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
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