Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) returned to Taiwan yesterday after a five-day visit to Hong Kong. The Taiwan media, generally unificationist in outlook, has interpreted Beijing's tacit approval of his trip, made in his official capacity, as a goodwill gesture, while the warm welcome extended to Ma by the Hong Kong authorities has been called a breakthrough in Taipei-Hong Kong relations. This is so much boilerplate. A more objective evaluation of Ma's trip is due.
The enthusiastic welcome the mayor received from Hong Kongers can be largely attributed to his ability to turn himself into a media darling. Ma won enormous publicity by going for an early morning jog the day after he arrived in the territory. He also managed to belt out the ROC's national anthem at a dinner last Sunday night -- an act that astonished even the Taiwan reporters covering his trip. Ma brought his performance to a climax on the last day of his visit by staging yet another well-attended jogging session -- this time at one of Hong Kong's horse racing tracks.
Amid the media hype, people seemed to have forgotten not only the alleged main purpose of his trip -- to participate in the Taipei-Hong Kong City-to-City Forum and to promote city-to-city exchanges -- but any question about how well he pursued those goals and just what exactly he achieved.
Other noteworthy questions would be what are the possible after-effects of his visit and the trip's impact on cross-strait interaction.
Currently, Hong Kong needs Taiwan far more more than Taiwan needs the territory. Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's
On the economic side, Hong Kong's role as a bridge between the two sides of the Strait has been diminishing for years and will contract even more now that Taiwan has opened the "small three links" with China with full cross-strait links on the way. Since the 1997 handover, Hong Kong's importance to the Beijing authorities has been fading as they groom Shanghai for a return to its glory days as the premier gateway to China, displacing the not so fragrant "Fragrant Harbor." The anxiety of the SAR authorities is quite understandable -- and all the more reason for them to seek to woo Taipei in their fight against Shanghai.
Both political and economic considerations compelled Tung to open his arms wide to welcome Ma. However, for the charismatic rising star of the KMT to let himself be used by both the Beijing and Hong Kong authorities just to get an opportunity to visit in an official capacity -- to look "presidential" perhaps -- was both ill-advised and unnecessary.
Nevertheless, Ma is deserving of some praise. He should be applauded for telling Hong Kong that "one country, two systems" is neither suitable for Taiwan nor has any support here. After hearing such a message from the ardently pro-unificationist Taipei City mayor -- from the horse's mouth so to speak -- we hope Beijing will become more pragmatic in its dealings with Taiwan and stop pushing the "one country, two systems" model.
There is no way of knowing whether Ma made any under-the-table deals during his visit. But we call on him to understand where Taiwan's mainstream opinion stands and to make the right political choices rather than seeking short-lived satisfaction in being a media darling. For Ma, this is the right way to compete with President Chen Shui-bian
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations