On June 15, major general Zhu Chenghu (朱成虎), dean of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) National Defense University, said in an interview at the sixth World Peace Forum in Beijing: “After he became Taiwan’s leader, [then-president] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) proposed dispatching four military officials to China to discuss cross-strait military mutual trust issues. We also had four military officials ready to send to Taiwan. However, the US drew five ‘red lines,’ which prevented this exchange.”
The five red lines were: The two sides of the Taiwan Strait cannot establish military confidence-building mechanisms, cannot unite over South China Sea issues against other countries that have competing territorial claims, cannot unite against Japan over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) issue, cannot conduct talks on military technology and cannot establish institutional interactions between retired Taiwanese and Chinese military personnel, Zhu said.
Ma’s office has denied Zhu’s claim.
Zhu, who is believed to be the grandson of former PLA general Zhu De (朱德), once said: “Nuclear wars are the best way to solve the problem of overpopulation.”
He received only a minor punishment for this inappropriate comment, which shows his privileged position as a taizidang (太子黨, “princeling”) — the offspring of senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials.
Zhu Chenghu’s claim that it was Ma who proposed the idea is somewhat shocking.
In 2008, Ma was sworn in as president, and the US expected Ma to bear the pivotal responsibility of cross-strait and East Asian security. However, less than one month after Ma took office, then-premier Liu Chao-hsuan (劉兆玄) told the legislature that Taiwan was prepared to go to war against Japan after a Japanese coast guard vessel collided and sank a Taiwanese fishing ship near the Diaoyutai Islands.
In 2009, in response to Ma’s comment that Japan transferred sovereignty over Taiwan to the Republic of China, then-Japanese representative to Taiwan Masaki Saito, who had been in his position for only one year, said that Taiwan’s status remained undetermined.
This irritated the Ma administration so much that it refused to receive Saito, who eventually had to leave the position. Clearly, Ma is antagonistic toward Japan.
In 2010, National Chengchi University’s Institute of International Relations and China’s National Institute of South China Sea Studies co-edited a South Sea Region Situation Assessment Report, which not only echoes Beijing’s rhetoric about the “Chinese people,” but also states that both parties agree that sovereignty over the South China Sea belongs to China, and should view collaboration over the issue of Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island 太平島) as a prelude to cross-strait military confidence-building.
It also said that the governments should “safeguard sovereignty, shelve disputes, and promote joint exploration and development.”
The report details “reclamation of the island next to Taiping Island, working together to defend the South China Sea, promoting a cross-strait coordination mechanism, forming a joint fleet to patrol the South China Sea, jointly defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity” and so on.
In 2012, the controversy over the Diaoyutai Islands heated up, leading to Ma officially proposing the East China Sea Peace Initiative (ECSPI) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty Forum. The ECSPI is identical to Beijing’s proposals. By the end of 2013, China began building artificial islands in the South China Sea and Ma went along with this, proposing the South China Sea Peace initiative, which is also essentially identical to the ECSPI, in 2015.
As for retired military personnel’s frequent visits to China, retired general Hsia Ying-chou (夏瀛洲), a former president of Taiwan’s National Defense University, once said that the “Republic of China military and the PLA are both the Chinese army.”
There have also been an increasing number of cases of Chinese spy and intelligence leaks in recent years, which can be counted as evidence of Ma’s pro-China position while distancing himself from the US and Japan.
Add all of this to the meeting between Ma and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in 2014 and Ma’s overenthusiastic claim that there is “one China, but no different interpretations.”
Judging from the above events, what Zhu said about the US drawing five red lines is perfectly believable, and it was probably done about 2012 when Ma was elected for a second term.
HoonTing is a political commentator.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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