On June 15, major general Zhu Chenghu (朱成虎), dean of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) National Defense University, said in an interview at the sixth World Peace Forum in Beijing: “After he became Taiwan’s leader, [then-president] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) proposed dispatching four military officials to China to discuss cross-strait military mutual trust issues. We also had four military officials ready to send to Taiwan. However, the US drew five ‘red lines,’ which prevented this exchange.”
The five red lines were: The two sides of the Taiwan Strait cannot establish military confidence-building mechanisms, cannot unite over South China Sea issues against other countries that have competing territorial claims, cannot unite against Japan over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) issue, cannot conduct talks on military technology and cannot establish institutional interactions between retired Taiwanese and Chinese military personnel, Zhu said.
Ma’s office has denied Zhu’s claim.
Zhu, who is believed to be the grandson of former PLA general Zhu De (朱德), once said: “Nuclear wars are the best way to solve the problem of overpopulation.”
He received only a minor punishment for this inappropriate comment, which shows his privileged position as a taizidang (太子黨, “princeling”) — the offspring of senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials.
Zhu Chenghu’s claim that it was Ma who proposed the idea is somewhat shocking.
In 2008, Ma was sworn in as president, and the US expected Ma to bear the pivotal responsibility of cross-strait and East Asian security. However, less than one month after Ma took office, then-premier Liu Chao-hsuan (劉兆玄) told the legislature that Taiwan was prepared to go to war against Japan after a Japanese coast guard vessel collided and sank a Taiwanese fishing ship near the Diaoyutai Islands.
In 2009, in response to Ma’s comment that Japan transferred sovereignty over Taiwan to the Republic of China, then-Japanese representative to Taiwan Masaki Saito, who had been in his position for only one year, said that Taiwan’s status remained undetermined.
This irritated the Ma administration so much that it refused to receive Saito, who eventually had to leave the position. Clearly, Ma is antagonistic toward Japan.
In 2010, National Chengchi University’s Institute of International Relations and China’s National Institute of South China Sea Studies co-edited a South Sea Region Situation Assessment Report, which not only echoes Beijing’s rhetoric about the “Chinese people,” but also states that both parties agree that sovereignty over the South China Sea belongs to China, and should view collaboration over the issue of Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island 太平島) as a prelude to cross-strait military confidence-building.
It also said that the governments should “safeguard sovereignty, shelve disputes, and promote joint exploration and development.”
The report details “reclamation of the island next to Taiping Island, working together to defend the South China Sea, promoting a cross-strait coordination mechanism, forming a joint fleet to patrol the South China Sea, jointly defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity” and so on.
In 2012, the controversy over the Diaoyutai Islands heated up, leading to Ma officially proposing the East China Sea Peace Initiative (ECSPI) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty Forum. The ECSPI is identical to Beijing’s proposals. By the end of 2013, China began building artificial islands in the South China Sea and Ma went along with this, proposing the South China Sea Peace initiative, which is also essentially identical to the ECSPI, in 2015.
As for retired military personnel’s frequent visits to China, retired general Hsia Ying-chou (夏瀛洲), a former president of Taiwan’s National Defense University, once said that the “Republic of China military and the PLA are both the Chinese army.”
There have also been an increasing number of cases of Chinese spy and intelligence leaks in recent years, which can be counted as evidence of Ma’s pro-China position while distancing himself from the US and Japan.
Add all of this to the meeting between Ma and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in 2014 and Ma’s overenthusiastic claim that there is “one China, but no different interpretations.”
Judging from the above events, what Zhu said about the US drawing five red lines is perfectly believable, and it was probably done about 2012 when Ma was elected for a second term.
HoonTing is a political commentator.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry