Speaking in the legislature a little while back, National Security Council Secretary--General Hu Wei-jen (胡為真) said that China says the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) belong to “China,” not specifically the “People’s Republic of China” (PRC). Hu inferred from this that the issue could be approached according to the concept of “one China with each side having its own interpretation.” Hu said that incidents that have occurred around the Diaoyutais were matters of Japan’s relations with Taiwan and of Japan’s relations with “mainland China,” but not of relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. There was no need to connect the Diaoyutais issue with cross-strait relations, he concluded.
All the recent signs show that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration is making less and less effort to conceal the “one China” implications of the so-called “1992 consensus” and that it wants to treat cross-strait relations as a domestic matter.
The so-called “1992 consensus” is actually a fictional term conjured up by former National Security Council secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起). The late Koo Chen-foo (辜振甫), who as chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation in 1992 and was Taiwan’s point man in negotiations with the Chinese side, denied that any such consensus was ever reached. While Ma claims the gist of this imagined consensus to be that the two sides accept that they both belong to “one China,” but with different interpretations of what “one China” means, the Chinese side has always insisted on a strict “one China” principle that denies the existence of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. In reality, Ma’s notion of “one China with different interpretations” has no audience whatsoever.
As one Chinese official once said of the ROC: “Who’s going to take any notice of you?”
Nevertheless, the government keeps trying to hoodwink the Taiwanese public. Ma’s team would have us believe that this idea that each side has its own interpretation of “one China” means that the ROC is still recognized around the world and that the two versions of China can coexist in a state of mutual non-denial. The reality, of course, is quite different.
Recently, the government used this notion of “one China with different interpretations” as justification for not objecting to China’s claim of sovereignty over the Diaoyutai Islands.
A Government Information Office statement presented the logic behind this as follows: “The mainland [China] remains within the constitutionally defined territory of the Republic of China. So of course we cannot voice any disagreement with the mainland authorities’ claim that the Diaoyutai Islands are China’s national territory.”
By making such a concession, the government is selling out on the Diaoyutais.
When he was a young man, Ma was active in the movement to protect the Diaoyutais. So why, now that he holds power, is he serving the islands up to the PRC on a platter? One wonders what all the Diaoyutais activists who marched and shouted slogans all those years ago think about what the president is doing now.
Sovereignty over the Diaoyutais belongs to Taiwan. The San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan says nothing about sovereignty over the Diaoyutais belonging to the ROC, so the ROC is clearly in no position to say anything about the islands’ status. However, the Ma administration aims for “eventual unification,” which would mean merging Taiwan, along with the Diaoyutai Islands, into the territory of China, so it is intentionally using the fictitious “one China with different interpretations” formula to link the Diaoyutais issue with China. The Ma administration, with its “great Chinese nation” mentality, is in effect inviting Beijing to team up with it in the dispute with Tokyo over the Diaoyutais. This move has all the wisdom of a farmer asking a fox to keep watch over his chicken coop.
The likely outcome of this misguided policy is that the Diaoyutai Islands dispute will become a China-Japan issue instead of one between Taiwan and Japan. That is because there is no space on the global stage for “one China with different interpretations.” Almost every country in the world, including Japan, has long since recognized the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China. By letting the PRC intervene in the Diaoyutai Islands issue, Ma’s government is stifling the right of the ROC, and of Taiwan, to have a voice in the dispute.
The most ridiculous thing about the government’s position is its claim that the Diaoyutais are an issue between Taiwan and Japan as well as between China and Japan, but not an issue in cross-strait relations. Even accepting for the moment the Ma administration’s theory that the Diaoyutais belong to the ROC, the logical conclusion must be that they don’t belong to either Japan or the PRC. While the Ma administration has often fiercely scolded Japan, which has administrative control of the Diaoyutais, it dares not utter so much as a word against Beijing for fear of upsetting cross-strait relations. Ma and his ministers are acting like the feeble barons of a vassal state. Nowadays, the ROC is no more than a sidekick to the real boss, the PRC.
Ever since Ma took office two years ago, his government has held up the “one China with different interpretations” idea as a great treasure, boasting that it has brought about a great improvement in relations across the Taiwan Strait. In reality, however, the government is using the fantasy of “different interpretations” to fool Taiwanese into thinking that it is steadfastly defending the ROC. However, this pretense is demolished by the harsh reality of international affairs. For -example, when attending the World Health Assembly, the Taiwanese delegation attends, on China’s insistence, as “Chinese Taipei,” but that did not dampen the Ma administration’s delight at being able to attend the assembly as an observer. More recently, at the Tokyo International Film Festival, Taiwan’s delegation wanted to attend the opening ceremony under its proper title of “Taiwan,” but ran up against stubborn obstruction from the Chinese delegation. All Ma’s government could do was to swallow the insult and keep smiling.
Yet Ma and his bureaucrats still claim that “the mainland [China] remains within the constitutionally defined territory of the Republic of China.”
These people have clearly taken leave of their senses.
Not long ago, just as Ma assured the public that cross-strait negotiations would be about “economics first, politics later,” Wang Yi (王毅), director of the PRC’s Taiwan Affairs Office, responded that economic issues had political implications.
China doesn’t like the idea that economics is economics and politics is politics — it would rather see the two things blended together. The same is true in every field, be it education, culture, films, television, sport or global health issues — none of them is free of the shadow of politics, which in this case means the “one China” principle as defined by Beijing.
The Ma administration’s response is, on the one hand, to accept Beijing’s conditions like a loyal slave, while on the other trying to hoodwink Taiwanese with flowery phrases.
The government dismissed the Tokyo film festival spat as an isolated incident, but “isolated incidents” like these have happened continuously in the two years since Ma took office and we can confidently predict they will continue to happen in future.
The question is: How much longer will the public allow this government to keep the wool over its eyes?
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
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