“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad,” so it is said. And, indeed, on March 30 last year, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) suddenly lost his mind. He hastily convened a meeting of the National Security Council at 9pm and announced his decision that Taiwan would try to join the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
Ma’s administration then sent a letter of intent to become a founding member of the AIIB — through China’s Taiwan Affairs Office — which sent shockwaves through the nation and caused considerable embarrassment to US President Barack Obama.
The AIIB affair caused Washington to switch its support to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and contributed to President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) — then a presidential candidate — visit to the US.
Commenting on the visit, Tsai said she could “feel the warmth and kindness of the Americans.”
Ma’s moment of madness revealed the true nature of his pro-China inclinations, which destroyed his political future and consigned the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to the dustbin of history.
China’s AIIB victory has not infused its leaders with a feeling of responsibility as a major global power, nor has it increased China’s prestige on the world stage. Indeed, while the victory has not gone to Beijing directly, it has certainly gone to its head.
At this year’s G20 summit in Hangzhou, Chinese leaders snubbed Obama, forcing him to disembark from Air Force One from the belly of the plane without the standard red carpeted stairs. This was intended for domestic consumption, designed to show Chinese that their government is ready, willing and able to do battle with the US. Has Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) lost his marbles, too?
Xi’s move to block Taiwan from participating in this year’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Assembly in Canada shows he is starting to crack up. Xi’s arrogant posturing over the so-called “1992 consensus” was an attempt to force Tsai to capitulate to accepting Beijing’s “one China” principle and declare to the world that Taiwan belongs to China. Such a perverse course of action, which flies in the face of public opinion in Taiwan, invariably damages China’s international standing and severely tarnishes the image of China as a great power.
All the indications are that Adolf Hitler went mad, too, resulting in the Holocaust. When the Japanese military junta took leave of its senses in World War II, it led to the attack on Pearl Harbor. In each of these cases, the leaders of each nation displayed initial signs of madness. Hitler first annexed Austria and fanned the flames of German nationalism with the ideal of a “greater Germanic Reich.”
Likewise, Japan’s military government proposed to unite “all the world under one roof” and promoted the idea of “Japanese spirit.”
Today, China, in the initial stages of its hegemonic ambitions, sees itself as tian chao (“celestial empire,” 天朝), a phrase which harkens back to the days of imperial China.
The creation of the AIIB, China’s snub to the US at the G20 summit and the suppression of Taiwan: China’s leaders are specializing in forcing nations to yield.
However, history shows that extremist, authoritarian regimes all eventually share the same fate as Hitler and Japan’s military junta: They eventually lose the plot and bring destruction upon themselves.
China would undoubtedly intensify its suppression of Taiwan. Are people to believe that all Tsai needs to do to make everything alright is to say the magic words “1992 consensus”?
Beijing’s goal is to annex Taiwan. If Tsai acknowledges the “1992 consensus,” she would provide China with a legitimate reason to invade Taiwan.
In January’s presidential and legislative elections, Taiwanese voted for the DPP because they feared that the KMT was leading the nation down a one-way road to unification with China.
As Mencius wrote: “When Heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a great man, it first frustrates his will.”
The ICAO incident is a test of the will of Tsai’s administration and Taiwanese.
This setback has a silver lining for Taiwan. The Tsai administration — facing trouble over its handling of the Mega International Commercial Bank and XPEC Entertainment Inc cases, and its failure, so far, to reform working hours — might have been thrown a lifeline by China, giving the government an opportunity to display its resolve and willpower. Tsai might be able to use this to restore public support for her government.
Taiwan has never been part of China. This is a historical fact. The “six assurances” spell out in black and white that the US will never change its position on Taiwanese sovereignty.
Taiwan should use this opportunity, both inside and outside the venue of the ICAO Assembly, to tell the world that Taiwan is not part of China and launch a fight against the wild ravings of an aggressive China. This is the only way that Tsai’s administration — and Taiwan — would be able to survive.
Huang Tien-lin is a former Presidential Office adviser.
Translated by Edward Jones
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