President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration suffers from a contradictory mental state, a personality split that trumpets upholding Taiwan’s national interests and dignity, while its actions over the past seven years belie its words.
The latest evidence is the Ma government’s bid to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
On Tuesday, the government said that it would not apply for AIIB membership if Beijing insists that Taiwan subjects itself to a stipulation saying that an applicant that “does not enjoy sovereignty or cannot take responsibility for its international relations” must have its application “presented or agreed upon by the member of the bank responsible for its international relations.”
China has never renounced its ambition to annex Taiwan and the language of the article aims to denigrate the nation’s status; as such, the Ma administration ought be lauded for saying that Taiwan would not join the bank if its sovereignty would be compromised.
That said, many must wonder why the Ma administration in March was in such a rush to apply?
The government applied for the AIIB on the night of March 31 — the application deadline. The letter of intent to become a founding member of the AIIB, which the Ma administration submitted through the cross-strait communication channel between the Mainland Affairs Council and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, lacked the official name of the nation and the Ministry of Finance. The full title of Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) was not beneath his signature and the letter was not printed on government letterhead.
The rush to apply to the AIIB in such a self-degrading manner highlights the contradictions between Ma’s actions and his pledge to maintain Taiwan’s dignity.
Since taking office in May 2008, Ma has forged closer ties with China and created the impression that Beijing means no harm. Aside from a statement reiterating that the relations between Taiwan and China are not state-to-state, but rather “region-to-region,” Ma has obstinately ignored that Beijing has never acknowledged the idea of “one China, with each side having its own interpretation.”
As such, on the pretense of what it calls “putting aside the sovereignty dispute,” the Ma administration is fracturing Taiwan’s status as a sovereign state.
The administration’s insistence on the so-called “1992 consensus” serves only to erode the nation’s international standing and propel Taiwan’s sovereignty into further ambiguity and an existential crisis.
China, on the other hand, has become more tactful in its dealing with Taiwan since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) came to power. However subtly, China is showing a new pattern of assertiveness to “Hong Kong-ize” (香港化) Taiwan, creating an international impression that Taiwan is part of China.
This is obvious from the AIIB incident, Beijing’s recent announcement that Taiwanese visitors no longer need to apply for entry permits to China and when in May during a meeting with Xi, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) remarked that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China.”
Furthermore, a new security law China adopted yesterday undoubtedly encroaches on Taiwan’s sovereign status.
The split personality of the Ma administration and the KMT risks leaving Taiwan defenseless against China’s annexation agenda.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS