Mutualism in politics: Frank Hsieh’s quest
Here is my loose translation and amalgamation of the 2nd and 5th chapters of Frank Hsieh (謝長廷)’s book: Mutualism and Prosperity: Believing in Taiwan. I did not translate word for word but the meanings of his original writing. To merge the two properly, I have had to trim off parts that are not essential, swapped paragraphs around and did some heavy editing to make it flow in English. But I have made sure that it stays true to what his chapters meant to convey.
I have left translations in black and my elaboration or explanation in green.
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When I proposed the concept of ‘Taiwan as a community sharing a common destiny’ (台灣命運共同體) in 1987, the aim was to promote cooperation and positive interactions between ethnic groups and between political parties. I was hoping to establish an ideological and theoretical basis for unity in the midst of all the conflicts in the democratic movement. Now, what the majority of Taiwanese want for future has been quite clear, that is to be a free and independent country entitled to full international participation. However, it is less clear how we are going to achieve this goal and how much we are willing to pay for it. All those issues require political leaders, intellectuals and the public to engage in continuous discussions in order to find a sensible and feasible strategy.
In 2005, President Chen Shui-bian announced in his New Year message that he would like to bring about a new prospect by having full scale consultations, negotiations and dialogues with the opposition (the KMT). He hoped to have a cabinet that can end the continuous internal frictions by having dialogues and negotiations on a good will basis. After several long conversations between President Chen and myself, I decided to accept his invitation and become the premier because that fit in with my belief in mutualism. I was sworn into the office on 1st February 2005. The core philosophy behind my policies and political practice was mutualism and my aim was to ameliorate animosity between political parties and in the society by initiating positive communications and negotiations. I was hoping that the society can recover as the political divide and confrontations subside, which would then create a more stable environment for investment. I was also planning a welfare reform, which would improve the quality of life, as one of my greatest goals is that everyone can live a happy life and feel hopeful about their future.
With the political frictions, there has been a pervasive lack of trust in the society. Without trust, nonzero sum games would not work. In fact, the society would not be able to function without trust in the first place. We might be suspicious of even the most basic provisions in everyday life such as whether our food is poisoned or contaminated or whether someone would run us over in the street. The higher the level of trust in a society, the more potential there is for development and vice versa. One must recognise that trust can be destroyed quickly and the speed by which it is rebuilt is extremely slow in comparison. Therefore, everyone, including politicians and the press, should all refrain from actions that destroy trust in the society. Once trust has been violated, it cannot be rebuilt by only half of the population or one political party. There is an urgent need to find a new way to interact with each other through which we replace zero sum games with non-zero ones and dissolve hostility with cooperation.
However, cooperation between the blue and the green camps has never happened before. After democracy was established in Taiwan, the dynamics between parties should no longer be characterised by oppression from the dictator and resistance from the oppressed. They are supposed to be equal competitors and protected by the constitution under which one is in charge and the other(s) keep the one with executive power in check. However, after the opposition and dissidents in the past got in power, transitional justice has not been properly dealt with and the party that used to oppress the people can still gain massive influence through democratic elections. Because the past human rights violations have not been investigated and the perpetrators have never been prosecuted or dismissed from their positions, the sense of injustice still lingers around and the tension between parties is always there. Such a gradual transition is like paying the price of reform by instalments (i.e. the cost is spread out but the interest is higher). Therefore, there are going to be challenges when we try to adopt mutualism. Nevertheless, I still believe that support for cooperation will emerge as we realise that the old zero-sum system no longer works.
Under mutualism, political parties do not have to give up their own values and stance but should set up transparent and accountable platforms for communications and negotiations. In other words, cooperation can take place on policies that do not violate each other’s core values or fundamental principles. For example, in the parliament, all parties can make announcements of their negotiable and non-negotiable items as well as their priority. As such, parties can cooperate through policy negotiations and establish an alliance, which would be a stable majority based on consensus on policies and priority (rather than party membership per se). Later on, we can decide whether there should be any power sharing between parties depending on how the alliance works.
Similarly, the Cabinet can communicate with the opposition legislators on bills or proposals they are working on and incorporate comments which both sides can agree on into the bill/proposal the Cabinet is going to send to the parliament. I wanted to establish a mechanism by which the executive and the legislative branches can communicate openly and effectively and different values and ideas can be considered in the process. I also believe that different parties have to learn to share and acknowledge the others’ contributions. For example, if a bill is the product of a bipartisan effort, the ruling party then has to acknowledge the contribution made by the opposition and should not take all the credit themselves. Similarly, no party should place all the blames on the other party and never admit to their own part in the mistakes. This way, a lot of political confrontations may be avoided. However, certain conditions have to be in place to make it work:
- Respect for each others’ rights to exist and take part
- Mutual benefit
- Equality
- Trust
- Rules and boundaries that facilitate mutualism
Respect for the others’ rights to exist is the most fundamental of all because without allowing others to exist, there would be no other parties to work with. When one is faced with someone who intends to destroy them, the first thing to do is to defend oneself. That is why all countries place their national security at the top of their priority. Similarly, if a party sets out to destroy another party (or other parties), they are threatening the others existence and are therefore not acceptable. If everyone spends all their energy attacking those who hold different views with the intention to eliminate competitions, common ground will become less and less visible. We should stand up to those who do so and resist in a constructive way. After all, differences themselves may be neutral and should be respected. If we do not suppress those differences, common ground will naturally emerge and serve as a basis for unity.
Throughout history, when a government or political system fails to maintain mutualism, it will eventually be overthrown and a new system will be born. Therefore, we are not discouraging resistance or speaking against the effort to end a bad government. What we should be against are those unnecessary antagonisms because they always lead to lose-lose situations. For example, when I first became the Kaohsiung mayor, the city councillors kept on attacking me to the point that my support rating dropped to about 30%. Interestingly, the satisfaction rating of the city council was only 19%. The same pattern emerged when I was the premier. My support rating and the satisfaction rating for the parliament both dipped to a new low when the KMT caucus kept on attacking me and blocking my bill. These examples show that when one attacks others without provocation, the attacker him/herself also gets hurt in some way.
Taiwan’s democracy is still in infancy compared to western democracies and therefore, the ways by which parties compete with each other are not always mature or healthy. Nevertheless, I still believe that mutualism is vitally important for politics and indeed Taiwan’s long term survival and development. If individuals within Taiwan cannot get along, how do we expect everyone to stand together against China’s threat? If China’s aim is to annex Taiwan, would it be easier for them with a unified or divided Taiwan? The answer is obvious. Therefore, if political parties are preoccupied with finishing each other off, who is going to benefit in the end?
Of course, in reality, it is rather difficult to adopt mutualism in politics but we need to try. We need to be better able to swallow our disappointment and see beyond our own grievance. It will be much easier if we have a greater goal and adopt a broader perspective. Besides, there is usually tremendous diversity within any party. If we leave those with the most extreme views, we may realise that there are many with whom we can establish agreements and amenable working relationships.
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CJ’s thoughts:
Hsieh stood down as the premier in January 2006. During the 11 months of his premiership, despite his good intention and hard work, the Chinese Nationalist Party continued to block everything he and his cabinet put forward, one of which I have written about before. The fact that Chen gave him little backing didn’t help. It was a tall order to expect Hsieh’s work to show visible benefits in that difficult political context within 11 months. It begs to the question on how genuine Chen was when he put Hsieh in that position. Even if Chen was genuine, he did not seem to have the wisdom to know what it takes or how long it takes. Even if he did have the wisdom, he certainly did not have the patience to wait for it to work.
However, we can still assess whether Hsieh has been practising what he preaches elsewhere and whether mutualism can work in politics. I have talked about how he worked with the TSU and maximised the political influence of the pan-green coalition before. What people tend to forget is that he managed to turn a hostile and KMT dominated Kaohsiung City Council around without making questionable exchanges and get his plans and proposals through as the Kaohsiung Mayor. Without that bit of effort, Kaohsiung definitely would not be like it is now.
Kaohsiung City Council used to be difficult to the point of being unreasonable, not only to Hsieh but the previous Mayors (i.e. Wu Den-yi and Su Nan-cheng). When Hsieh first got elected in 1998, there were only eight DPP councillors, which represented less than 20% of the seats. Hsieh and his cabinet often got into arguments with the councillors and they were kicked out during session several times. For a while, he was not getting very far with his proposals and even got reported to the Control Yuan like Wu and Su before him. He felt that the City Council was difficult for no good reason because neither he nor the previous Mayors were found guilty in the end but a lot of projects that could benefit the residents were put on hold. All the delays cost the taxpayers’ millions of dollars. Nevertheless, he decided to put his frustration to one side and patiently communicate and negotiate with the KMT councillors rather than confronting them like Chen did with Taipei City Council. Hsieh also accepted at least one KMT member into his cabinet and worked with them as a team. Hsieh’s success in Kaohsiung indicates that mutualism can work in politics if one persists and is sincere in their bid for cooperation.
There have been a lot of discussions among green supporters about who they’d support for the 2012 presidential race. The media successfully turned it into a Tsai Ing-wen vs. Su Cheng-chang competition. Despite having a lot silent support (Similar to Hsieh, his supporters are usually quiet and patient) and that he had the ability to turn it into a tight three way split, he still did not throw his hat in the ring. He said from very early on that everyone should talk about their vision and put forward their proposals before expressing an interest to run because vision is more important than personal ambition. He also said that everyone should be prepared to let someone else run if their ideas are similar and the other person stands a good or better chance to win. ‘It’s OK to let someone else realise my dreams if we share the same vision’, Hsieh said.
I’ll talk more about how he has been practising mutualism throughout his political career and highlight some contrasts in my next post.
References
‘A Youngster from the Blacksmith Street: The Story of Frank Hsieh (打鐵街少年: 謝長廷的故事)’written by Kuo Chiung Li, published in 2005.
‘Seeking Success in Adversity (逆中求勝)’ written by Kuo Chiung Li, published in 2007.
‘The sun in the south (日出南方)’ written by Frank Hsieh (Chang-ting), published in 2002.
Relevant post
Mutualism: the ultimate value and winning strategy
(Thanks to Jay for sharing his ideas and observations)
