It is not often that one thinks of former US president Bill Clinton and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) having much in common, but they do prove the value of a legal education when it comes to quibbling over semantics.
Asked during a recent interview with the Chinese-language Wealth magazine if he was seeking a place in history, Ma replied: “I have never said that I care about my place in history. What I care about is history’s judgement of me.”
One of the most infamous lines from Clinton’s 1988 grand jury testimony about the Monica Lewinsky affair immediately came to mind: “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” A less well-known, but equally pertinent semantic quibble from his testimony was: “It depends on how you define ’alone.’”
In Clinton-speak, Ma appears to be redefining “a place in history.” He is not worried about earning a place, he just wants to be able to design the seat.
Perhaps he should take heart from the example of another US president, Richard Nixon, who was reviled for decades after he resigned rather than be impeached, only to find himself shortly before his death being hailed for his foreign policy expertise.
After all, foreign policy is where Ma hopes to make his mark — since his domestic and economic policies have proven such duds, although, unfortunately, he is one of the few who does not consider it to be foreign policy, but “regional” policy.
Not coincidentally, much of Ma’s interview with Wealth focused on his desire for a summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and what significance this would have on cross-strait relations.
For the first time, he said that Taiwan and China should reach agreement on a stable framework for future dialogue and negotiations in a summit meeting between the leaders of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. The foundation for such a framework would be the “1992 consensus,” he said, showing a disdain for accuracy, historical or otherwise.
Ma, like most in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the apparatchiks in Beijing, continues to ignore the fact that the “1992 consensus” is a fake. There was no such consensus reached during the November 1992 meeting in Hong Kong between China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and the Straits Exchange Foundation.
He also appears to have forgotten his own words. In an interview with the Chinese-language Central Daily News after the 1992 talks, Ma, who was then Mainland Affairs Council deputy chairman, said “the talks in Hong Kong fell short of success at the last moment,” ie, no agreement was reached.
In 2000, then-KMT lawmaker Su Chi (蘇起) said he made up the term “1992 consensus” in 2000, when he was the council’s chairman, to encourage the idea that “each side has its own interpretation on the meaning of ‘one China’” to alleviate cross-strait tensions.
Yet Ma told Wealth that the “1992 consensus” and the “one China” principle should be agreed upon and solidified so that both sides of the Strait can establish a “highly stable framework” for dialogue.
He also displayed, again, his willingness to do away with titles, as if that was the only thing holding up cross-strait development, reiterating that the best place for the leaders of Taiwan and China to meet would be at an APEC summit because “we would attend as leaders of an economic entity, and not as president or prime minister of a country.”
He must not have heard, or read, Beijing’s repeated statements that “a meeting of the two sides’ leaders is a bilateral issue and should not take place on an international occasion” and there would not be such a meeting at this fall’s APEC conference.
Reading Ma’s quotes from the Wealth interview brings the realization that the president is living in a world of his own, depending, of course, on what the meaning of the word “world” is.
Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) led a bipartisan delegation to Taiwan in late February. During their various meetings with Taiwan’s leaders, this delegation never missed an opportunity to emphasize the strength of their cross-party consensus on issues relating to Taiwan and China. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi are leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Their instruction upon taking the reins of the committee was to preserve China issues as a last bastion of bipartisanship in an otherwise deeply divided Washington. They have largely upheld their pledge. But in doing so, they have performed the
It is well known that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) ambition is to rejuvenate the Chinese nation by unification of Taiwan, either peacefully or by force. The peaceful option has virtually gone out of the window with the last presidential elections in Taiwan. Taiwanese, especially the youth, are resolved not to be part of China. With time, this resolve has grown politically stronger. It leaves China with reunification by force as the default option. Everyone tells me how and when mighty China would invade and overpower tiny Taiwan. However, I have rarely been told that Taiwan could be defended to
It should have been Maestro’s night. It is hard to envision a film more Oscar-friendly than Bradley Cooper’s exploration of the life and loves of famed conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. It was a prestige biopic, a longtime route to acting trophies and more (see Darkest Hour, Lincoln, and Milk). The film was a music biopic, a subgenre with an even richer history of award-winning films such as Ray, Walk the Line and Bohemian Rhapsody. What is more, it was the passion project of cowriter, producer, director and actor Bradley Cooper. That is the kind of multitasking -for-his-art overachievement that Oscar
Chinese villages are being built in the disputed zone between Bhutan and China. Last month, Chinese settlers, holding photographs of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), moved into their new homes on land that was not Xi’s to give. These residents are part of the Chinese government’s resettlement program, relocating Tibetan families into the territory China claims. China shares land borders with 15 countries and sea borders with eight, and is involved in many disputes. Land disputes include the ones with Bhutan (Doklam plateau), India (Arunachal Pradesh, Aksai Chin) and Nepal (near Dolakha and Solukhumbu districts). Maritime disputes in the South China