EDITORIAL: Even Ma must be dumbstruck

South Korea's snub of President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) envoys before the inauguration of its new President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday has once again highlighted the precarious position Taiwan occupies on the international stage.

National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Mark Chen (陳唐山) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) were turned away from the ceremony at the last minute after China threatened to withdraw its envoy and boycott the inauguration.

Reports have said that leaks from Taiwan about the "secret deal" regarding the duo's attendance enabled Beijing to pressure Seoul, while Mark Chen's sensitive position was also said to have been behind the rejection. The NSC chief's background as a prominent member of the independence movement would certainly not have helped matters.

More interesting was China's rejection of Wang, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) figure. The fact that China was prepared to so publicly disrespect a member of the KMT -- which has, we must remember, a shady cooperation pact with the Chinese Communist Party -- speaks volumes about Beijing's intolerance of anything Taiwanese on the diplomatic front, and would seemingly discredit KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) plans, should he be elected president next month, to strike a "modus vivendi" to solve the cross-strait impasse and expand Taiwan's international space.

With everything that has happened in the past eight years, it would be easy to forget that Chen Shui-bian struck an equally conciliatory note with Beijing prior to and following his election in 2000.

Indeed, in his 2001 New Year speech, Chen offered to "seek permanent peace and build a new mechanism for political assimilation between the two sides" through "cross-strait trade, economic and cultural integration."

Back then, the president even said the "one China" concept would not present a problem as "the ROC [Republic of China] Constitution already delineated the nature of `one China.'" His only caveats were that Beijing respect the "ROC's survival space and its international dignity, and publicly renounce the use of force."

It would seem that Ma's novel cross-strait solution, now that he has promised not to talk about unification, is like old wine in a new bottle. Ma's Democratic Progressive Party rival Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) would do well to remind him of this during their second debate.

The reaction here to China's latest act of suppression was also interesting, as it once again demonstrated the split personality of the KMT, with presentable figurehead Ma seemingly at odds with the party's pro-China core.

On the one hand, Ma, as he has done on several occasions, slammed China for marginalizing Taiwan, while on the other KMT Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁芳) seemed to take pleasure in the nation's latest diplomatic defeat, as it provided him with another opportunity to lambaste the government ahead of next month's election.

Not a word of criticism for Beijing from the patriotic Lin, but what should we expect when all Lin and his cronies have done in reaction to every diplomatic setback over the last eight years is snipe from the galleries?

Lin's gloating should serve as a timely reminder to all of the dangerous, pro-China baggage that will accompany Ma should he win the presidency, while China's behavior proves that, contrary to what it says on his campaign posters, a Ma victory next month would not -- diplomatically and internationally at least -- result in any substantive breakthrough.