Early this month, an enthusiastic President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) announced that Taiwan’s representative office in Hong Kong, previously known as the Chung Hwa Travel Service, would be renamed the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, which came into effect on Friday. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in Macau was also renamed the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office on July 4.
Ma believed that changing the names from “travel service” and “center” to “office” was a novel and greatly imaginative move. However, a closer look shows that the name changes in Hong Kong and Macau have nothing to do with the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty.
The name changes would never have gone through without pressure from Beijing. And why was the absurd name “Chung Hwa Travel Service” used in the first place? It was the result of a riot organized by a group of pro-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) activists visiting Hong Kong on Double Ten National Day in 1956. The then-British government reacted by deciding not to allow the Republic of China to establish official representation in Hong Kong. In other words, it was not directly related to cross-strait tensions.
The name changes also show that the fastest road to Hong Kong is via Beijing. Thus, the so-called “one country, two systems” policy is completely ineffective.
In addition to the name changes, Hong Kong and Macau are to establish economic and cultural offices in Taiwan — Hong Kong will do this before the end of this year.
Hong Kong has already established similar offices in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, as well as in the US, Germany, Japan and other countries. Since it is not a country, it can only establish representative offices, not embassies.
However, since Hong Kong might treat its Taiwan office in the same way as it treats its offices in Guangzhou and Chengdu, it will be interesting to see if it will appoint a director-level representative, as it has in Beijing, or a deputy director-level representative.
If the Ma administration accepts a deputy director-level representative, wouldn’t that mean that Ma does not adhere to the policy of “one China, with each side having its own interpretation” and imply that he recognizes Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic of China?
After Hong Kong and Macau have set up their representative offices in Taiwan, the next issue will be the establishment of cross-strait representative offices. This involves Taiwan’s political status and will lead to cross-strait political talks.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) is eager to resolve the Taiwan issue before his retirement at the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party late next year.
This makes it very likely that the reason Beijing pressured Hong Kong and Macau to accept the name changes was to pave the way for cross-strait political talks by creating the atmosphere and pressure required to make political talks unavoidable.
Ma has said that the name changes were part of the “peace bonus” resulting from his China policy.
This may well have been a deliberate attempt to cover the fact that the name changes might accelerate the beginning of cross-strait talks on unification.
Ma has swallowed China’s sugarcoated pill, talking widely about how it has been one of his political achievements and disregarding the pressure for political talks it has created. The way he and his administration have handled the name changes is very worrying.
Lai I-chung is an executive committee member of Taiwan Thinktank.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
China has not been a top-tier issue for much of the second Trump administration. Instead, Trump has focused considerable energy on Ukraine, Israel, Iran, and defending America’s borders. At home, Trump has been busy passing an overhaul to America’s tax system, deporting unlawful immigrants, and targeting his political enemies. More recently, he has been consumed by the fallout of a political scandal involving his past relationship with a disgraced sex offender. When the administration has focused on China, there has not been a consistent throughline in its approach or its public statements. This lack of overarching narrative likely reflects a combination
Father’s Day, as celebrated around the world, has its roots in the early 20th century US. In 1910, the state of Washington marked the world’s first official Father’s Day. Later, in 1972, then-US president Richard Nixon signed a proclamation establishing the third Sunday of June as a national holiday honoring fathers. Many countries have since followed suit, adopting the same date. In Taiwan, the celebration takes a different form — both in timing and meaning. Taiwan’s Father’s Day falls on Aug. 8, a date chosen not for historical events, but for the beauty of language. In Mandarin, “eight eight” is pronounced
US President Donald Trump’s alleged request that Taiwanese President William Lai (賴清德) not stop in New York while traveling to three of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, after his administration also rescheduled a visit to Washington by the minister of national defense, sets an unwise precedent and risks locking the US into a trajectory of either direct conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or capitulation to it over Taiwan. Taiwanese authorities have said that no plans to request a stopover in the US had been submitted to Washington, but Trump shared a direct call with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平)
It is difficult to think of an issue that has monopolized political commentary as intensely as the recall movement and the autopsy of the July 26 failures. These commentaries have come from diverse sources within Taiwan and abroad, from local Taiwanese members of the public and academics, foreign academics resident in Taiwan, and overseas Taiwanese working in US universities. There is a lack of consensus that Taiwan’s democracy is either dying in ashes or has become a phoenix rising from the ashes, nurtured into existence by civic groups and rational voters. There are narratives of extreme polarization and an alarming
RSS