It seems that every time Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) is preparing to lead a delegation to China, representing KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), a major diplomatic incident causes US-China tensions to soar.
In August last year, the point of contention between Washington and Beijing was then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. This time it is a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the US last week, which its military shot down off South Carolina on Saturday.
As with the Pelosi visit — when critics of Hsia’s China trip accused Chu of sending the wrong message to the international community by not calling it off — commentators and politicians in Taiwan have said that Chu should rethink Hsia’s most recent plans. Just like with the Pelosi visit, Chu has resisted such calls.
Questions have also been raised as to whether Chu sent the delegations because of impending elections — the nine-in-one elections last year and the presidential election next year — to bolster the KMT’s image of “peacekeeper” and the pro-business party, as well as to “report” to its masters in Beijing. One aspect pro-China media in Taiwan have emphasized is the delegation’s plans to meet with the Taiwanese business community in China and to discuss extending the terms of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, expanding the “small three links” between Taiwan and China, and possibly renegotiating a cross-strait service trade agreement. Chu was reportedly concerned about the trip becoming one big pro-unification propaganda exercise for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and he surely knows that he can do nothing to stop that, even if he wanted to, as well as how it would be perceived in Taiwan.
Yesterday morning, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) cast doubt on President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) sincerity in welcoming talks with Beijing, saying that all Tsai needed to do was acknowledge the so-called “1992 consensus” as a prerequisite for negotiations.
There is no time to litigate the whys and wherefores of insisting on a 30-year-old “agreement” that never actually happened, apart from saying that Zhu making the comment ahead of Hsia’s visit was disingenuous, intentional, and part and parcel of the propaganda drive that is likely to surround the rest of his visit. If neither Chu nor Hsia intend this trip to be a propaganda bonanza for the CCP, Hsia must be on high alert, as he is walking into a minefield.
His schedule includes meetings with TAO Director Song Tao (宋濤) today and CCP politburo member Wang Huning (王滬寧) tomorrow.
Song’s appointment last year was regarded as indicative of Beijing giving “greater importance” to unification with Taiwan. Xinhua news agency has cited Song as saying he would have “wide and in-depth negotiations with people of vision in Taiwan on cross-strait relations and unification with China.” One can imagine he is looking forward to his meeting with Hsia.
Wang has reportedly been tasked with developing a new strategy for unification with Taiwan that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) can hang his hat on, after the “one country, two systems” formula developed by former Chinese president Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) for Hong Kong and Taiwan died amid Xi’s clumsy handling of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. It is difficult to know the true reason Chu and Hsia are insisting on the trip. Taiwanese will be watching.
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