The Taipei-Shanghai Forum was over in just a day. With three memorandums of cooperation signed and a few inconsequential seminars, nothing of significance was achieved. Since most of the previous forums’ memorandums were never implemented, this time they decided to not even pay lip service to anything meaningful.
For example, talks about marathon exchanges only touched on reserving places for the other side’s contestants, talks on film exchanges only set forth a broad framework and talks about exchanges between Taipei’s Wenshan District (文山) and Shanghai’s Songjiang District did not come to any conclusion.
If Shanghai Municipal Committee United Front Work Department Director Sha Hailin (沙海林) did not have “United Front Work Department director” in his title, the forum would have received even less attention from the media. Not many Taipei residents were aware of much less cared about the forum.
Consequently, the forum did not contribute much to Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) performance. As far as Taiwanese politicians are concerned, cross-strait issues are definitely not the main course, but only a side dish, which can be likened to firecrackers. Only after the main course is properly served can the side dish complement its brilliance and the fireworks become meaningful.
It is utterly futile to try to use a side dish to improve one’s performance if the main course falls short.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is one such example: He thought the cross-strait relationship was his biggest achievement, but since the main course — domestic affairs — was a mess, the side dish did little to boost his legacy.
The same can be said about Ko. When the forum was held in Shanghai last year, Ko had just won the election in a landslide victory, he had great momentum and the media were eager to report on his comings and goings. Today, Ko’s approval rating is the lowest among the mayors of Taiwan’s six special municipalities.
What the public cares most about is the city’s major problems, such as the handling of the Taipei Dome project and preparations for next year’s Universiade.
Nobody cares much about cross-strait issues, which is why Ko did not appear very enthusiastic at this year’s forum: His opening remarks lasted just three minutes.
Shanghai used to send its deputy mayors to take part in the forums, but Sha is just a United Front Work Department director and many observers thought his status was too low. As Taiwanese are strongly opposed to the phrase “united front,” Sha changed his title to “representative of the mayor” upon his arrival, which showed that he can think on his feet.
In an attempt to make himself more acceptable to the Taiwanese public, he had learned a Hoklo phrase, xiongzan (雄讚) — which means “brilliant” — but the way he said it, it was mistaken as tongzhan (統戰), which means “united front” and is pronounced tongzan in the Taiwanese Mandarin accent. In a way he was defeated by his own wits.
Although Sha talked about city policies in his opening remarks, he still managed to mention the so-called “1992 consensus,” which was probably his main task during the visit. In interviews, he kept saying that intercity exchanges between Taipei and Shanghai are not exchanges between cities in different nations.
He also commended Ko for his stance on cross-strait relations, praising his understanding of and respect for the “1992 consensus,” citing Ko as saying that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are “one big family.” Sha spoke as if he were the chief of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee.
When Ko talked about cross-strait issues, he was unenthusiastic about the “four mutuals” — mutual acquaintance, mutual understanding, mutual respect and mutual collaboration — and did not mention so much as one word the “1992 consensus.”
On the other hand, Ko did say before Sha visited Taiwan: “If your immune system is robust enough, you do not need to worry about bacteria.”
What would China think about Sha, a Chinese representative, being compared to bacteria?
It is worth noting that Sha said that if there is a political foundation, there could be exchanges with cities governed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
“China has proposed that the ‘1992 consensus’ should be the foundation of peaceful cross-strait developments, and I want to express my understanding and respect for that position,” Ko said in August last year.
What Ko meant was that the view that “the ‘1992 consensus’ is the foundation of peaceful cross-strait development” was proposed unilaterally by China and that it was not Taiwan’s point of view, and he only wanted to express his “understanding and respect” for this Chinese point of view, but that had nothing to do with the “1992 consensus” itself, nor was it a show of support of the it.
If DPP mayors can emulate Ko’s “political foundation,” the public could have a more optimistic view of exchanges between Taiwanese and Chinese cities.
When Sha visited New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), Chu gave him the cold shoulder. Chu did not come out to greet Sha, nor did he mention the “1992 consensus,” the holy cow of Chu’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Chu clearly did not want his pro-China stance to become even more pronounced than it already is.
On the other hand, if he had displayed Taiwan’s national flag in the meeting room and given a big speech about the Republic of China, while at the same time allowing the media to listen in on his conversation with Sha, Sha might have become so annoyed that he would have left.
That could only have boosted Chu’s popularity, and he might even have had a chance at a run for the presidency in 2020.
Unfortunately for him, he did none of those things, because he is Chu.
Fan Shih-ping is a professor at National Taiwan Normal University’s Graduate Institute of Political Science.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
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