Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) eponymous Ma Ying-jeou Foundation spent NT$5 million (US$159,990) to bring 31 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) students and six accompanying CCP personnel to Taiwan for a nine-day exchange visit, arriving on July 15 and leaving on Sunday.
The delegation can fairly be called a CCP group because the 37 participants were selected by China, with Peking University CCP party secretary Hao Ping (郝平) leading the group and all the student participants being members of the Communist Youth League. This trip was not something that ordinary Chinese students had a fair chance of joining.
It was Ma himself who revealed the main purpose of hosting such a visit to Taiwan. He said that when he led a delegation to China in March and April, his initiative was enthusiastically received by several Chinese universities, so he decided to promote similar exchanges. The return visit was therefore a matter of reciprocal courtesy on Ma’s part, rather than the foundation’s lofty claims that it could improve cross-strait relations and further the cause of peace.
Chinese People’s Liberation Army warplanes and ships did not desist from their usual incursions and harassment around Taiwan while the group was visiting. Meanwhile, the delegation spent most of their time on sightseeing tours, with little time devoted to actual exchanges between students from the two sides.
Ma said the visit was the best possible present for his 73rd birthday. If it made Ma happy, good for him, but the meager results gained from an outlay of NT$5 million might not be so pleasing for the foundation’s donors.
There are many examples of this kind of behavior by the CCP, where it takes it upon itself to approve or reject various kinds of cross-strait arrangements. If the normal exchange of students across the Taiwan Strait is what really matters, the Chinese government should reinstate the practice of allowing ordinary Chinese students to study in Taiwan.
In 2011, Taiwan began allowing mainland Chinese students to apply and take entry tests for national research institutes and private universities in Taiwan (the measures did not include students from Hong Kong and Macau, as they could already do so). In 2014, Taiwan further permitted its national universities to enroll up to five Chinese students each, after which it continued to discuss relaxing relevant regulations.
These measures, which were adopted when Ma was president, did not change when President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in 2016. However, the following year, the authorities of China’s Fujian Province instructed high schools to handle applications to study in Taiwan with caution, on the grounds that cross-strait relations had deteriorated.
Then, in 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Education formally announced that it was suspending applications for Chinese high-school graduates to study in Taiwan. This policy was presented as a control measure against COVID-19, but it has not been reviewed since then.
Instead, the Chinese authorities shifted their focus to recruiting Taiwanese to pursue further studies in China, which continued even during the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this sense, student “exchanges” have all been in one direction.
If Ma thinks the policy of promoting cross-strait student exchanges is his baby, he could have said more about this more substantial aspect. That way, no one would accuse him of doing it for his own satisfaction.
However, it is a different matter to spend NT$5 million of donors’ money to treat a few privileged model students from the Communist Youth League to enjoy a free trip to Taiwan, while the CCP regime excludes the vast majority of Chinese students from visiting the “forbidden zone” that is Taiwan.
Surely, such an exclusive junket does not comply with the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation’s stated aims.
This kind of manipulation is not only true of the education sector, but also of cross-strait tourism in general. The CCP views cross-straits relations as an extension of its autocratic interests, while Taiwanese pursue them for the sake of culture and civilization.
If cross-strait exchanges cannot serve Taiwan’s interests, at least they should not serve those of the CCP.
Tzou Jiing-wen is editor-in-chief of the Chinese-language Liberty Times, the sister paper of the Taipei Times.
Translated by Julian Clegg
A foreign colleague of mine asked me recently, “What is a safe distance from potential People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force’s (PLARF) Taiwan targets?” This article will answer this question and help people living in Taiwan have a deeper understanding of the threat. Why is it important to understand PLA/PLARF targeting strategy? According to RAND analysis, the PLA’s “systems destruction warfare” focuses on crippling an adversary’s operational system by targeting its networks, especially leadership, command and control (C2) nodes, sensors, and information hubs. Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, noted in his 15 May 2025 Sedona Forum keynote speech that, as
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) last week announced that the KMT was launching “Operation Patriot” in response to an unprecedented massive campaign to recall 31 KMT legislators. However, his action has also raised questions and doubts: Are these so-called “patriots” pledging allegiance to the country or to the party? While all KMT-proposed campaigns to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers have failed, and a growing number of local KMT chapter personnel have been indicted for allegedly forging petition signatures, media reports said that at least 26 recall motions against KMT legislators have passed the second signature threshold
In a world increasingly defined by unpredictability, two actors stand out as islands of stability: Europe and Taiwan. One, a sprawling union of democracies, but under immense pressure, grappling with a geopolitical reality it was not originally designed for. The other, a vibrant, resilient democracy thriving as a technological global leader, but living under a growing existential threat. In response to rising uncertainties, they are both seeking resilience and learning to better position themselves. It is now time they recognize each other not just as partners of convenience, but as strategic and indispensable lifelines. The US, long seen as the anchor
The Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday announced that recall motions targeting 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) have been approved, and that a recall vote would take place on July 26. Of the recall motions against 35 KMT legislators, 31 were reviewed by the CEC after they exceeded the second-phase signature thresholds. Twenty-four were approved, five were asked to submit additional signatures to make up for invalid ones and two are still being reviewed. The mass recall vote targeting so many lawmakers at once is unprecedented in Taiwan’s political history. If the KMT loses more
RSS