People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) is to attend this year’s APEC meeting in Lima, Peru, on behalf of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Beijing has made it clear that it will not prevent him from going, but will not have any contact with him. If this is the idea of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, then Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) should replace all of the officials in that office.
China likes to think that it is becoming a superpower, but its game plans do not go beyond the old tactic of “give me what I want, or I will not talk to you.” Curiously, China is not blocking Soong from attending APEC, but at the same time, Xi is not going to interact or speak with him. Is it China’s plan to let Xi go to Lima to play hide-and-seek with Soong and act like a clown? How can China tolerate obstinate bureaucrats who come up with ideas like that and not fire them?
At an international conference, there are certain manners to be observed, and sometimes the harder you try to avoid someone, the easier it is to run into them. If Soong walks up to Xi, will Xi turn around and run away? Maybe there are not so many such “coincidences,” but if it so happens that the two are requested to appear at the same time, will one of the protocol officers ask one of the two to wait until the other moves on?
China has a rule banning interactions with Taiwanese delegates in international settings. In 2014, when the APEC summit was held in Beijing, Xi only met with former vice president Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), who led the Taiwanese delegation that year, after the meetings were over. Last year, Xi asked Siew to speak with him before the official dinner began, but US President Barack Obama also showed up, and so the three of them spoke together for about five minutes.
If on similar occasions — when attendees enter the venue, pose for a group photograph or have an official dinner together — Xi has to watch out for Soong and keep his mouth shut in Soong’s presence, he would only make himself an international laughing stock and put Taiwan under the spotlight.
China does not want Taiwan’s president to go to APEC summits because it wants to suppress Taiwan. As a result, Soong, a person of lower rank, gets to rub shoulders with presidents and prime ministers. Since he represents Tsai, he will hold equal status with other leaders at the APEC summit. It would be a good thing if Soong got to speak with Xi for a minute or two, but if he does not and only gets to speak with other leaders, the trip would be worthwhile.
Xi should display more generosity and respect toward Taiwan’s democracy. It is a good thing that Beijing does not block Taiwan from participating in APEC, but there should be dialogue and interaction between the Chinese delegates and their Taiwanese counterparts.
If there is not, Xi will have to watch Soong mingle and converse in English with the leaders of other nations, and that will make Xi’s loss even greater. In addition, even if he avoids Soong, Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan (彭麗媛), will probably have a hard time avoiding Soong’s daughter, Soong Cheng-mai (宋鎮邁), who is to go to Lima with her father.
That is another great episode that you will not want to miss.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
As Taiwan’s domestic political crisis deepens, the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have proposed gutting the country’s national spending, with steep cuts to the critical foreign and defense ministries. While the blue-white coalition alleges that it is merely responding to voters’ concerns about corruption and mismanagement, of which there certainly has been plenty under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and KMT-led governments, the rationales for their proposed spending cuts lay bare the incoherent foreign policy of the KMT-led coalition. Introduced on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the KMT’s proposed budget is a terrible opening
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS