President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has a long history of claiming credit for initiatives launched by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), dating back to when he succeeded Chen as Taipei mayor. However, given the lengths to which Ma and his administration have gone to diminish Chen’s presidency — and Chen himself — it was truly ironic that Ma was forced to cite his despised predecessor as rationale for Thursday’s jaunt to Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島).
The Presidential Office on Wednesday was quick to cite Chen as a precedent when announcing Ma’s plans. Like Chen’s before him, Ma’s trip was promoted as a morale-boosting visit to military personnel ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays.
Left unsaid by the Presidential Office was that Ma had been a vocal critic of Chen’s trip. Ma said at the time that Chen’s role as an outgoing leader was to maintain social order and national security and prepare for a transition of power. Sounds pretty much like the job of a caretaker, a term that Ma last week dismissively said was not in his dictionary.
However, while Chen was a lame-duck president when he went to Itu Aba, with about three-and-a-half months left to go in his term, the 2008 election was about six weeks away and the Democratic Progressive Party had not yet been voted out of office. Ma, who has just under four months to go before he leaves office, visited the island just 12 days after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was resoundingly trashed at the polls in what was clearly a repudiation of his policies and administration.
In a speech delivered on Itu Aba, and in later comments at a Taipei news conference, Ma said that he had proposed a “South China Sea peace initiative” on May 26 last year, and that he was fleshing out that proposal with the announcement of a “South China Sea peace initiative roadmap” focusing on cooperation and avoiding confrontation and monopolization.
He said Taiwan would work to transform Itu Aba into an island for peace and rescue operations, as well as an ecologically friendly island.
Left unsaid on Thursday, as it was last year, was just how similar Ma’s proposals are to Chen’s “Spratly initiative” that was announced during the 2008 trip. Chen urged the nations in the South China Sea area to set aside sovereignty disputes and cooperate to protect the environment and resources of the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島). He called for a non-governmental research center to be established to facilitate international cooperation to protect the ecology and resources of the region.
One of the main differences between Ma’s visit and Chen’s is that in 2008 China had not begun a massive land reclamation scheme around several reefs and shoals in the Spratlys, a scheme that has substantially raised tensions in the region because of Beijing’s insistence that the new outposts are designed to have undefined military purposes, as well as serve as bases for maritime search and rescue. The US, Japan, the Philippines and other nations were not as concerned with Beijing’s encroachment on rights of free navigation in the area and Manila had not taken China to an international tribunal in a bid to clarify the legal status of the Spratlys’ reefs and shoals.
As the nation’s leader, Ma has a role to play boosting the morale of military service personnel, but there are better ways than visiting a few score on a remote island, especially given the lack of attention his government has paid to national defense and to military personnel matters over the past eight years.
Like his surprise trip to Singapore in November last year to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), it is the timing of Ma’s trip to Itu Aba that raises the most questions. Why now? Ma said he had planned to visit last year, but “for some reason” he did not do so. Some observers attribute his itchy feet to a desire to ensure a place in the history books — and a continuing role in cross-strait relations. More cynical observers say it looks more like Ma is trying to box in his successor.
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