When Beijing's hegemonic epithet for Taiwan's Olympic team made an unwelcome reappearance on China Central Television (CCTV) over the weekend, the response by the Taiwanese government was equally disappointing.
Reporting on taekwondo gold medalist Chu Mu-yen (朱木炎), CCTV again swapped the nation’s official Olympic name for Zhongguo Taibei. An apology from Beijing seems unlikely, however, judging from the Presidential Office’s timid statement on Sunday.
The re-emergence of this contrived moniker was bad news for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who only a week earlier said that China had agreed to end its name game and so declared a diplomatic victory for his administration. For Ma, Beijing’s about-face was a scarce and sorely needed gesture of “goodwill” to combat critics at home who have said cross-strait “compromise” is a one-way street.
That may be why the office was reluctant to raise its voice over CCTV’s recent decision to keep using the non-official title, lest it erase the earlier triumph. Instead, the Presidential Office said it would monitor the situation, adding that CCTV had reportedly admitted to a “technical error.”
The government is not alone in its reluctance to react. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), who last month bristled at the name change, is now strangely quiet. Wu had said he would cancel his trip to attend the Olympics if China continued to play “word games.”
But choosing not to issue an immediate protest this time was a risky tactic for Ma. The administration’s stern objection to altering Taiwan’s Olympic name was as important for the president’s image at home as it was for building trust with Beijing. Silence on the issue now could be interpreted as spinelessness, further compromising the nation’s bargaining position with China and eroding Ma’s already sagging approval ratings.
The timing was also awkward for Ma, who, on the same day as the Presidential Office’s ineffectual response to CCTV, touted his administration’s diplomatic prowess to a group of former foreign ministers. At a dinner honoring the officials, Ma sung the praises of agreeing to disagree, saying that his modus vivendi approach to foreign policy had already paid off.
But there is cause to object to this recurring theme. When Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office first dreamed up Zhongguo Taibei, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), after meeting with the president and premier, called on China to remember its consensus with Taiwan to set aside disputes. Unfortunately, there is scant evidence that Beijing sees itself as having reached any such deal. Instead, China seems more interested in testing the waters to see just how eager the new government is to maintain a show of “mutual goodwill.”
On Sunday, Ma said his “practical” approach would “protect the interests of the Republic of China” and “restore mutual trust” with other governments. The strategy had already improved relations with China as well as with allied nations, he said.
The sum of Ma’s many conciliatory remarks, however, has not put a stop to Beijing’s encroachment on Taiwan’s identity and international space. In that context, soft reactions to provocations like CCTV’s “error” may be setting the nation up for a hard fall when it becomes clear that Beijing was never interested in agreeing to disagree.
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers