Once More, With Feeling: DPP Mayor of Kaohsiung Returns to Visit the Mainland

By Kaelyn Lowmaster

Mayor Chen Chu of Kaohsiung, Taiwan's visit to the mainland takes place in different circumstances to her visit four years ago. Source: Rainlan's flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

Mayor Chen Chu of Kaohsiung’s visit to the mainland takes place in very different circumstances from her visit four years ago. Source: Rainlan’s flickr photostream, used under a creative commons license.

On August 9, Mayor Chen Chu of Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s largest municipality, embarked on a six-day visit to four cities in mainland China. Mayor Chen is a leading member of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the pro-independence opposition to current president Ma Ying-jeou’s ruling Kuomintang Party (KMT). According to official mainland media, Chen’s Chinese hosts have welcomed her with an unusual degree of deference, evidence of a level of engagement that has not often characterized mainland-DPP ties in recent years.

This is not Chen’s first trip across the Strait, however. Four years ago, amid a similar flurry of media speculation, she became the highest-ranking DPP member to visit the mainland while in office. Much has changed since that breakthrough visit, both for the DPP and for the dynamics of cross-strait relations. More than a simple repetition of history, Chen’s encore mainland tour may indicate that the DPP is working to position itself to be an acceptable alternative to the KMT on cross-strait affairs and that Beijing is beginning to take the reinvigorated party seriously.

Although officially billed as a tour for promoting the World Games in Kaohsiung, Chen’s 2009 trip was set against a backdrop of intense turmoil for her party. The KMT had a monopoly on cross-Strait policymaking and the DPP was struggling with the efficacy of its uncompromising independence platform. Former DPP president Chen Shui-bian was in prison for corruption, the party’s relations with the United States were strained, and the last attempt by a mayor of Kaohsiung to arrange a cross-Strait exchange had failed almost a decade earlier. Some observers viewed Chen’s visit as a prelude to a DPP policy shift, indicating the DPP might be willing to soften its mainland policy in order to improve its electoral prospects.

Not long after her first visit, however, DPP-mainland ties deteriorated even further when Mayor Chen invited the Dalai Lama to Kaohsiung to pray for victims of Typhoon Morakot. Beijing reprimanded the DPP for its “ulterior motives” in welcoming the exiled spiritual leader, claiming the party was leveraging “separatist activities” and promising that the Dalai Lama’s visit to Taiwan was bound to negatively influence cross-strait relations. An unofficial mainland ban on travel to Kaohsiung began and the DPP lost any remaining clout to craft a functioning cross-Strait policy.

A mere four years after Chen and her party were broadly denounced, she is now “very much welcomed” by top mainland officials. Beijing’s feud with Chen as an individual seems to have faded, but it is clear that more substantial shifts in DPP strategy underpin the decision to reopen dialogue on both sides.

First, the DPP has made considerable progress in codifying its agenda, particularly on national defense. The party’s messaging has also become more unified and effective, a stark contrast to the factionalized bickering that some claimed contributed to the DPP’s disappointing performance in past elections. The party will continue to face some challenges relating to its staunch pro-independence stance and former President Chen’s legacy, but the mainland’s willingness to accept Mayor Chen’s visit without any preconditions is evidence that the DPP has struck a pragmatic balance between upholding its party platform and maintaining relations with Beijing.

Second, the DPP has also begun to repair its ties with the United States after the damage inflicted by Chen Shui-bian’s second administration. In June 2013, DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang visited the United States to meet with members of Congress and inaugurate a new party liaison office in Washington, D.C. The party is crafting an image as a capable manager of relations with the United States, which has enjoyed solid working ties with the Ma administration, as a key element of the DPP’s emerging foreign policy platform.

Meanwhile, President Ma and the KMT are grappling with huge challenges back home.  Ma’s approval ratings bottomed out at 15.2% in May and his administration has lost a series of top officials to scandal, most recently two defense ministers in the span of one week. As the KMT deals with recent “anemic” economic growth figures, the DPP is increasingly presenting itself as a formidable challenger in the 2014 local elections and ultimately in the 2016 presidential race.

Mayor Chen’s trip reflects a remarkable reversal of the DPP’s political fortunes in the past four years. Backed by a substantially stronger DPP, she is visiting a mainland that is, by necessity, much more tolerant of a party that was once a mere irritant. As the party’s return to power gradually becomes a less remote possibility, Beijing is realizing the importance of developing a working relationship.

Ms. Kaelyn Lowmaster is a researcher with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS.

Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *