It was evident from the very beginning that the Dalai Lama’s visit — though supposedly apolitical — would not be well received by Beijing. Forced into a corner by its mismanagement of Typhoon Morakot, the embattled administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had no choice but to grant the spiritual leader a visa, but attempted to mitigate a backlash by hinting that Ma and the Dalai Lama would not meet and dispatching a high-level Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) representative to Beijing.
As expected, Beijing lashed out at Taiwan for allowing the visit, but it has done so in calibrated fashion to spare Ma, who remains crucial to the Chinese leadership’s unification designs. It reserved its fiercest criticism for the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose local representatives issued the invitation, as well as the visitor himself.
Still, Beijing had to act. In its view, Ma could not lose face, but a slap on the wrist was still in order. It is therefore no coincidence that yesterday the organizers of the upcoming Deaflympics in Taipei announced that China confirmed it would boycott the opening ceremony.
That China would risk “hurting the feelings” of the residents of Taipei — a predominantly pro-KMT city whose mayor invested substantial political capital in the event — is a sign that the visit will not be without repercussions for Ma and the KMT.
Beijing is performing a careful balancing act. Its awareness that Morakot seriously weakened the Ma administration has compelled it to abandon its usual carpet-bombing approach to criticism and be a little more surgical. The fact that the Chinese troupe that was scheduled to perform during the ceremony will still do so is likely a sign of this.
Beijing also had to act because of its global propaganda strategy to isolate the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan cause. Muted, targeted criticism, with an indirect snipe at Ma through its boycott of the Deaflympics’ opening ceremony, was its only option.
While it needs Ma to remain in power and to be able to effect pro-China policies such as an economic cooperation framework agreement, Beijing is also using the Dalai Lama’s visit to remind Ma who is in charge. Consequently, Beijing will likely tell the Ma administration that while it was willing to show flexibility by not reacting too strongly to the visit, the price for this would come in the form of concessions — by Taiwan.
This development suggests that Ma is in a vicious circle. He is forced to make political decisions based not on his Cabinet’s assessment of what is best for the country, but as unavoidable concessions to activist elements such as Morakot victims, the DPP and Beijing.
It’s even worse if a president has to make a concession to mitigate the harm done by a previous concession, as could happen after Beijing seeks to cash in on its “goodwill” in not retaliating over the Dalai Lama’s visit.
When political imperatives are driven by external forces — as is the case here — a president is no longer a leader.
He’s a puppet.
Jan. 1 marks a decade since China repealed its one-child policy. Just 10 days before, Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), who long oversaw the often-brutal enforcement of China’s family-planning rules, died at the age of 96, having never been held accountable for her actions. Obituaries praised Peng for being “reform-minded,” even though, in practice, she only perpetuated an utterly inhumane policy, whose consequences have barely begun to materialize. It was Vice Premier Chen Muhua (陳慕華) who first proposed the one-child policy in 1979, with the endorsement of China’s then-top leaders, Chen Yun (陳雲) and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), as a means of avoiding the
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
The last foreign delegation Nicolas Maduro met before he went to bed Friday night (January 2) was led by China’s top Latin America diplomat. “I had a pleasant meeting with Qiu Xiaoqi (邱小琪), Special Envoy of President Xi Jinping (習近平),” Venezuela’s soon-to-be ex-president tweeted on Telegram, “and we reaffirmed our commitment to the strategic relationship that is progressing and strengthening in various areas for building a multipolar world of development and peace.” Judging by how minutely the Central Intelligence Agency was monitoring Maduro’s every move on Friday, President Trump himself was certainly aware of Maduro’s felicitations to his Chinese guest. Just
RSS