Despite flagging support for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Chairman Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) US trip deserves to be treated with some seriousness.
After all, Taiwan is a democracy where power typically passes from one party to another. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) cannot stay in power forever, and other parties do not yet stand a realistic chance of being elected.
When the chairman of Taiwan’s largest opposition party visits the US, he can be expected to have in-depth discussions with the country’s politicians and think tanks to enhance the two nations’ understanding of each other’s positions, policies and proposals.
Chu was promoting Taiwan’s national interests abroad while contributing to the international community. No one would have wanted to see his visit degenerate into a forum for voicing complaints against the US.
To say that the KMT’s perception of being “pro-China and anti-Taiwan” — or “pro-China and anti-US” — has been advanced by the DPP would be to underestimate the common sense of Taiwanese, but it would have been pointless for Chu to go through all the trouble of visiting the US just to look foolish in the eyes of outsiders.
As an intelligent man, Chu knows how to express himself graciously when talking to friends in the US.
Chu’s mission was to explain his party’s positions, policies and proposals. It was also to demonstrate the differences and points of agreement between the KMT and the DPP, promote common ground between the two parties and defend Taiwan’s positions.
On the global stage, the DPP and the KMT should at least be able to present a united vision regarding Taiwan’s outlook. To have given US friends a clear understanding of where this consensus lies was not only a successful act of civic diplomacy, it highlighted Chu’s vision and stature — and hopefully boosted Washington’s assessment of his potential.
Speaking at the Brookings Institute think tank in Washington on Monday last week, Chu said that the KMT wants a “principled engagement with Beijing for cross-strait stability, threat reduction and crisis management.”
He said Taiwan’s choice was to be a flashpoint or a stabilizer for the world.
Asked about the “1992 consensus,” which he had not mentioned in his speech, Chu said that the “consensus” had been “constructed or ... created and agreed on between the two sides,” and called it a “non-consensus consensus.”
Evidently, Beijing’s version of the “1992 consensus” remains a touchstone for the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
More than six months have passed since Chu was elected KMT chairman. He and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) continue to mention the “1992 consensus.”
Since 2019, when China proposed a Taiwanese version of the “one country, two systems” model, Chinese media have quoted Chu speaking about “seeking common ground and respecting differences.”
He seems to say one thing in the US, another thing in Taiwan and yet another thing to the CCP. If that is so, he is likely to make everyone unhappy, and even the KMT and the rest of the pan-blue camp are likely to pillory him for it.
To his credit, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — in his two terms in office from 2008 to 2016 — did not cross the red line of “anti-Americanism.” Even if Taiwanese increasingly had doubts about him, Washington still saw him as someone worthy of support.
At that time, the US and China were in a strategic partnership. Ma boasted that cross-strait relations were at their most stable and peaceful in 66 years, while also confiding to Raymond Burghardt, then-chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, that US-Taiwan relations were at their best in 30 years.
Before former US president Donald Trump took office, Ma’s balancing act between cross-strait relations and US-Taiwan relations fell within the bounds of Washington’s “one China” policy.
For that reason, when Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) visited the US before unsuccessfully challenging Ma in the January 2012 presidential election, she did not find favor within the administration of then-US president Barack Obama.
However, the closer Ma got to the end of his second term, the more he leaned toward Beijing. When Ma met Xi in Singapore on Nov. 7, 2015, the US side was rumored to have been upset that it had not been informed in advance.
“We notified them five days beforehand,” Ma said.
Considering how long Ma and Xi must have spent planning the meeting, five days seems a ridiculously short timeframe to have notified Washington.
Since leaving office, Ma has revealed his true colors by saying that the US military would not come to Taiwan’s aid if China attacked — and his policy of “no unification, no independence and no use of force” has morphed into “unification cannot be ruled out.”
Hopefully, Chu’s “pro-US” stance does not turn out to be the same kind of smoke and mirrors.
Ma might not know it, but he represents the end of an era. Since 2018, US-China tensions have worsened. On the global stage, China has gone from being an opportunity to being a risk, and handling the Chinese threat has become a field of study in its own right.
Meeting on Feb. 4, just before the Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that there were no limits to China and Russia’s strategic partnership.
Four days after the Games finished, Putin invaded Ukraine.
The brutality of Russia’s aggression has struck a raw nerve with Western countries, but Xi has been helping Moscow, whether overtly or covertly, with an eye on reaping the benefits.
The basis for Ma’s balancing act no longer exists, but the line he followed from 2005 to 2016, first as KMT chairman and then as Taiwan’s president, remains deeply rooted in the KMT and the pan-blue camp.
For example, Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) — who was KMT chairwoman from March 2016 to June 2017, but has since been sidelined — advances China’s depiction of Xinjiang as a place where everyone is full of joy and has bright hopes for tomorrow. Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) — who preceded Chu as KMT chairman — tried to let go of the “1992 consensus,” which amounts to a Taiwanese version of the “one country, two systems” model, but ended up with egg on his face.
Considering Chu’s enthusiastic support for last year’s referendum proposal to ban imports of US pork containing the feed additive ractopamine, it would be going a bit far to call him “pro-US.” If the KMT is perceived as being “pro-China and anti-US,” it has only itself to blame, not the DPP.
It was good that Chu attempted to patch up relations between the KMT and Washington with his visit, but the main issue underlying his confidence-building trip can be found in Taiwan. For the KMT to convince the US that it is up to the task of returning to power, a Taiwan consensus must be achieved, followed by a Taiwan-US consensus, and only then by a cross-strait consensus.
As for a supposed cross-strait consensus, if China refuses to promise Taiwan and the US that it would not use force against Taiwan — leaving only annexation under a one-party dictatorship, with autocratic China swallowing up democratic Taiwan — there can be no cross-strait reconciliation or coexistence, and there is no point in talking about a consensus.
The US’ “one China” policy still encompasses Taiwan’s political poles, the DPP and the KMT. From the KMT’s perspective, Chu wants to achieve a political breakthrough, with the party’s options ranging from “independence of the Republic of China” to “democratic unification.”
However, devoting its efforts to a Taiwan consensus and a Taiwan-US consensus would put the KMT in a more robust position.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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