Study Of Ethnic Politics In Taiwan Presidential Election

By the late1980s and early1990s Taiwan’s politics gradually realized transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Today, Taiwan’s democracy in the system form has performed a relatively complete.There are almost all democratic systems, such as system of elected government, separation of power, competition of political party, local autonomy and regular election system, political power has realized alteration two times among political parties.The achievement of democracy in Taiwan had been praised by USA former president Bush as the "beacon of democracy in Asia and the World".However, we should know that Taiwan’s democracy still exists many insufficiencies in the process of carrying out democratic values, such as factional politics, vote—buying politics, political theater, and so forth. Among them, Taiwan’s ethnical politics taking the four major ethnic groups (Minnan ethnic group, Hakka ethnic group, Mainlander ethnic group and indigenous ethnic group) as social basis, taking political election as interaction’s stage and taking achieve political power as the main purpose, this is little beneficial to promote the continued development of democracy in Taiwan.Recognizing Taiwan’s ethnic group could be proposed two dimensions, namely static and dynamic dimension. Static ethnic politics mainly include organization set in the internal governmental agencies (like Hakka Committee) which safeguard the interests of ethnic group,and various policies and regulations (such as Aboriginal and Hakka’s establishment of Culture Park in Aboriginal and Hakka’s neighborhoods, The Hakka Basic Law) that closely related the interests of ethnic groups, and so on. Dynamic mainly refers to ethnic politics in the process of political elections.It has always been characterized by a process that ethnic political elites dominated,and various ethnic groups respond to ethnical elites’words and deeds.The way to respond concentratedly expresses in the voting, rally, march, demonstration, and so on. Ethnic politics in this paper is to analyze the dynamic sense of ethnic politics, and taking Taiwan’s "presidential"election process as the carrier, political orientation of the various ethnic groups when they vote and their voting results on a political party or politician as the object of study. This article bases on the analysis of president’s election process, and to extract some problems exist in ethnic politics in Taiwan, and thus analyze how to deal with problems and try to get some enlightenments through the analysis.Ethnical politics in the5president’s election, expecting different in intensity, it has always been there, and under the influence of voting inertia among ethnic groups, political elites always take more consideration on various ethnic groups when they are planning election affairs.During the transition from authoritarian regimes to democracy, the "dual" ethnic politics bases on province-different conflict developed into the"Four" ethnic politics that taking province-different contradiction as the core, and the four major ethnic groups interact together. In the five "presidential"elections, although the four ethnic groups have their own political orientation, but the difference bases on province is still the most important factor that affecting ethnic political orientation, especially for Minnan ethnic group and Mainlanders groups.We can find from the analysis of the "presidential"election process in Taiwan that ethnic politics is instrumental.This character mainly performs that ethnic political elites utilize ethnic groups to gain political power. This utilitarian tropism in ethnic politics will not be conducive to the healthy development of Taiwan’s democracy, and it is easy to touch off vicious competition among political parties, also exists the danger of deepening ethnic conflicts. Moreover, due to the special relationship between ethnic politics and national identity, utilitarian ethnic politics brings cross-strait reunification the new unknowns, which is not conducive to promote national unity. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a healthy election culture, enhance political mutual trust among parties,improve the level of institutionalization of political competition, and promote the integration of ethnic cultures. Those aspects Taiwan’s government needs to take more concerns.For China Continental, we can critically examine the status quo of Taiwan’s political parties, the pros and cons that ethnic groups participate in Taiwan’s politics, by this way, it maybe helps to promote the ethnic integration and political development. At the same time, taking more considerations on Taiwan’s ethnic political orientation from electoral process and result, it is beneficial to China Continental government makes effective cross-strait policies.