In yet another display of incompetence that is doomed to incur a further twisted sense of national identity and contradiction, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) this week told government officials to stop calling the other side of the Taiwan Strait “China,” and instead adopt the term “the mainland,” “mainland China” or simply “the other side.” He urged the public to do the same.
Ma was quoted by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) as saying at a gathering of top government and legislative officials on Monday that the directive was in line with the principle of the (so-called) “1992 consensus,” which the KMT believes stipulates that both sides of the Strait agreed to have their own interpretation of “one China.” Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) later said that Ma’s directive was also in accordance with the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution.
Truly pathetic. Like an ostrich with its head in the sand, Ma’s government has obstinately neglected the fact that Beijing has never acknowledged the idea of “one China, with each side having its own interpretation.” What China claims is that both sides of the Strait verbally reached an agreement to insist on the “one China” principle during a cross-strait talk in Hong Kong in 1992.
As such, by senselessly clinging to the fictitious cross-strait consensus of “one China, with each side having its own interpretation,” Ma’s administration only undermines Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity, as is evident by the recent controversy between Taiwan and the Philippines, in which Taiwan’s dominion was completely disregarded and dismissed as being irrelevant.
In a statement explaining why it deported 14 Taiwanese suspected of fraud to China, instead of Taiwan, the Philippine government, citing respect for its recognition of the “one China” policy, said the spat over jurisdiction of the Taiwanese could be settled by both sides of the Strait on their own.
The Philippines government’s statement should come as a slap to Ma, debunking his asinine insistence on the so-called “1992 consensus.”
Indeed, if as Ma claims, “one China” means the ROC, then why does the government bother lodging protests against international organization for unilaterally changing Taiwan chapter’s name from “Taiwan” to “Taiwan, China,” or “Taipei, China?”
If the ROC includes the other side of the Strait that Ma calls “the mainland,” then why did police forcefully snatch away ROC flags from bystanders during a visit by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), who is from the “other side?”
All in all, the KMT government’s insistence on the fictitious “1992 consensus” and Ma’s edict renouncing the use of “China” in favor of “the mainland,” only propels the nation further toward a mental state of contradiction and an existential crisis. It may just be a matter of time before the nation’s identity is fractured, providing no defense to China’s annexation agenda.
Since taking office in May 2008, Ma has been forging closer ties with the “other side” and creating an impression that the “other side” means no harm to Taiwan. The latest reports about the detention of a one-star army general charged with of spying for China clearly suggests otherwise.
These incidents are just one of many that should serve as a wake-up call for Ma and the KMT government that their naivety is taking Taiwan’s sovereignty and international standing toward calamity.
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
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
On today’s page, Masahiro Matsumura, a professor of international politics and national security at St Andrew’s University in Osaka, questions the viability and advisability of the government’s proposed “T-Dome” missile defense system. Matsumura writes that Taiwan’s military budget would be better allocated elsewhere, and cautions against the temptation to allow politics to trump strategic sense. What he does not do is question whether Taiwan needs to increase its defense capabilities. “Given the accelerating pace of Beijing’s military buildup and political coercion ... [Taiwan] cannot afford inaction,” he writes. A rational, robust debate over the specifics, not the scale or the necessity,
RSS