Fri, Oct 10, 2008 page8

• EDITORIAL: ROC fiction replacing Taiwan reality

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  Double Ten day fiction has arrived again and so it is appropriate to reflect on the nation’s status since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took power in May and why Taiwan continues to be an orphan in the international community.

  The confusion over Taiwan’s international status has its origins in the defunct Republic of China (ROC). When the ROC came into existence in 1912, Taiwan was not included in its Constitution because it was, at the time, a colony of Japan. After the Nationalists lost China’s civil war, the island became a refuge for them and the Constitution they brought with them. In other words, the ROC government was exiled to a land that was never part of its founding Constitution.

  So it’s somewhat odd that Ma told a Japanese magazine earlier this week that, under the ROC Constitution, the ROC “definitely is an independent sovereign state, and mainland [sic] China is also part of the territory of the ROC.”

  What era is Ma living in, and where? Espousing a discredited nationalist ideology in public demonstrates how far back Ma seeks to turn the clock on Taiwan’s maturing identity. It also dangerously lends credence to China’s unjustifiable claims over Taiwan.

  Matthew Lee (李世明), chief of the Department of Protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said 171 foreign guests from diplomatic allies and other countries would attend this year’s Double Ten day celebrations, a significant reduction from 368 people last year. It is hardly surprising that so few foreign dignitaries would show up when Ma is focusing so much on China.

  Justifying the large discrepancy, the ministry said that 584 guests attended Ma’s inauguration in June, effectively using up most of the Double Ten day budget. But the Double Ten day celebrations have their own budget. Moreover, the presidential election occurs once every four years, so calling Ma’s inauguration a national celebration is ridiculous. The real issue seems to be that Ma is trying to appease Beijing by keeping national day celebrations low-key.

  It is ironic that this year’s festivities will be held without a military parade just after the White House approved an arms package for Taiwan. This contrasts with last year’s celebrations, which featured a military parade at a time when the government and opposition parties failed to reach agreement over the arms deal. But suggestions earlier this week by National Security Bureau Director Tsai Chao-ming (蔡朝明) that the 2003 SARS outbreak might be a biological weapon spawned by China makes a weapons package seem less relevant.

  The current administration’s actions since it gained power — placing all its diplomatic and economic eggs in China’s basket while insisting that Taiwan is a “region” rather than a nation — betrays a government that has an interest in the fiction of a greater Chinese nationalism.

  As recently as 2006, Academia Sinica researcher Wu Nai-teh (吳乃德) showed a steady increase from 1991 to 2004 in the number of people identifying themselves as Taiwanese. He also showed that those identifying themselves as Chinese fell proportionately.

  In five months, Ma has brought the country back 10 years in terms of Taiwanese identity and a century in terms of creating a nation. Consequently, any meaningful participation internationally will have to wait at least another four years.
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