Ma’s narrow vocabulary
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is soon to step down, decided on Friday last week to visit Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) to reiterate Taiwan’s sovereignty over it.
However, two days ago, he was given a rap across the knuckles by former US National Security Council Asian Affairs director Evan Medeiros, who was awarded the Order of Brilliant Star with Special Grand Cordon by Ma. Medeiros said that the trip would make Ma the first national leader in the past decade to travel to an outpost in contested territories in the South China Sea to make a claim of sovereignty and would send “the wrong signal to the region at the wrong time,” adding that the trip would likely increase regional tensions and have a negative impact.
However, Ma was undeterred. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had visited Itu Aba, so why should not he?
Possibly because of the preliminary ruling on the South China Sea by the UN’s Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague at the end of October last year, Ma felt it fell upon him to make the trip. He insists that the island is habitable and wants the world to know that it has an airport, a harbor, a lighthouse, a meteorological station and a post office, as well as natural resources and a military presence.
It is also possible that he thinks that sending destroyers as a show of national strength is sure to win Beijing’s approval, to add to the glory of his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore in November last year.
However, it seems that Ma has forgotten how he lambasted Chen in 2008 for traveling to Itu Aba in the last stretch of Chen’s second term, when the latter visited the island to open the airport and unveil a commemorative stela.
At the time, Ma said that a “caretaker president” should prioritize maintaining social stability and national security, and that Chen should concern himself more with the task of handing power over to his successor.
Could it be that Ma suddenly does not recognize the concept of a caretaker government when it applies to him? Has that phrase mysteriously been dropped from his vocabulary?
Lee Tao-nan
Taipei
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