Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has made it known that he does not plan to attend the official Double Ten National Day commemoration on Tuesday next week. He gave his reasons on Facebook on Monday, objecting to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) using “Taiwan National Day” as the English name of the event.
Ma has a point. The official title of the nation is the Republic of China (ROC). One might argue that having the word “China” in the title makes it difficult to distinguish Taiwan from the People’s Republic of China in the minds of overseas observers, but national day is a commemoration that is overwhelmingly for the benefit of the domestic audience.
Even though the word “Taiwan” only appears in the English name for the event, the phrase “Taiwan National Day” is not beyond the English understanding of the majority of Taiwanese adults. The government should represent the whole country, and many Taiwanese remain proud citizens of the ROC.
The day is known as “Double Ten” because it falls on Oct. 10 every year. This is because it commemorates the start of the Wuchang Uprising on Oct. 10, 1911, a revolt that led to the establishment of the ROC. For several years now, pro-Taiwan independence advocates have called for a “Taiwan National Day” to be established on a different date that commemorates an event more closely tied to Taiwan’s post-colonial emergence as an independent nation. For them, commemorating Taiwan National Day on a day linked to the establishment of the ROC makes little sense.
This would be the third year that the government has used the English name Taiwan National Day. Ma has objected on both prior occasions, yet still attended. This year he said that he can no longer be seen to endorse a decision that clearly has Taiwan independence written all over it, not just because he wants to defend the existence of the ROC, but because he views it as a dangerous provocation to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
That he takes a different approach this year is his prerogative, and probably has more to do with the presidential election in January.
That he accuses the government of provoking the CCP when he has little to say about the military intimidation and economic coercion ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is deeply problematic.
The government could allot a different day to celebrate a Taiwan National Day, stop celebrating the ROC founding day or have both. As the second choice would be against the wishes of a significant portion of the electorate and indeed the Constitution, it should be avoided until a referendum is held on the matter or the Constitution is changed. Neither of these will happen any time soon given precedent and the real risk that they would result in a military response from China.
In the event that there was a referendum on changing the name of the ROC to Taiwan or redrafting the Constitution, if considerations of the CCP’s response were removed and given the results of polling on the public’s self-identification as Taiwanese or Chinese, there is a strong possibility that the nation would change its name and create a constitution that more accurately reflects today’s reality.
As far as Ma’s objections are concerned, the elephant in the room is the considerable shift in Taiwanese attitudes and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) inability to win the argument of whether the country should be known as the ROC or Taiwan. His position is increasingly out of touch with the public will.
Perhaps he would be more amenable to following Tsai’s formulation of what Taiwan is, and use the English title “ROC on Taiwan National Day.”
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