It would be interesting to know whether the staff at the Presidential Office are adding Prozac to the building’s water supply, as there can be no other rational explanation for the ridiculous optimism emanating from 122 Chongqing S Road regarding cross-strait relations.
The latest example of this came on Tuesday, when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) told a group of visiting European parliamentarians that he hoped the country would be successful in its attempt to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) next year. One must commend Ma on his ability to put on a brave face when he must know Taiwan stands absolutely no chance of achieving that aim.
Has he already forgotten what happened to the “China-friendly” approach used for the nation’s annual UN bid just a few months ago? There is no reason to assume that the WHA bid will receive any different treatment.
Ma was in a similar mode on Monday, when he told a gathering of businesspeople that he hoped Taiwan could reinvigorate its manufacturing sector. It is anyone’s guess just how he intends to do this while his government is relaxing restrictions on businesses investing in China across the board.
Ma then proceeded to lament the fact that South Korea’s manufacturing sector employed more people than Taiwan’s. But his inability to conclude that this was a result of Taiwan allowing its businesses to move en masse across the Taiwan Strait is startling in its absence. The further relaxation of investment rules will most likely increase the flight of domestic industries and put more people out of work.
Ma swept to power on a wave of optimism with promises he could increase Taiwan’s international space and boost the economy, but after six months in office his government has failed miserably on both counts.
His belief that increased contact with China would bring about results in both these areas has also turned out to be a pipe dream. Increased cross-strait flights have only made it more convenient for Taiwanese based in China to stay there, while masses of Chinese tourists have failed to materialize.
The reason for this is simple: A Taiwan that is ever more reliant on its giant neighbor will one day have no choice but to acquiesce to its demands, but a prosperous Taiwan has no predetermined use for China. This is why China is keeping a squeeze on what Taiwan gets from the “improved relationship.”
China is well aware that keeping Ma, the presentable face of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), in office is the best way for it to achieve its long-term aim of bringing Taiwan under its control.
Yet, despite Beijing’s public rebuffs of his strategies and its ongoing belittling of Taiwan in the international arena, Ma remains optimistic about all things cross-strait.
The simple explanation for this is Ma’s stated personal preference for a cross-strait settlement — eventual unification.
With increased cultural and educational exchanges in the pipeline to go with the extensive business ties already in existence, the prospects of Ma’s dream coming to fruition look rosy.
Who needs Prozac when you’re on a natural high?
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs