By deporting 14 Taiwanese suspected of involvement in criminal activity to China, the Philippine government ignored the sovereign status of Taiwan and violated international practice. Reaction in Taiwan has been strong and critics from across party lines are calling on the government to take a tough stance.
As a result, the decision by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration to recall the nation’s envoy to the Philippines, apply stricter reviews to work applications from Filipinos and cancel preferential treatment allowing Filipinos holding visas to the US, Canada, the UK, the Schengen countries, Australia and New Zealand to register online for visa exemption to Taiwan, is unlikely to settle the dispute.
Even though the Philippine government has not apologized, the Ma administration has still listed a series of goodwill actions taken by the Philippines, in an effort to find a face-saving way out of this dispute.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says these acts of goodwill include expressing “deep regret” and sending a letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) using the proper national and professional nomenclature.
However, these acts of “goodwill” are a little odd, to say the least. For example, the Philippine government was very explicit in expressing its deep regret at not having informed Taiwan prior to the deportation. However, this is the equivalent of saying that everything would have been right and proper if only it had informed Taiwan in advance. Surely this was just a way to even more explicitly deny Taiwan’s judicial sovereignty.
The Philippine government also said that it has an extradition treaty with China and noted that China and Taiwan have signed a joint agreement to clamp down on crime. It therefore implied that China and Taiwan should sort out this issue themselves. The Philippine government clearly believes that by inking a cross-strait mutual judicial assistance agreement, Taiwan has in effect signed away sovereignty over its criminal law to China.
Even if they call us the Republic of China (ROC), they still think the ROC is a Chinese vassal state. Some goodwill.
Given the denial of Taiwan’s sovereignty and the serious consequences of such denial, the measures taken by the Ma administration are inadequate.
Following the sinking of a Taiwanese fishing boat by a Japanese coast guard vessel off the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in June 2008, our envoy to Japan was recalled immediately and the government said the envoy would not return until a satisfactory response was forthcoming.
This time, however, the government said its envoy would be recalled within one week, to report on the matter. The wording was much weaker and the reaction far more low key.
In the same way, the policy to implement stricter reviews of work applications from Filipinos was undermined by the government stressing that demand for Filipino workers outstrips supply, as if the Philippines was Taiwan’s only source of foreign labor. Furthermore, Taiwan has taken a stricter approach to workers from the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam in the past, announcing immediate application freezes. Although the government is saying it will implement stricter reviews, it is actually taking a much softer approach.
In addition, the government has also made several rather ridiculous statements. For example, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said the foreign ministry’s reaction was neither too slow nor inappropriate, suggesting that the government was more interested in dealing with public anger with one eye on next year’s presidential election. The Ma administration has made a habit of following wherever public opinion leads, and does not seem to think that the current incident has hurt the nation in any meaningful way. It is becoming clear that there is a huge gap between the administration’s foreign affairs strategy and public expectations.
The Philippine government says that Beijing is too powerful. The problem is that if another country encountered the same situation, it would not give in to China so readily, for fear of even stronger protests. The strange thing is that the Philippines’ first reaction to Taiwan’s response — which the general public felt was too weak — was to say that it was at a loss. This reaction requires further analysis.
This situation arose not because the Philippines does not understand the Ma administration’s cross-strait policy. Had that been the case, officials would not have been able to correctly cite various cross-strait agreements. The deportations occurred because Filipino officials believed they did understand those agreements and thought Taiwan would respond weakly with China involved.
In other words, the government’s mistaken foreign policy is now beginning to have serious consequences for Taiwan.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has expressed great pride in the communique issued after the meeting between former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in 2005, which stated that Taiwan and China would discuss Taiwan’s international presence. Indeed, when Taiwan was later allowed to participate as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA) after Ma took office, he was very pleased. The problem is that this state of affairs effectively makes Taiwan a Chinese vassal state.
Ma’s announcements that cross-strait relations would be given precedence over foreign policy later extended into a diplomatic truce, turning these policies into comprehensive and complimentary measures to our vassal status.
In terms of its impact on Taiwan’s sovereign status, it is very difficult to see the difference between having Taiwanese detainees returned via Beijing and having to obtain Beijing’s approval to attend the WHA. In light of these complimentary measures, the Philippine government’s approach makes sense.
That is why this latest incident is not a matter of how fast officials have reacted or whether any administrative errors were committed. Rather, it is a matter of national positioning and foreign policy. Unless we realize this, any review of the incident will be meaningless.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) are expected to meet this month in Paris to prepare for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). According to media reports, the two sides would discuss issues such as the potential purchase of Boeing aircraft by China, increasing imports of US soybeans and the latest impacts of Trump’s reciprocal tariffs. However, recent US military action against Iran has added uncertainty to the Trump-Xi summit. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) called the joint US-Israeli airstrikes and the
RSS