The Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama was expected to arrive last night and visit southern Taiwan to bring comfort to the victims of Typhoon Morakot.
Despite the fact the Presidential Office indicated on Friday that he would not meet President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during his visit, the Dalai Lama’s arrival is good news.
Very few people alive today could bring as much spiritual comfort to the victims of Morakot as the Dalai Lama. Southern Taiwanese would undoubtedly be uplifted by the presence of a man who stands for universal values of humanity and compassion. In fact, he would bring to the people what their president, who remained aloof and distant throughout the disaster, failed miserably to provide during those extraordinarily trying times.
Taiwan has long been a friend of the Dalai Lama and Tibetans; this is an occasion for the spiritual leader to reciprocate.
By granting him permission to visit, Taiwanese authorities have demonstrated that they remain willing — at least to a certain extent — to stand up to China. That willingness, however, could very well be the result of widespread popular dissatisfaction at its handling of Morakot.
In fact, approval levels for Ma and his Cabinet have tanked to such an extent that this time around they may have been in no position to turn the Dalai Lama down.
Furthermore, in allowing the visit, the Ma administration could score some political points domestically — something for which it is currently desperate.
Given the focus in political science circles on human agency in political conflict, external factors — developments that are unexpected and not part of the known variables (for example leadership, balance of power, allies, etc) but can have a dramatic impact on how conflict develops — are often overlooked. One such external factor is nature.
Since Ma came to office in May last year, the direction of the protracted political conflict in the Taiwan Strait changed substantially and, according to many, shifted in Beijing’s favor, with cultural and economic integration bringing about inevitable political adjustments (such as closer Sino-Taiwanese ties and a distancing of Tokyo).
At the height of this rapprochement, Taipei did everything in its power to keep things on track — even, as we saw, denying a visit by the Dalai Lama last year because it would risk creating problems with Beijing.
Now, however, the blow that Typhoon Morakot has dealt the Ma administration, which is no longer in a position to ignore popular discontent as it forges ahead with its cross-strait policies, is forcing the government to pay more attention to domestic politics.
The cost of denying a visit by the Dalai Lama now would have been far greater than it was back in December. An offshoot of this is that Taipei is being forced to make a policy decision that it knows will anger Beijing, which accuses the Dalai Lama of being a “splittist” and seeking to “break China apart.”
The ramification of this visit is that we will likely see the first crisis in cross-strait relations since the Beijing-friendly Ma came to office: Expect to see accusations from across the Strait of Ma siding with a “splittist,” or of breaking his promise to abide by the “one China” principle.
Attendant to this will be a hardening of positions, with both sides moving toward the political center — in other words, toward the “status quo” of old.
For Taiwanese independence, this is an immensely positive development, despite the great human cost that gave rise to it.
J. Michael Cole is a writer based in Taipei.
A failure by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respond to Israel’s brilliant 12-day (June 12-23) bombing and special operations war against Iran, topped by US President Donald Trump’s ordering the June 21 bombing of Iranian deep underground nuclear weapons fuel processing sites, has been noted by some as demonstrating a profound lack of resolve, even “impotence,” by China. However, this would be a dangerous underestimation of CCP ambitions and its broader and more profound military response to the Trump Administration — a challenge that includes an acceleration of its strategies to assist nuclear proxy states, and developing a wide array
Eating at a breakfast shop the other day, I turned to an old man sitting at the table next to mine. “Hey, did you hear that the Legislative Yuan passed a bill to give everyone NT$10,000 [US$340]?” I said, pointing to a newspaper headline. The old man cursed, then said: “Yeah, the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] canceled the NT$100 billion subsidy for Taiwan Power Co and announced they would give everyone NT$10,000 instead. “Nice. Now they are saying that if electricity prices go up, we can just use that cash to pay for it,” he said. “I have no time for drivel like
Twenty-four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are facing recall votes on Saturday, prompting nearly all KMT officials and lawmakers to rally their supporters over the past weekend, urging them to vote “no” in a bid to retain their seats and preserve the KMT’s majority in the Legislative Yuan. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which had largely kept its distance from the civic recall campaigns, earlier this month instructed its officials and staff to support the recall groups in a final push to protect the nation. The justification for the recalls has increasingly been framed as a “resistance” movement against China and
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) reportedly told the EU’s top diplomat that China does not want Russia to lose in Ukraine, because the US could shift its focus to countering Beijing. Wang made the comment while meeting with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas on July 2 at the 13th China-EU High-Level Strategic Dialogue in Brussels, the South China Morning Post and CNN reported. Although contrary to China’s claim of neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, such a frank remark suggests Beijing might prefer a protracted war to keep the US from focusing on
RSS