Taiwanese democracy arouses envy and tears because of visiting Chinese

At Taipei's train station, a Chinese human rights activist named Cuicui watched with envy as six young Taiwanese politicians campaigned for the city's legislative seats. Ten years ago they had been involved in parallel democratic protest movements – those in China and the politicians across the Taiwan Strait.

“We came of age as activists around the same time. Now they are acting as lawmakers while my colleagues and I are in exile,” said Cuicui, who fled China for Southeast Asia last year due to security reasons.

Cuicui was one of eight women I followed in Taiwan last week before the January 13 elections. Their tour was called “Details of a Democracy” and was curated by Annie Jieping Zhang, a mainland-born journalist who worked in Hong Kong for 20 years before moving to Taiwan during the pandemic. Her goal is to help mainland Chinese see the Taiwan elections for themselves.

The women went to election rallies and spoke to politicians and voters, but also to the homeless and other disadvantaged groups. They attended a stand-up comedy show by a man from China, now living in Taiwan, whose humor tackled topics taboo in his home country.

It was an emotional journey full of envy, admiration, tears and revelations.

The group made several stops at sites demonstrating the “White Terror” crackdown that Taiwan endured between 1947 and 1987, when tens of thousands of people were imprisoned and at least a thousand people executed after being accused of spying for China. They visited a former prison where political prisoners were held. For them, it was a history lesson in Taiwan's journey from authoritarianism to democracy, a path they say is increasingly out of reach in China.

“Although it may seem like we are traveling back in time to people in Taiwan, for us it is the present,” said Yamei, a Chinese journalist in his 20s who now lives outside China.

Members of the group came from Japan, Southeast Asia and the United States – everywhere except China. Both China and Taiwan have made it more difficult for Chinese to visit the island as tensions between them have increased over Beijing's increasingly assertive claim to the island. They ranged in age from twenty to seventy. Some were activists like Cuicui, who recently left the country, while others were professionals and businesspeople who have lived abroad for years and are not necessarily political in nature.

Angela Chen, a real estate agent in Portland, Oregon, joined the tour to take her mother on vacation. Ms. Chen is a naturalized U.S. citizen who culturally identifies as Chinese. The trip was an eye-opener, she said. She was shocked to learn how tragic and intense the democratization process in Taiwan had been. Her father, like many Chinese parents, told her not to get involved in politics. Now she believed that everyone should contribute to help society progress.

Until a decade ago, visiting Taiwan to witness the elections was a popular activity among mainland Chinese interested in exploring the possibilities of democratization.

It's easy to see why. Most Taiwanese speak Mandarin and share a cultural heritage with China as Han Chinese. As mainlanders searched for an alternative Chinese society, they naturally turned to Taiwan for answers.

I traveled to Taiwan in 2012 to report on one such group, which included more than a dozen top Chinese intellectuals, entrepreneurs and investors. At the time, debates about the pros and cons of democracy, republicanism and constitutionalism were common on Chinese social media.

Opinion leaders wondered whether China would ever have a leader like Chiang Ching-kuo, the Taiwanese president who gradually turned away from the dictatorial rule of his father, Chiang Kai-shek, in the 1980s.

That seems like a lifetime ago. Soon after, Xi Jinping took over as leader of China, and he has taken the country in the opposite direction. Civil society has been pushed underground and discussions about democracy are banned.

Last week's group visited Taiwan under very different circumstances. Most of them wished to remain anonymous and agreed to speak to me only if I called them by their first names, because merely encouraging Taiwanese democracy is politically sensitive.

At the Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park, the former prison, the group could easily imagine how people had spent their time in crowded, damp and shabby cells and washed their clothes in toilets.

“Many people thought that democracy in Taiwan was falling apart,” Antonio Chiang, a former journalist, dissident and adviser to outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen, told the group over lunch after their visit to the prison. “It was the result of the efforts of many people,” he said.

Mr Chiang added: “It will take a very long time for China to become a democracy.”

Everyone knew that was true. Still, it was deflating for them to hear. But their despair did not last long.

They heard from the daughter of Cheng Nan-jung, a publisher and pro-democracy activist, who set herself on fire to protest the lack of freedom of expression in 1989. At the scene of his self-immolation, her comments were echoed by visiting Chinese . : “A country's predicament can only be solved by the people of that country themselves.”

Then they went to the stand-up show of the comedian, who came from Xinjiang, the western Chinese region where more than a million Muslims have been sent to re-education centers. Everyone cried. It was both heartbreaking and cathartic for them to hear someone use words such as “Uyghurs,” “re-education camps” and “lockdowns,” which are considered too sensitive to be discussed in a public venue in China.

“If everyone does what they can, does it well and with a little more courage, our society will be better,” said the comedian, who did not want to be named.

For the group, the most empowering part of the tour was seeing how citizens organized themselves and cast their votes. As visitors gathered at the island's presidential palace, Yamei, the journalist, was surprised to see the entrance painted peach pink.

“It wasn't an institution surrounded by absolute solemnity or high walls that would intimidate you,” she said. The contrast with Zhongnanhai, the residence of China's top leaders in Beijing, “was quite striking.”

After watching a documentary about barmaids who had formed a union, they learned that the women had created legislation to protect their rights. That would be unthinkable for anyone in China.

Although homeless people are largely invisible in Chinese cities — because authorities do not allow them to be visible — the group found that many organizations in Taiwan provide homeless people with meals, places to shower and other support.

During election rallies, they saw voters – young and old, and parents with strollers – packing squares and stadiums to listen to the candidates cast their ballots.

In the days before the election, they had heard from many Taiwanese that they still had not decided which of the three presidential candidates to vote for. Still, election day turnout in Taiwan was 72 percent, higher than the 66 percent of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. highest voter turnout in America since 1900.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party's candidate, Lai Ching-te, won with 40 percent of the vote – not a satisfactory result even for some of the party's supporters. Yet the people chose who would be their leader.

At a rally in the southern city of Tainan, amid the sounds of drums, gongs and fireworks, Lin Lizhen, a jewelry store owner, proudly told the tour group: “This is democracy.”

Then she said, “I know the mainlanders also love freedom. They just don't have the strength to fight back.”