Even though President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is to step down in less than a month, he still appears to be stuck in “la-la land,” feeling content with his governance and record with no sign he is aware of how Taiwanese really feel or mainstream public opinion.
Ma’s apparent delusional state is evidenced by his comments in a recent interview with the Straits Times from Singapore.
First, Ma urged Taiwanese not to think of the deportation of Taiwanese from Kenya to China as an issue of sovereignty. Even more shocking was that Ma, the man elected to assert this nation’s dignity and sovereignty, casually dismissed the deportations as “a problem stemming from division of labor.”
The Kenyan incident obviously hurt Taiwan’s sovereignty: Beijing breached human rights and the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement (海峽兩岸共同打擊犯罪及司法互助協議) by forcibly removing Taiwanese from Kenya.
Many Taiwanese reacted with indignation to what amounts to extrajudicial abduction, yet Ma did not utter a single word of condemnation or protest in the interview, just a few words of regret.
He also maintained the fiction that Taiwanese support his China policies as he touted the fictitious “1992 consensus” as the crucial element to the cross-strait “status quo.”
Patting himself on the back, Ma said that it was because of his adherence to the so-called consensus that Taiwan was able to achieve its goal of representation at the WHO when it recived an invitation to the World Health Assembly (WHA) in 2009.
“There is no way the status quo can be maintained without the consensus,” Ma said — a statement many saw as a message to president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party.
In response to a question about polls that show a growing number of Taiwanese are opposed to unification with China and how this might affect his successors’ adherence to the Constitution, Ma said the interviewer might “have some misunderstanding regarding Taiwan’s public opinion.”
Ma said that China’s reduced saber-rattling efforts ahead of elections in Taiwan was China “showing greater respect for a democratic society” and acting “in line with the expectations of a democratic society.”
Asked how the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) should reform itself amid growing Taiwanese identification, Ma said that independence was neither a viable nor a necessary road because the Republic of China has existed for 105 years, so there was no need to declare independence again.
The overall impression of the interview was Ma sticking to the lie of the “1992 consensus” while toeing Beijing’s line.
He remains blind to the fact that his examples of Beijing’s “goodwill” rest on condition that Taiwan’s government considers itself part of China, evident by the fact that Taiwan takes part in the WHA as “Chinese Taipei,” which to the rest of the world implies that Taiwan is under Beijing’s heel.
Beijing has never ceased its encroachment on Taiwan’s identity and international space, and the many conciliatory remarks and China-friendly policies from Ma and his administration over the past eight years have only served Beijing’s agenda and deepened the international community’s perception that Taiwan is part of China.
What good is this fraudulent cross-strait “peace” based on a fictional consensus when it is achieved only through the failure of the government to defend Taiwan’s dignity and sovereignty?
An obdurate Ma continues to claim his modus vivendi of not provoking China is the best way to ensure this nation’s interests.
Delusional to the end. It is a sad legacy to leave.
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
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