The announcement on Monday that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had tapped former representative to the US Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) to reopen and head the party’s office in Washington is an important development for the future of Taiwan’s relations with its principal ally.
Although, as some critics have already pointed out, it is unusual for the opposition party of a democratic ally to have an office in the US capital, Taiwan’s idiosyncratic — and at times precarious — position makes this essential. The disparity in power and resources between the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) alone is such that any counterweight to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) must be physically present in Washington to be heard.
Since the DPP closed its Washington office in 2000 when it entered the Presidential Office, the party has relied on a one-man liaison office to negotiate the vagaries of the always complex relationship between Taiwan, the US and China. That man, Mike Fonte, has done a wonderful job and earned the respect of many officials, but the immensity of the task, along with Taiwan’s uncertain future as President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) accelerates the pace of cross-strait exchanges, requires more resources.
No sooner had the appointment been announced than observers began arguing that Wu should be permanently based in Washington, rather than regularly shuttle between Taipei and Washington as originally planned. While a case can be made for the need for a permanent presence, there are also important benefits to having Wu commute between the two capitals. Most importantly, his comings and goings will ensure that his views, and presumably those of his underlings, will not ossify, as often occurs when officials operate for too long away from home. There is no better way to ensure that the DPP envoy’s views remain relevant and current than to have him take stock of the situation in both cities. This will be taxing, but Taiwanese — and ultimately the US government itself — will be better served for it.
Wu will face many challenges. Chief among them will be finding ways to provide a version of Taiwan that differs from that given by TECRO officials and that on occasion will be inconvenient to the US, which is keen on seeing the continuation of the current stability in the Taiwan Strait. There will be times when Wu will find it difficult to gain access to certain circles in Washington and it is not impossible that on some occasions TECRO will use its influence to make his life more difficult. Wu will need to summon all his political savvy and connections to gain the ear of people of influence in Washington.
Given the very China-centric mood that prevails at TECRO today, one can only hope that US officials, academics and journalists will give Wu the opportunity to present a version of Taiwan that differs from the conventional story provided by Ma’s envoys. There undoubtedly are good, hard working people at TECRO, but under the current regime they are often forced to toe the line and give their US counterparts a false image of Taiwan.
At the other end of the spectrum, it will be Wu’s responsibility to ensure that the information he gives US officials about Taiwan is based on reality and acceptable to a superpower for who Taiwan is but a small problem in a constellation of challenging imperatives. Wu must present a sensible alternative to TECRO that avoids the rhetorical excesses that at times have undermined the DPP’s credibility in Washington’s eyes.
All these are formidable challenges. However, it is hard to imagine a man better placed to meet them.
In the closing weeks of 2000, an army of Singaporean government officials descended on Washington to make good on a handshake between then-US President Bill Clinton and Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟). They had agreed to strike an FTA after a round of golf in Brunei that past November. Running a small city-state, Singapore’s leaders and their diplomats live with their ear to the ground, attuned to the slightest geopolitical movements. They were motivated then by a big-picture strategic concern — keeping the US embedded in their region. An FTA they thought would help do that. It worked. Clinton’s successor,
On Oct. 7, the Chinese embassy in New Delhi sent letters to the Indian media asking them to refrain from calling Taiwan a country while reporting on its 109th National Day, which fell on Saturday last week. This move backfired and, on the contrary, contributed to the immense popularity of Taiwan among Indians, leading to an outpouring of congratulations for it on Twitter. Asked about the letter, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said: “There is a free media that reports on issues as it sees fit.” Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Tajinder Singh Bagga put up several banners outside the
On Oct. 6, the UN Committee on Human Rights released a statement on the concentration camps in China’s Xinjiang region in which at least 1 million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities are incarcerated. On the same day, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) was telling delegates at a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) meeting that “happiness among the people in Xinjiang is on the rise.” It was a stark reminder of the CCP’s longstanding practice of trampling on human rights and deceiving the world. In October last year, the Taiwan East Turkestan Association and the Taiwan Friends of Tibet held an event titled
In a Facebook post on Wednesday last week, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Hsu Chiao-hsin (徐巧芯) wrote: “The KMT must fall for Taiwan to improve.’ Allow me to ask the question again: Is this really true?” It matters not how many times Hsu asks the question, my answer will always be the same: “Yes, the KMT must be toppled for Taiwan to improve.” In the lengthy Facebook post, titled “What were those born in the 1980s guilty of?” Hsu harked back to the idealistic aspirations of the 2014 Sunflower movement before heaping opprobrium on the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP)
RSS