The US and China are the two countries with the biggest influence over Taiwan’s international role. So, how are Taiwan’s relations with these two big powers shaping up?
Despite all the news to the contrary, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) says that relations are smooth and relaxed. He has said that US-Taiwan relations are closer than they have been at any time during the past 30 years and that cross-strait relations are the best they have been in 60 years. If past presidents didn’t feel themselves standing at the edge of an abyss, they at least realized that they were treading on thin ice. None of them were as confident a Ma in the face of such dire international trends. Has Taiwan under Ma’s leadership really changed so much that it has left all its problems behind?
Of course not. Moreover, Taiwan’s foreign relations have now reached a critical imbalance. The arrest of Jacqueline Liu (劉姍姍), director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Kansas City, Missouri, by FBI agents and the meeting between Ma’s APEC envoy Lien Chan (連戰) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) at the recent APEC summit in Hawaii probably offer the most realistic image of the government’s interactions with the US and China: They are at the end of their tether, unable to cope with the situation.
Liu was accused of fraud in foreign labor contracting because her Philippine -housekeeper, who was hired to work 40 hours per week and receive a monthly salary of US$1,240, in fact had to work six days per week, 16 to 18 hours per day and received a much lower salary. Because Liu planned to leave the US as soon as the accusations appeared, the US prosecutor requested that she be detained without bail. This case raises at least five questions that need clarifying.
First, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) declared that this was the first time a Taiwanese diplomat had been arrested in the US since the bilateral Agreement on Privileges, Exemptions and Immunities (台美特權, 免稅暨豁免協定) was signed in 1980. If this statement is correct, it pokes a big hole in Ma’s statement that Taiwan-US relations are closer than they have been at any time in the past 30 years.
Second, the US prosecutor said that Taiwan was not a sovereign state and that its diplomats therefore did not enjoy diplomatic immunity. Surely this is symbolic, not of the closest, but of the frostiest, relationship between Taiwan and the US in the past 30 years.
Third, what is covered by the Agreement on Privileges, Exemptions and Immunities? Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) says that diplomats only enjoy immunity in the course of their official duties, but not when they act in a private capacity. The foreign ministry believes Liu enjoys immunity and has lodged a protest with US authorities both in Taiwan and in the US. Who is right?
Fourth, regardless of whether Taiwan and the US have different understandings, Taiwan’s foreign minister said that it was not necessary for the US to handle the matter in the manner it did, indirectly saying that the US should have informed Taiwan through diplomatic channels. If Taiwan’s representative office in the US handles relations with the US properly and according to protocol, that would not be asking much. That raises the question why US authorities chose to act the way they did.
Fifth, having caused relations with the US to deteriorate to such an undignified state, one cannot help but wonder what the staff at the representative office in Washington have been doing over the past four years. What have they done to mislead Ma to the point where he is so pleased with relations, deceiving the whole country?
If US relations are in such a shambles, then how about relations with China? When Lien met Hu in Honolulu, three actions in particular drew attention.
First, as the president’s special envoy, Lien referred to Ma as “Mr Ma” in his conversation with Hu. Second, Lien and Hu reiterated their common opposition to Taiwanese independence and insisted on the relevance of the so-called “1992 consensus.” Third, when Lien’s suggestion that a peace accord should be discussed at an opportune moment stirred up controversy, he said that he had been simply talking about “peaceful development.”
Because Hu rejects the title of president for Ma, Lien can only refer to Ma as “Mr Ma,” while Ma himself has to silently accept this state of affairs. Will he also swear allegiance and pay tribute by accepting that there is only “one China” by signing a peace accord?
If it is this humiliating, subservient slave mentality that he means when he says current cross-strait relations are the best they have been in 60 years, then this head of state is denigrating and humiliating Taiwan.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Ma administration is dealing with US and China relations by sitting on the fence trying to find out in which direction the wind blows.
Ma is a president who was out of the loop when a Taiwanese diplomat was arrested in the US, who couldn’t even insist on his own title being used in dealings with China and who is shrinking Taiwan’s living space to the point where it has to exist in the cracks of the international community, while still claiming to be proud of his achievements.
Why on earth would Taiwanese voters want to re-elect such a man?
Translated by Perry Svensson
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