads: no viable path forward, no assurance of passage turning right or left. How could the DPP explain to its supporters a return to the past and recognition of the KMT’s cross-Strait path?

The DPP's cross-Strait policy, we are afraid, will soon become a textbook lesson useful for educating generations to come. Fools employ all imaginable means to chase the paradise across the rainbow, but find that there are only barren and desolate fields. However, to return to this side of the rainbow, there is no more retreat. It is irrelevant whether Lin Chuan does or does not affirm ECFA because we cannot find a space to turn around.

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