President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is on a 10-day diplomatic trip to Central America that involves two stopovers in the US. Meanwhile, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is on a 12-day visit to China. Ma’s trip has been billed as “unofficial” and “private,” similar to Tsai’s stopovers in the US.
Their every step in the US and China is being scrutinized. The trips come at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing, as well as between Taipei and Beijing, with China continuing to escalate political and military pressure to unify with Taiwan. The trips are also closely examined for their potential effects on next year’s presidential and legislative elections, as they highlight two directions Taiwan could take under the next president.
Tsai, of the Democratic Progressive Party, has highlighted Taiwan’s “rising global importance” as it seeks support from like-minded democracies and to bolster its “closer than ever” relations with the US amid threats of expanding authoritarianism. Meanwhile, Ma’s message is that only the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) can communicate with China — led by an authoritarian regime that continues to suppress Taiwan — and bring about peace.
Tsai departed on Wednesday to visit diplomatic allies Guatemala and Belize. After stopping over in New York on her outbound trip, she is expected to meet US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy during a stopover in Los Angeles on her return. Beijing repeatedly said that it strongly opposes Tsai’s stopovers in the US, as well as any contact between Taiwanese and US officials, and has called the plan “an attempt to seek breakthroughs and propagate ‘Taiwan independence.’” Beijing said it would “resolutely fight back” if Tsai meets McCarthy.
A meeting in Los Angeles is widely seen as a compromise to avoid the repeat of military drills China held around Taiwan after then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in August last year. McCarthy had originally planned to visit Taipei as well, prompting Beijing to say that it “could undermine China-US relations or peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
The president’s trip is themed “meeting democratic partners, fostering shared prosperity.” Tsai said she seeks to express that Taiwan “stands firm in its defense of freedom and democracy.”
Ma’s trip marks the first visit to China by a former Taiwanese president since the Republic of China government retreated to Taiwan in 1949. Ma said the trip’s purpose is to pay his respects at his ancestors’ graves. He is accompanied by Taiwanese students, an arrangement that he said would spark exchanges among young people and bolster cross-strait peace. His itinerary has been changed a few times during his trip, for example adding the visit of a COVID-19 exhibition in Wuhan on Thursday and a meeting with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) on Friday. Ma said that “people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are ethnically Chinese,” emphasized the so-called “1992 consensus” and praised China’s “extremely admirable” COVID-19 prevention efforts. He also visited the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, where he said that “pursuing peace, avoiding war and striving to revitalize Zhonghua (中華) is an unavoidable responsibility of Chinese people on both sides of the Strait.” During a visit to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, he said that as “Chinese, we must learn from this lesson and strive toward self-reliance so that we may never fall victim to bullying and slaughter by others again.”
While Tsai’s trip symbolizes Taiwan’s goodwill to work with democratic partners, Ma’s trip is a show of ethnonationalism. Disguised as a culture-focused tour to bolster peace and understanding, Ma is echoing Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) dream of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
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