Sunday's presidential debate rarely touched upon foreign policy. The main reason lies in the fact that China's diplomatic suppression and international isolation of Taipei is not contingent upon any "blue or green" policy.
During the debate, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) continued to criticize what he called the Democratic Progressive Party's(DPP) "fire-setting diplomacy" and blamed it for Taiwan's loss of diplomatic allies under President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Ma also blamed the DPP's bids to use the name "Taiwan" to apply for memberships in the WHO and the UN for creating distrust between Taiwan and many allies, including the US.
Since China is behind Taiwan's diplomatic difficulties, Ma promised to start negotiating with China over international space.
For Ma to characterize the DPP government with what he called a "confrontational approach" to Beijing and to overlook the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the real threat to Taiwan's international recognition and security was not surprising.
What concerns most voters is Ma's theory of using the so-called "1992 consensus" as the starting point to resume talks with Beijing. There are inherent contradictions to Ma's approach.
Ma seems to assume that seeking an improvement in cross-strait relations will automatically make China give Taiwan more international space and better treatment. Therefore he argues that both Taiwan and China should stop talking about "mutual recognition" and focus on "no mutual denial."
Ma's idea is wishful thinking and fails to address the question of the different definitions of "one China" made by the KMT and Beijing.
Even though there is no such thing as the "1992 consensus," the KMT advocates the "Republic of China [ROC]" as "one China," while the Chinese Communist Party insists the "People's Republic of China" represents "one China" and that "Taiwan is a part of the PRC."
Beijing does not accept the "Republic of China" as "one China" and has been excluding the ROC's participation in almost every international arena under the KMT's rule.
The then-KMT government enacted the so-called National Unification Guidelines and established the National Unification Council in 1991. Both governments engaged in political dialogue in 1992 and 1993.
The political atmosphere between Taipei and Beijing should have been moderate. However, between 1992 and 1998, Taiwan severed diplomatic relations with South Korea, Saint Lucia, South Africa and the Central Africa Republic. The diplomatic warfare continued even though cross-strait relations seemed relaxed.
How can Ma insist that he is for maintaining Taiwan's sovereignty while engaging Beijing with "no mutual denial?"
The assumption that Beijing would give Taiwan more international respect and space if Taiwan improves cross-strait relations is not realistic.
The most inconvenient truth is: If Ma is elected, Beijing will still not allow Taiwan to have observer status during the World Health Assembly in May.
The newly-elected president of Taiwan will be rejected a transit stop in Washington en route to Taiwan's diplomatic allies in Central America.
Even with a new electoral mandate, Beijing will not accept Ma's attendance at the APEC leadership summit in October.
Unless of course Ma plans to wait until his counterparts accept the so-called "1992 consensus" and then starts to perform his duty as a democratically-elected president of Taiwan. In that case, why would the voters waste their ballots and chose such a coward?
Liu Kuan-teh is a Taipei-based political commentator.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past