On Wednesday, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) named former vice president Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) as his envoy for the upcoming APEC summit in Beijing. Clearly, the proposed meeting between Ma and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the gathering will not happen.
The idea of a Ma-Xi meeting has been a contentious issue for more than a year. Judging by the change in Ma’s attitude to the idea, he might have initially proposed a meeting in response to Xi’s call for political negotiations. Yet with plummeting approval ratings — and especially after hundreds of thousands protested the death of army corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘) last year — Ma now seems to view meeting Xi as his best bet to avoid becoming a lame duck president.
Ma then said he would adjust his status for the meeting from “president” to leader of an economic entity, hinting that perhaps China could treat him how it treats Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英). Beijing seized the chance and sent pro-China academics to the Cross-Strait Peace Forum last October to set three prerequisites for a Ma-Xi meeting: First, reciprocal visits by Mainland Affairs Council Minister (MAC) Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍). Second, establishing cross-strait representative offices and third, a cross-strait peace pact.
After the forum, the Ma administration started working to secure the meet. A MAC minister would not ordinarily attend an APEC summit, but Wang went to last year’s event and visited China three months later. He planned to invite Zhang to visit in April, but the visit was delayed to June after March’s Sunflower movement.
Ma demanded that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators prioritize amendments to set up cross-strait representative offices. Rumor had it that he suggested budgeting for the offices first, enabling the legislature to simultaneously pass the amendments and budget, so the offices could begin operations as soon as possible. Ma’s sense of urgency about meeting Xi is evident. However, Beijing’s bottom line of not holding the meet at an international event was clear: It sees the meeting as an internal affair.
In June, Zhang visited political figures in a high-profile trip to Taiwan. In August, he criticized the Ma administration for promoting Taiwanese independence economically — without not naming names — publicly opposed a Taiwan-Malaysia free-trade agreement and denounced the government over its accusations that former MAC deputy minister Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) spied for and leaked confidential information to China.
The relationship between Ma and Xi has cooled and their meeting now seems unlikely. Ma hinted as much during an interview with al-Jazeera TV last month. Naming Siew his envoy to the summit means a Ma-Xi meeting there is dead in the water.
Taiwan has idled on the issue for more than a year, as China secures the establishment of a permanent mechanism for cross-strait political dialogue, making the world believe the two sides are preparing for unification talks. Luckily, the Sunflower movement put cross-strait exchanges on hold. Otherwise, more foreign academics would have suggested that the US abandon Taiwan and the nation would likely have been pushed by the international community onto the “one China” route.
If China establishes an office in Taiwan similar to the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong, remarks allegedly made by office director Zhang Xiaoming (張曉明) that it is OK to kill 500 protesters to crack down on the rallies there may resound in Taiwan during the 2016 presidential poll.
Although a Ma-Xi meeting will not happen at the APEC summit, it remains a contentious issue. Perhaps Ma and Xi should drop it.
Lai I-chung is vice chief executive officer of Taiwan Thinktank.
Translated by Eddy Chang
With each passing day, the threat of a People’s Republic of China (PRC) assault on Taiwan grows. Whatever one’s view about the history, there is essentially no question that a PRC conquest of Taiwan would mark the end of the autonomy and freedom enjoyed by the island’s 23 million people. Simply put, the PRC threat to Taiwan is genuinely existential for a free, democratic and autonomous Taiwan. Yet one might not know it from looking at Taiwan. For an island facing a threat so acute, lethal and imminent, Taiwan is showing an alarming lack of urgency in dramatically strengthening its defenses.
As India’s six-week-long general election grinds past the halfway mark, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s messaging has shifted from confident to shrill. After the first couple of phases of polling showed a 3 percentage point drop in turnout, Modi and his party leaders have largely stopped promoting their accomplishments of the past 10 years — or, for that matter, the “Modi guarantees” offered in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) manifesto for the next five. Instead, making the majority Hindu population fear and loathe Muslims seems to be the BJP’s preferred talking point. Modi went on the offensive in an April 21
The people of Taiwan recently received confirmation of the strength of American support for their security. Of four foreign aid bills that Congress passed and President Biden signed in April, the bill legislating additional support for Taiwan garnered the most votes. Three hundred eighty-five members of the House of Representatives voted to provide foreign military financing to Taiwan versus only 34 against. More members of Congress voted to support Taiwan than Ukraine, Israel, or banning TikTok. There was scant debate over whether the United States should provide greater support for Taiwan. It was understood and broadly accepted that doing so
I still remember the first time I heard about the possibility of an invasion by China. I was six years old. I thought war was coming and hid in my bed, scared. After 18 years, the invasion news tastes like a sandwich I eat every morning. As a Gen Z Taiwanese student who has witnessed China’s harassment for more than 20 years, I want to share my opinion on China. Every generation goes through different events. I have seen not only the norms of China’s constant presence, but also the Sunflower movement, wars and people fighting over peace or equality,