President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration wasted no time in welcoming an announcement China’s State Council made on Thursday that Taiwanese will no longer need a visa to enter China from Wednesday next week, saying it viewed the privilege in a positive light.
A few hours after the welcoming remarks by Executive Yuan spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun (孫立群) on Thursday, China’s Ministry of Public Security announced its plans for the Taiwan compatriot travel document — a special certificate issued by China for Taiwanese who wish to travel to China, since it does not recognize Republic of China passports — to be replaced by a form of IC card on a trial basis by the end of this year.
Mainland Affairs Council spokesperson Wu Mei-hung (吳美紅) later that day again praised the “well-intended” policy, despite admitting that the council was informed of Beijing’s plans “at very short notice,” adding that the council was clueless about whether the IC card policy would amount to treating Taiwanese citizens in the same manner as people living in Hong Kong or Macau.
These events occurred one day after Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) seemed unsure about how to respond to the plans first unveiled by National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Yu Zhengsheng (俞正聲) on Monday last week, with Hsia saying that information to assess possible implications, especially in terms of whether the nation is treated with “dignity” under the initiative, was not available.
It was later proved that the amendments to the Measure for the Control of Chinese Citizens Traveling to or from the Region of Taiwan (中國公民往來台灣地區管理辦法) that streamlined the travel procedures had already been signed off by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) one day prior to Yu’s announcement.
Beijing once again bypassed the Taiwanese government and enacted a policy that affects Taiwan, reminiscent of its unilateral designation of the new M503 commercial air route, and its three feeder routes, over the Taiwan Strait earlier this year.
If Taiwan complains of not being consulted beforehand, the best it can hope for is Beijing agreeing to start a trial run before the policy becomes fully operational.
Is the channel of communication between the Mainland Affairs Council and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office based on equality and respect, and is it as effective in ironing out differences as the Ma administration has trumpeted? Does China take into account Taiwanese sentiment in drawing up its policy toward Taiwan, as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has said?
Clearly the answer is no when it comes to matters concerning Taiwan’s dignity and security. It was especially ironic considering that Hsia and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) held a meeting in Kinmen less than a month ago.
These cases join a long list of events in recent years that have pushed Taiwan further away from China, opposite to what the Ma administration and Beijing had hoped to achieve by fostering economic integration and one-on-one exchanges. In the case of increasing convenience of travel to China, there is no better way than accepting Republic of China passports as a valid travel document, as opposed to the Taiwan compatriot permit. Anything else would not help bridge the growing psychological gap.
As the Ma administration has appeared powerless to defend the nation’s dignity and security while Beijing has constantly disregarded Taiwan’s sovereignty, they only have themselves to blame.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry