When President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) demanded that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) recognize the Republic of China (ROC), Tsai responded by saying that the ROC is Taiwan and Taiwan is the ROC. Tsai’s comments drew immediate criticism from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), with officials saying that Tsai’s idea is a repackaged form of Taiwanese independence and that cross-strait relations have never been and can never be “state-to-state” relations. Obviously, for China, the ROC is merely a living corpse and it will never allow the ROC to change in any way or exist in the international community.
This shows that there are three ROCs: Ma’s ROC, Tsai’s ROC and the ROC as perceived by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Tsai’s ROC merely adopts the name of the ROC, which was established in 1912, to refer to present-day Taiwan. It can thus be understood as referring to “the sovereign country made up of 23 million people and which currently uses the name ROC.” This viewpoint is well in line with reality, although saying that “Taiwan is the ROC” inevitably leads to complications relating to the Chinese Civil War.
In contrast to Tsai’s comments about the ROC being Taiwan and Taiwan being the ROC, Ma says the ROC stretches across the entirety of China and that Taiwan is part of China. In other words, Ma thinks Taiwan is simply a part of China that still has not been unified with it. Although Ma is Taiwan’s president voted in by Taiwanese voters, he does not see Taiwan as a country.
If we look back at what has happened since 1912, we will see that the ROC has never ruled the whole of China and that after it was chased out of China in 1949, it started to occupy Taiwan, a place that never belonged to it, but which it has occupied ever since. Therefore, Ma’s ROC is not only a flat-out refusal to recognize that the ROC is in fact Taiwan, but also includes daydreams about the ROC government owning all of China’s territories. In short, it’s a pipe dream.
Apart from fantasizing that the ROC’s territory overlaps with that of the PRC, Ma has expanded this fantasy by insisting that the PRC agrees that there is “one China, with each side having its own interpretation.” Ma has taken this to the point where he says that the ROC is not something of the past, but exists in the present continuous tense. This, however, does not sit well with China.
At China’s centennial celebrations of the Wuchang Uprising, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) did not mention a single word about the ROC. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) mouthpiece the Global Times said the ROC that exists today is but a temporary historical enclave and that the real ROC died in 1949. It was against that backdrop that TAO officials criticized Tsai’s ideas as a repackaged form of Taiwanese independence.
The idea that the ROC is Taiwan and that Taiwan is the ROC is quite similar to the view that China held during the times of former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), when China said the two Chiangs occupied Taiwan in the name of the ROC, thus blocking China from completing the great task of unifying China — eliminating the ROC and annexing Taiwan — and in effect creating an independent ROC, although the process was different from the formation of Taiwanese independence.
Today, the PRC would neither allow Taiwan to use the name ROC to assert its independence nor the ROC to use Taiwan to breathe life back into the ROC. From a Taiwanese viewpoint, the independent ROC of the two Chiangs or Taiwanese independence has the same aim: to resist annexation by China. This is what a “Taiwan consensus” must be based on.
The PRC should be rejoicing. The Chiangs’ effort that was so strongly criticized by China as creating an independent ROC has, in the hands of Ma, turned into a unification effort. The reason Ma supports the ROC is not because he opposes annexation — as the two Chiangs did — but because he wants to prevent Taiwanese independence and obstruct Taiwan developing into a normal nation. Thus, despite knowing full well that the PRC has replaced the ROC and won the right to represent China, Ma still uses the idea of “one China, with each side having its own interpretation” to deceive Taiwanese into believing that the PRC will tolerate the ROC — whose sovereignty stretches across the whole of China — and allow some fuzzy existence of “two Chinas.”
Reality has been quite brutal to Ma as of late. As the ROC was celebrating its centenary, the PRC started sending signals aimed at dampening his excitement. The TAO’s criticism of Tsai’s remarks as another guise of Taiwanese independence was also a reminder to Ma that cross-strait relations have never been and can never be “state-to-state” relations.
So, Mr President, given China’s statement, how can there be room for the ROC to exist and what does having your own interpretation of “one China” mean?
Translated by Drew Cameron
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
On a quiet lane in Taipei’s central Daan District (大安), an otherwise unremarkable high-rise is marked by a police guard and a tawdry A4 printout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating an “embassy area.” Keen observers would see the emblem of the Holy See, one of Taiwan’s 12 so-called “diplomatic allies.” Unlike Taipei’s other embassies and quasi-consulates, no national flag flies there, nor is there a plaque indicating what country’s embassy this is. Visitors hoping to sign a condolence book for the late Pope Francis would instead have to visit the Italian Trade Office, adjacent to Taipei 101. The death of
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
RSS