President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said her administration would try to maintain the “status quo” when handling cross-strait relations, but what exactly was the “status quo” under former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and has it changed since Tsai took office? Did Taiwan’s exclusion from the 39th International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Assembly change the “status quo”? If not, how does Taiwan maintain it? As Beijing continues to put pressure on Taiwan by isolating it from the rest of the world, while offering material rewards to regions in Taiwan that apparently support the so-called “1992 consensus,” the nation is faced with increased internal discord. Considering the circumstances, what kind of “status quo” can Taiwan work to maintain?
Taiwanese know that China is offering its tourists and helping promote Taiwanese produce only to pave the way for unification, and this time, China is exclusively offering such benefits to the areas that support the “1992 consensus.” It is absurd that those mayors and county commissioners allow themselves to be used as political leverage against Taiwan.
While in power, the Japanese colonial government found that a carrot-and-stick approach worked best with Taiwanese. Shinpei Goto, head of civilian affairs during the early Japanese colonial period, understood the weaknesses of Taiwanese and laid the strategy for colonial rule of Taiwan. Goto was perhaps the most influential figure in building the foundation for Taiwan’s modernization, even more important than late Qing governor Liu Ming-chuan (劉銘傳) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
Goto famously said that “colonialism is no charity” and that “the Taiwanese national character can be summed up as money-grubbing, vain and afraid of death.”
To control Taiwanese, he successfully used a carrot-and-stick approach, which included promises of material reward and fame, as well as intimidation.
Indeed, colonialism is no charity, and it is time that the eight mayors and county commissioners understood that. They should stop being naive and hoping for a benevolent China offering benefits: Beijing never offers benefits without expecting something in return. While it is true that Japan helped modernize the nation, Taiwanese also had to pay the price with pain and suffering. Have Taiwanese learned their lesson from history and realized their weaknesses?
Could it be that Taiwan really is suitable to be colonized? Are Taiwanese fated to be slaves and never to be their own masters?
Taiwanese fawning on China justify their actions by saying that China is too strong and powerful, but what about Russia? The Baltic states worked together and eventually liberated themselves from oppressive Russia. Today, the Baltic states are treated with respect and dignity as members of the international community, but if they had only tried to maintain the “status quo,” future generations would remember their ancestors as Russian.
What is the real “status quo”? It is that the majority of Taiwanese are pro-independence rather than pro-unification. A poll by Chinese-language business magazine Global Views Monthly showed that 51.1 percent of respondents think Taiwan should become independent. This number has remained stable for a long time, a sign that Taiwanese’s most important task should not be to maintain the “status quo,” but to change it: They must increase the number of Taiwanese independence supporters to at least 75 percent. The legislature can then change the name of the nation and draft a new Constitution, and allow the public to decide in a referendum, thus setting Taiwan on the road to becoming a normalized nation.
The idea of maintaining the “status quo” was introduced by former US president George W. Bush, who never defined the “status quo.”
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) — the first directly elected Taiwanese president — near the end of his tenure defined the cross-strait relationship as a “special state-to-state” model, as part of an effort to create an equal relationship with Beijing. Following Lee, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) described the cross-strait relationship as “one country on either side” of the Taiwan Strait; a concept that challenged the international order set by the US.
However, Chen’s successor, former president Ma Ying-jeou, moved the definition backward by claiming that “cross-strait relations are more important than foreign relations” and played along with China’s “one China” principle through the “1992 consensus.” As a result, Taiwan was treated as part of China, without any diplomatic relations.
The Tsai administration must not make the same mistake of trying to maintain the “status quo.”
Hopefully Taiwanese can work together and stay strong to resist China’s carrot-and-stick strategy. They must not fail their ancestors who worked hard over the past 400 years to build what they have today.
Chu Meng-hsiang is former deputy secretary-general of the Lee Foundation.
Translated by Tu Yu-an
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