In a recent interview with the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) called President William Lai (賴清德) “naive.”
As always with Ma, one must first deconstruct what he is saying to fully understand the parallel universe he insists on defending.
Who is being “naive,” Lai or Ma?
The quickest way is to confront Ma with a series of pointed questions that force him to take clear stands on the complex issues involved and prevent him from his usual ramblings.
Regarding China and Taiwan, the media should first begin with questions like these: “Did the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lose its civil war with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and flee to Taiwan in exile in 1949, or is that war continuing, albeit with no overt hostilities?”
Those questions should be followed by more historical probing regarding how Japan ended World War II in the Pacific by signing its treaty of surrender on Sept. 2, 1945 and how it would be the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty that would spell out the details of that surrender.
Hence: “Why were the CCP, with its 1949 Constitution for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the KMT, with its 1947 Constitution for the Republic of China (ROC), not invited to participate in the San Francisco Peace Treaty?”
The San Francisco Treaty superseded whatever points and wishes had been expressed in the documents that came out of the 1943 Cairo and 1945 Potsdam conferences.
It was also in the San Francisco Treaty that Japan renounced its sovereignty over its former colony of Taiwan and Penghu without naming to whom the territorial deed of the colony would be transferred.
Thus Ma should be asked: “Did the San Francisco Treaty provide Japan’s former colony Taiwan with the right to self-determination according to the rules for former colonies set by the UN in 1945? If so, why did the KMT impose about four decades of White Terror and martial law upon Taiwanese before allowing democracy in 1987?”
Ma should also be asked about his constant reliance on the so-called “1992 consensus,” allegedly made between the KMT and the CCP, with the following: “Didn’t former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admit in 2006 that he invented the ‘1992 consensus’ in 2000, just before the KMT turned the presidency over to the Democratic Progressive Party?”
Moreover, “did then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) not deny that there ever was a consensus? Why then do you (Ma) continue to use this falsehood as a way to deal with the PRC?”
Whenever Ma talks about cross-strait relations, he often appears locked in the KMT worldview that it is destined to restore a past Chinese empire.
Ma seems to foster the fantasy that somehow the KMT would win out over the CCP, or at best the CCP would welcome the KMT back into the “one China” fold.
Ma has taken on an almost “boys will be boys” attitude toward past CCP atrocities and implies that the KMT and CCP have the best interests of their subjects at heart, since both want to restore the empire.
This raises other sticking points with the much-needed revisions to the ROC Constitution: “Why in 2006 did the KMT finally admit that Mongolia does not fit under the Constitution’s parameters? And why does the ROC still claim jurisdiction over Tibet and the Uighurs in Xinjiang? Are these people all technically citizens of the ROC?”
Taiwan is a de facto independent nation, yet Ma appears so devoted to restoring a past mythical Chinese empire that he would be willing to barter its democracy away.
Ma visits China where he is wined and dined, leaving the impression that he and the KMT would almost prefer to play the role of eunuch or concubine in a CCP court than to live life as free Taiwanese.
It is now 75 years since the KMT went into exile, and Ma continues to visit China as if it is his real home.
He ignores how it is Taiwan’s self-defense and its allies that keep the CCP from attacking Taiwan and finishing the job it started in the civil war.
Ma ignores how his proposed cross-strait service trade agreement was rejected by Taiwanese and never ratified.
Furthermore, the example of Hong Kong stands as a glaring record of how the CCP ignores its past promises of democracy and instead grows more draconian.
This leads to a final set of questions that interviewers could direct at Ma: “Do you feel that the CCP would change and become democratic? Do you think that it would apologize for its organ harvesting of Falun Gong members and atrocities in Xinjiang?”
Ma knows why his trade agreement failed in Taiwan. Therefore, he should be asked: “What role do you see the KMT playing in any future cross-strait drama? Would it be on the side of democracy or not?”
Those are some questions that international journalists could ask Ma in any interview. Such questions would surely lay bare whether it is Lai or Ma who is naive.
Jerome Keating is a political commentator.
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