Beijing could be trying to persuade the administration of US President Barack Obama to interfere in Taiwanese politics and help to get President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) re-elected, a former US envoy to Taiwan said recently.
Former American Institute in Taiwan director Douglas Paal hinted at this situation in an article published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he is now vice president of studies.
Paal says that Chinese officials meeting with US officials this year “signaled a willingness” to be flexible toward any new efforts by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to find its own way to address the “one China” policy — an acknowledgment that there is only “one China.”
However, he says, in the DPP announcement setting forth principles and policies to guide Taiwan’s international relations and dealings with China, the issue is not addressed.
As a result, Paal said the DPP had “failed to meet China’s test for seriousness of intentions.”
“If it [China] chooses to speak up forcefully and threateningly against the DPP in the run-up to the election, experience indicates — and Chinese leaders know — it will provoke a negative reaction among Taiwan’s voters and could drive them to support the DPP,” he says.
“If it speaks too softly in opposition to the DPP position, centrist voters may conclude there is no real cost to replacing the Ma government with one led by the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen [蔡英文],” he says.
Paal said officials from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office are straddling both sides of this dilemma.
“Ironically, this leads the Chinese privately to express hope for intervention by the Obama administration to tilt the political playing field in favor of [President] Ma Ying-jeou’s government and against Tsai’s DPP,” he says. “Beijing is looking to Washington for help to manage what it ordinarily insists are its internal affairs with Taiwan.”
“This in turn will create a dilemma for Washington: how to appear impartial in Taiwan’s domestic elections and yet convey its -preference for a continuation of Ma Ying-jeou’s management of cross-strait relations,” he says.
“Look for Obama administration officials to state that they are impartial about the voting and will welcome whatever is the result of the democratic elections in Taiwan,” Paal says.
“But they are likely also to state that the United States hopes for a continuation of the reduction in tensions and would not welcome provocations from either side of the Strait,” he says.
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