Cross-strait relations, that persisting preoccupation of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), have been hit by two scandals in the past 12 months. First, there was the suspected leaking of secrets to Beijing by former Mainland Affairs Council deputy minister Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀), and then there has been Ma’s continuous groveling to China, desperate as he is to secure himself an audience with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
With the constant rebuffs from Beijing, the whole affair, on the surface at least, has descended into less of a Ma-Xi meeting and more of a Ma-Xi face-off.
Xi took an opportunity to meet with pro-unification groups from Taiwan to reconfirm his commitment to “one country, two systems” as the model he believes best suits China’s future governance of Taiwan after the former has annexed the latter.
Ma, feeling the need to respond, chose the Double Ten National Day presidential address to return fire in Xi’s direction, reiterating the principle of “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means, and the importance of maintaining the “status quo.”
Had he spoken instead of the fictitious Republic of China (ROC) in his retaliation, he could at least have protected his own bottom line. However, as it turned out, he did not explicitly state the interpretation that he tries to hoodwink Taiwanese with — that the “one China” of which he speaks is actually the ROC, and not the People’s Republic of China (PRC) — or his “one country, two systems” idea. In other words, he was still being a bit spineless.
Ma is, by training, a man of law, but in reality he chooses to use the law instead, playing with the Constitution and governing as he pleases to secure his own selfish objectives.
In this instance, he appeared to engage in a verbal joust with Xi, claiming that maintaining the “status quo” — through the so-called “1992 consensus,” which includes the “one China” ideal, as well as his “three noes” policy of “no unification, no independence and no use of force” — is consistent with the Constitution and has the support of a majority of the public.
He is hiding behind a fabricated consensus and playing the populist card, but in so doing is merely exposing the paucity of his hand.
Taiwanese do not find the idea of “one country, two systems” acceptable. The problem resides not in the “two systems” part of that formulation, but in the part where it says that China and Taiwan could be “one country.”
The “Umbrella movement” in Hong Kong is testament to this.
In the same way, the problem with the “one China, with each side having its own interpretation” idea is not so much in “each side having its own interpretation” as it is in the idea of “one China.”
The Hong Kong pro-democracy protests have announced to the world that the “one country, two systems” concept is bankrupt.
Ma, apparently having taken some political Viagra, took the opportunity to say that the time is ripe for China to move in the direction of constitutional democracy.
This sentiment scored Ma political brownie points, but the Central News Agency quoted an expert saying that the president’s words were only meant for domestic consumption, because of the coming elections.
Beijing is fully aware that this will not affect cross-strait relations in any way.
It turns out the slanging match between the two leaders was nothing more than a poorly written drama. Ma only exhibits a backbone come election time.
James Wang is a political commentator.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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