Ma-Xi meeting a betrayal
“No agreements, no agreements, no agreements” so the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mantra went before President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), tail between his legs, delusions aplenty, lips puckered, crawled to Singapore to kiss Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) ring (politely speaking).
Ma lied when he said he would never meet China’s leader during his administration. He lied when he said no agreements. He betrayed Taiwan, a name he likely did not dare utter during his meeting with Xi.
The KMT kept referring to the erstwhile poorly-timed meeting between Xi and Ma as an “historic event.” It is true that there were historic aspects of the meeting — historic betrayal, historic weakness by Ma, historic mistake — but in keeping with the deep-rooted fear of most Taiwanese that Ma would do something to kill Taiwan in the waning moments of his dismal administration, this leader with an approval rating of about 9 percent met Xi and did all he could to sandbag Taiwan, trying with his last gasp in office to hitch Taiwan inexorably to China.
His aim and actions were designed to appear to agree with Beijing that the only choices available between China and Taiwan are both within the fake “one China” principle, and Ma even neglected to point out that this faux doctrine has “different interpretations.”
Lame duck Ma has no authority, legal or moral, to bind Taiwan to such a thing. There still remains another possibility that sticks in both Xi’s and Ma’s respective craws, which is that China is China and Taiwan is Taiwan, a third possibility supported by at least 80 percent of Taiwanese. Of course, this would mean the end of the KMT’s raison d’etre and the death of China’s vicious hegemony.
Ma elucidated all that the KMT represents — unification at all costs.
Treason. Betrayal. Delusion. Surrender. Weakness. Last-ditch effort. Lies. Pathetic.
There are many words which might describe Ma’s gambit. Despite China’s determination to use the meeting for a soundbite and to try to push votes in January toward the KMT — the outcome ought to produce the exact opposite, now that voters have seen the KMT’s and the Chinese Communist Party’s true conspiracy of malice — and as some basis for some “agreement” between Taiwan and China.
Ma does not have this authority and does not represent the 80 percent of Taiwanese who do not wish to be unified with totalitarian one-party China.
Ma tried what most Taiwanese feared he would, he went to meet his Chinese master, bowed low and tried to surrender democratic Taiwan, using “peace” as a cover for his betrayal, witlessly bringing oppression to free Taiwanese and humiliating himself, and quite possibly all of Taiwan.
Ma must go down in infamy, a pathetic betrayer of all of the principles that make Taiwan a thriving, free and democratic contrast to the Chinese dictatorship.
Lee Long-hwa
Los Angeles, California
After the Ma-Xi meeting, CNN reported the event as “Taiwan & China: One China.”
This is conspicuous, but not legally binding, as the meeting took place between two individual parties without using their official titles.
The only outcome was that Ma enjoyed 81 seconds of ecstatic handshaking with Xi, which Ma had daydreamed about for years. Ma got drunk at the dinner with Xi and told reporters that he worked for Xi as a subordinate. A drunk person usually tells nothing but the truth.
Since the meeting was personal in nature and was not blessed by Taiwanese or approved by the legislature, Ma and his team should not claim their travel expenses from the government, if they have any decency.
Ma acted like Xi’s sidekick, echoing whatever Xi said and giving away Taiwan’s dignity and sovereignty to Xi without getting anything in return. To Taiwanese, Ma always says that the so-called “1992 consensus” is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation, and that “one China” is the Republic of China (ROC).
To Xi and in front of hundreds of reporters from all over the world, Ma declared that “1992 consensus” is based on the “one China principle.”
Ma can forget about winning a Nobel Peace Prize. By letting the ROC become a part of China, Ma has put Taiwan in danger instead maintaining peace.
Xi threatened Taiwanese about “ground moving and mountain vibrating,” as well as “tidal waves roaring.” Xi also claimed that 1,600 missiles are not aimed at Taiwan. Even a kindergarten student would not believe that.
The Ma-Xi meeting was nicknamed the “scold to death meeting” (罵死會).
Legally, Taiwan is in an indeterminate status, according to the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty and the related 1952 Taipei Treaty.
Taiwanese have the right to self-determination based on the UN Charter. The future of Taiwan shall be decided solely by 23 million Taiwanese.
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
Presidency a mirror of past
Ma’s failed presidency is simply a mirror of the failed policies of the KMT and the Constitution imposed upon Taiwan following the invasion by former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his Nationalist forces in 1949.
This military occupation was not welcomed by the nation’s population.
They had fought with the Japanese during World War II and, unlike former vice president Lien Chan’s (連戰) account, had not resisted the Japanese during their 50 year rule of Formosa. In fact quite the reverse, they had benefited from infrastructure investment, including dams that finally provided water management, railways, roads, farms, school and college education, hospitals, libraries, postal services and other services on a scale that China hadnot achieved, let alone had provided to Formosa before 1895.
Under Chinese rule Formosa was an incompetently managed backwater, with its main purpose being to provide a shipping stopover, hence the British trading fort on the Tamsui River, so it came as no surprise to Taiwanese that the Qing Dynasty’s wish was to abandon the island in recompense for losing a war over Korea.
Ma’s legacy is that, as president, he has chosen to defend a failed ROC instead of representing Taiwanese. He upholds the ROC Constitution, written for a China that never included Formosa, as the island belonged to Japan at that time.
Although, ironically, it was this very Japanese prefecture that gave Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) the support to overthrow the Qing Dynasty in 1900, that arguably eventually led to lead to the founding of the ROC in 1911.
That aside, the position of China during World War II was that Japan occupied Manchuria, Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai. The Pacific War was second to the war in Europe and the allied forces did not turn their full attention to the fate of the Pacific Rim until 1944, leaving the ROC to defend itself as best it could. Chiang was supplied with munitions via Burma by the British Indian army, while British, Australian and New Zealand forces tried to contain Japan’s expansion into Indonesia after losing Singapore in 1943.
The truth is that it was US forces that defeated the Japanese at sea and in the air, not Chinese land forces. The dropping of two atomic bombs was such a shock to Japan that Japanese Emperor Hirohito accepted defeat within days and as head of the armed forces ordered all Japanese troops to surrender.
As head of the allied armed forces, then-US president Franklin Roosevelt instructed Chiang to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces across French Indochina and on Formosa, but not in Manchuria or Korea.
That position was to be taken by Russia, a late entry to the war, with Japan having earlier signed peace accords and amnesties with Japan to avoid waging a war on two fronts. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had an end game. He and Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) hatched a plan, the consequences of which would be devastating for the ROC. Stalin saw an opportunity to expand his influence as leader of the communist world across China.
Mao pampered Stalin’s ego by talking of a Soviet Republic of China, while at the same time faking a wish for democracy with then-US secretary of state George Marshall. By 1947, both were deceived.
The very Japanese munitions handed over to the Russians in Manchuria found their way into the hands of Mao’s communist troops, while Chiang’s Nationalist troops were denied US support.
By 1950, communism was on a roll across the Asia-Pacific region, first China, then Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Desperate to put out the fire, the US went into one war followed by another. Mao dropped the Soviet reference to his communist party.
Meanwhile, Britain, a founding member of the allied powers and NATO, recognized the People’s Republic of China as representing China in place of the ROC.
The US, in a state of attrition, maintained ties with the ROC as the Chinese government in exile up until 1971, when UN Resolution 2758 was passed and the ROC resigned its seat at the UN in protest.
Chiang did not want to be seated at the same table as a thief, but the fact was that as of that year there was no internationally recognized ROC, even though it had occupied the renamed Taiwan and imposed its own constitution.
The ROC only existed in Taiwan because Taiwanese were restrained under martial law. The ramifications of which were heard at the meeting between Ma and Xi in Singapore with the “one China, two interpretations” nonsense that the KMT keeps trotting out when the truth is that Taiwanese should decide their own future, not anyone else. Eventual unification with China is not their expectation or what they deserve.
Peter Hayhoe
Taichung
Pollution crisis is not over
As expected, the pollution crisis in Taipei has subsided so there will be no more articles or concern in general on this topic until Taipei is again blanketed in toxic particles.
Those of us in central Taiwan are back to the norm of waking up to high levels of pollution, claustrophobic visibility and no hope of improvement. We face the choice of running away, hiding indoors or just throwing caution to the wind, and trying to live, work and study in conditions that are certain to cause both short-term and long-term health complications.
The joke is on the taxpayers of Taipei and other greener cities and counties. You will be paying all our medical bills.
Aaron Andrews
Taichung
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