Sun, Sep 28, 2014 page8

• EDITORIAL: Beijing forces its terms on Ma

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  Given Beijing’s understanding of Taiwan’s politics and public opinion, it is unthinkable that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is not aware of how unpopular the “one country, two systems” concept is in Taiwan. Nevertheless, he said at a meeting with pro-unification groups on Friday in Beijing that China will apply the framework to achieve “peaceful unification” with Taiwan.

  Xi could not have picked a worse time to sell the idea — which was first formulated by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in 1979 to resolve the political status of Taiwan and Hong Kong — after Hong Kong riot police this week clashed with pro-democracy activists demanding the full democracy that Hong Kongers were promised under the policy of “one country, two systems,” but have been denied since its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

  That Xi has revived the framework of “one country, two systems,” which his predecessor, former Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), had avoided mentioning during his time in office — despite the inclusion of the policy in Hu’s report at the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012 before he stepped down — has multiple implications for future cross-strait relations.

  It is like a slap in President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) face, as Xi’s remarks came at a time when Ma is still hoping to secure a meeting with him on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Beijing in November.

  The Ma administration considered the event the best occasion for such a meeting, as Ma could sit down with Xi and talk on equal footing, in the capacity of leaders of the nations’ economies. By offering the “one country, two systems” formula as a “solution to the Taiwan issue,” Xi aimed to remind Ma that Taiwan is subordinate to China.

  It is also an explicit and unambiguous declaration by Xi that Beijing rejects what Ma has touted as principles that are pushing cross-strait ties forward since he took office in May 2008, including the so-called “1992 consensus,” or both sides agreeing that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation, “mutual non-recognition of sovereignty” and “mutual non-denial of jurisdiction” between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

  Xi bluntly spurned the principles — which Ma said were related to the “German experience” in the signing of the Basic Treaty of 1972 between then-East and West Germany — that “jurisdiction can be separated from sovereignty” by “recognizing the territory” of each side without recognizing each other’s sovereignty.

  In an apparent response to lessons Ma said he has learned from the German experience, Xi said that unification between Taiwan and China “would not involve recreation of territory or sovereignty,” but would be to “end the political standoff.”

  It suggested that Xi has dismissed Ma’s idea to use the German experience as a reference in cross-strait relations, even though Ma said the “one Germany, two states” concept was not one of the aspects of the German model he aspires to emulate, and that the German model led to unification, which should suffice to reassure Beijing of Ma’s goal for ultimate unification.

  It was the first time Xi had proposed the arrangement to Taiwan since his accession to power in November 2012, but he has already expressed his eagerness to find a solution to the cross-strait political standoff.

  Xi told former vice president Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) in October last year that the issue “cannot be passed on from generation to generation” and it was included in Xi’s “six-point” proposition to Taiwan, published recently in an article by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍).

  What lies ahead for Ma in the remainder of his tenure is pressure not only to begin political talks with Beijing, but to negotiate on Beijing’s terms.
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