Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) visit to Hong Kong was heralded yesterday as "yet another sign of warming ties between Taiwan and its rival, communist China." Well yes, we know that Ma's many hagiographers will tell us that all Ma wants is to create a better understanding between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait which will lead to the defusing of tension and the development of constructive engagement leading to a win-win situation. But in our more cynical political outlook -- seldom disappointed by events, we should add -- this looks more like another case of warming ties between Communist China and the KMT, and even that might be questioned.
As mayor of Taiwan's capital, Ma is the highest-level elected official to visit Hong Kong since its 1997 handover to China. His visit owes much to Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's (
Those who talk of warming ties should, however, remember the following points.
First, Ma is in no way representative of the government of Taiwan. If the government has any ideological underpinnings anymore -- and with Chen Shui-bian's (
Also, Ma is not representative of his party. This, we have to admit, is to his credit. Ma is the reasonably honest and popular representative of a party which is neither.
Nor is the KMT representative of the people of Taiwan. True, on the basis of its control of the Legislative Yuan, the KMT postures as the party with a "real" mandate to govern. But under its current leader and the coterie with which he has surrounded himself were decisively rejected by Taiwan's voters last March 18.
And finally, Ma has been raised into the KMT hierarchy with little apparent effort. In this sense he resembles Lien Chan, a KMT blueblood whose progress depended far more on patronage and favor than any real political ability -- the exact antithesis of the real leader of the opposition in Taiwan, James Soong (
Ma's ability to represent Taiwan in any significant way is dubious. But perhaps less depends on who Ma is and more on what he says. How eloquent a spokesman he will be for the Taiwanese version of liberal democracy -- not without its faults but better than anything Beijing has to offer -- while in Hong Kong, we shall see. Given that he has the ear of Beijing as well as Tung, Ma could deliver some important messages about the perception here of how deeply "one country, two systems" has been eroded and about the reasonableness of the Taiwanese' unwillingness to negotiate with China while they feel they have a gun to their heads. Will he do so? We shall see.
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