Ma: The de-Taiwanifier
British playwright George Bernard Shaw was once purportedly told by a beautiful lady: “Sir, imagine if we two got married — our children would get my looks and your brains.” To which, Shaw replied: “Yes, but what if they got my looks and your brains?”
That appears to be what Taiwan is getting from its president: the worst of both worlds.
A Taiwanese president by definition is expected to resolutely defend the nation’s sovereignty. He must also be deliberate yet tentative as if stepping on thin ice when it comes to rapprochement with China.
Instead President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is giving Taiwan little more than trivialization of its sovereignty and outright de-Taiwanification — both in terms of its name and strength.
Only the presence of clandestine arrangements with China could rationally explain why Ma would make only a half-hearted attempt at “bringing the 23 million Taiwanese” to participate in the UN’s peripheral organizations and then characterize Beijing’s brush-off of the attempt as an “unintentional slip.”
Meanwhile, the Ma administration was forced to deny reports of comments American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Raymond Burghardt allegedly made to him during his visit to the US. Burghardt is reported to have told Ma to not hint that China holds sovereignty over Taiwan and instead insist that China not be allowed to determine whether Taiwan can participate in international activities. The rebuttal was similar to his previous denial that he asked Washington to postpone arms procurement processing.
Ma appears to be trying to convince Beijing that Taiwan will be part of China eventually and that, in the current domestic and international atmosphere, he is doing all he can. One example is his recent description of Taiwan as a “region” instead of a nation, a proclamation that, if allowed to stand, could quickly lead the discourse on the status of Taiwan down a steep and slippery slope.
But Washington is reminding Ma that the significant contribution the US has made to Taiwan’s ability to maintain its sovereignty has in no measure diminished even if Ma, the presumptive symbol of Taiwan’s sovereignty, has shirked his responsibility to uphold it.
Going far beyond what’s necessary for mollifying international fear of cross-strait conflicts, Ma’s string of unabashed pro-China policies is causing fresh unease in both Washington and Tokyo.
Beijing hasn’t forgotten that the only path for China to annex Taiwan is through war.
Ma’s political capital can only carry him so far toward unification. All Ma can manage now is de facto unification via Taiwan’s open border for Chinese, but he can’t formally deliver Taiwan to Beijing without a nod from the US. That nod couldn’t possibly be forthcoming considering the potential adverse strategic impact on Japan.
Taiwan’s deterrence capability is declining rapidly and its psychological defense is nearly non-existent following the truce between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). These only serve to stoke Beijing’s adventurous instincts. A severe economic downturn or political turmoil in China could still mark the launch of China’s military invasion of Taiwan.
Ma, if left unchecked to pursue his unification dream, could cost Taiwanese their sovereignty, democracy and prosperity and cast them into the jaws of war — the worst of both worlds indeed.
HUANG JEI-HSUAN
Los Angeles, California
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