More and more, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) is behaving as if Taiwan were under the administrative control of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Two recent instances suffice to highlight the matter — one involving a soon-to-be-implemented policy allowing individual Chinese to travel to Taiwan and the other concerning reports that the Taiwanese navy would send vessels to patrol waters surrounding contested islands in the South China Sea.
In both cases, comments by TAO officials purposefully gave the impression that real decision--making powers existed not in Taipei, but rather in Beijing. Whether those comments were propaganda efforts or stemmed from a firm, if confabulatory belief that this is the case is not as important as the fact that the government in Taipei failed to counter the claims with the decisiveness that the situation called for.
The first incident occurred on June 12 during a Straits Forum in Xiamen, Fujian Province, when TAO Director Wang Yi (王毅) made what critics have portrayed as a unilateral announcement regarding the day on which the free independent travelers (FIT) program for Chinese would be implemented by Taiwan. According to opposition legislators, the legal and executive processes for the FIT program had yet to be completed at the time of Wang’s announcement and the Straits Exchange Foundation and its counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, had yet to ratify it.
In other words, an executive decision concerning Taiwan had been announced by a Chinese agency before Taiwan’s legislative and executive branches had completed the necessary process.
The second, more recent instance occurred on June 15 when TAO spokesman Yang Yi (楊毅) was asked in Beijing to comment on reports that Taiwan could dispatch navy vessels to conduct patrols near contested islets in the South China Sea, just as tensions between China and Vietnam and the Philippines were reaching a boiling point.
People from both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Yang was reported by Xinhua news agency as saying, have a shared responsibility to safeguard sovereignty over the islands and their surrounding waters.
Given that, as Yang claimed, “China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and their surrounding waters,” the shared responsibility to safeguard the area implies that Taiwan and China are one and the same. Furthermore, as Beijing has made it repeatedly clear that the relationship between itself and Taipei is not one of equals, Yang’s comments can be understood as affirming that Taiwan was dispatching vessels to enforce Chinese, rather than Taiwanese, claims over the islets and their surrounding waters.
Missing from Yang’s comments, as we all know, was the recognition that Taiwan intended to patrol the area to reaffirm claims of sovereignty by the Republic of China (ROC) — and not the PRC — something the government in Taipei should have made clear after Yang’s remarks made the rounds in the Chinese media. The fact that it did not simply added to the confusion that risks not only infecting passive onlookers, but, more importantly, the men and women in Taiwan’s armed services who carry out the orders of their political masters.
The distinctions between the ROC and the PRC have devolved to such a confusing state that if the fragile situation in the South China Sea ever were to slide into armed conflict, we would be hard pressed to predict how Taiwan’s navy would react, or which side it would ally itself with.
Would it remain neutral, side with China against Vietnam or with Hanoi in opposing Beijing?
Only then would we know for sure whether Taiwan has retained its freedom of action, or lost it to Beijing.
Such extremes or war should not be necessary to clear the matter. That they might is symptomatic of the failure of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration to take a firm stand over the boundaries of administrative decision-making and to prevent, at every instance, attempts by Beijing to encroach upon those.
It would be a simple matter for the Presidential Office to belie Wang and Yang’s comments and to put the risible TAO in its place. That it does not invites speculation that real decision-making powers regarding how Taiwan administers itself lie not in Taipei, where the power they wield is granted them by the Taiwanese polity, but rather in Beijing, whose officials are in no way accountable to the Taiwanese public.
Whosoever occupies the Presidential Office should make it clear that Taipei and only Taipei has the right to make policy decisions on behalf of Taiwanese and to claim ownership of those decisions.
J. Michael Cole is deputy news editor at the Taipei Times.
With the Year of the Snake reaching its conclusion on Monday next week, now is an opportune moment to reflect on the past year — a year marked by institutional strain and national resilience. For Taiwan, the Year of the Snake was a composite of political friction, economic momentum, social unease and strategic consolidation. In the political sphere, it was defined less by legislative productivity and more by partisan confrontation. The mass recall movement sought to remove 31 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators following the passage of controversial bills that expanded legislative powers and imposed sweeping budget cuts. While the effort
There is a story in India about a boy called Prahlad who was an ardent worshipper of Lord Narayana, whom his father considered an enemy. His son’s devotion vexed the father to the extent that he asked his sister, Holika, who could not be burned by fire, to sit with the boy in her lap and burn him to death. Prahlad knew about this evil plan, but sat in his aunt’s lap anyway. His faith won, as he remained unscathed by the fire, while his aunt was devoured by the flames. In some small way, Prahlad reminds me of Taiwan
When Hong Kong’s High Court sentenced newspaper owner Jimmy Lai (黎智英) to 20 years in prison this week, officials declared that his “heinous crimes” had long poisoned society and that his punishment represented justice restored. In their telling, Lai is the mastermind of Hong Kong’s unrest — the architect of a vast conspiracy that manipulated an otherwise contented population into defiance. They imply that removing him would lead to the return of stability. It is a politically convenient narrative — and a profoundly false one. Lai did not radicalize Hong Kong. He belonged to the same generation that fled from the Chinese
To our readers: Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, from Sunday, Feb. 15, through Sunday, Feb. 22, the Taipei Times will have a reduced format without our regular editorials and opinion pieces. From Mondy to Thursday the paper will not be delivered to subscribers, but will be available for purchase at convenience stores. Subscribers will receive the editions they missed once normal distribution resumes on Friday, Feb. 20. The paper returns to its usual format on Monday, Feb. 23, when our regular editorials and opinion pieces will also be resumed.
RSS