Since 2008, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been in full charge of expanding Taiwan’s international space. As a result, the KMT bears sole responsibility for Taiwan’s diminishing face and presence in the international community.
This is a worrisome development as the KMT perpetually erodes and trivializes knowledge about Taiwanese and Taiwanese society, making it much harder to promote policies that support the heart of Taiwanese people.
The KMT’s strategy of increasing the distance between Taiwanese and the rest of world and leaving an impression of warming ties between Taiwan and China is a betrayal of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 2008 election promises to put Taiwan first.
The underlying goal of such a policy is to ensure that the international community gets comfortable with the idea that Taiwan is part of China and that Taiwanese have no distinct identity.
Taiwan is seen as a part of China when Ma promotes his “one China with different interpretations” policy, referring to a nonexistent “1992 consensus,” and when the KMT promotes Taiwan as the Republic of China (ROC), a name most Westerners simply do not understand.
The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) is seen as evidence of the warming ties between Taiwan and China, more so because it is an internal Chinese trade agreement, as it was not signed under the WTO.
In addition, Taiwan’s representatives in the EU say that the ROC is the real China, and the KMT’s weak protest against the WHO when it was found to have listed Taiwan as a province of China adds to the impression that Taiwanese are Chinese.
Consequently, the KMT’s strategy has made it almost impossible for Taiwan’s friends among policymakers in the EU and the US to promote a third way that will allow Taiwan to break with the past and move forward into the future and join the international community.
Such a third way should promote a fresh and forward-looking approach to Taiwan’s international relations and honestly revisit the current anachronistic policies and their origins in the Cold War era.
This third way should also strictly respect Taiwanese sovereignty and membership in international organizations, as well as seek to expand direct dialogue with Taiwanese leaders.
The international community should make certain that China respects international laws so Taiwan can freely ink free-trade agreements and thereby break its increasing economic isolation in regional and international trade arrangements. China has repeatedly said it respects international law, so it runs no risk of losing face in the process.
The WikiLeaks cables released on Aug. 30 have to some extent merely reinforced the blindingly obvious. Still, one interesting document did show how Western governments led by the US protested against the UN using the expression “Taiwan is a part of China” in 2007, when the Democratic Progressive Party under then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was in power. It is hard to imagine that happening under the current KMT government. Instead, hardworking and volunteer-based non--governmental organizations in places like the EU are striving to promote Taiwan and appear to be doing a much better job than Taiwan’s own representative offices when it comes to promoting Taiwan’s true face and the third way.
The KMT government is trapped in the past and is stubbornly hindering efforts by the international community to break with the past and move into to the future together with the Taiwanese by using the third way.
Michael Danielsen is the chairman of Taiwan Corner.
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