Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) last month spoke at the Halifax International Security Forum in the Canadian city on why the world must safeguard Taiwan.
Meanwhile, former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) foundation invited a delegation of teachers and students from China — later revealed to be members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Communist Youth League of China. The delegation arrived in Taiwan on Wednesday last week.
The two former presidents’ promotions and actions differ drastically from those when they were in office. Since 1996, Taiwan has had five presidents. The internal legitimacy and external representation of the former heads of state are undeniable.
However, their internal policies and space for international activities face a glass ceiling: Regardless of their political parties and advocacy tacks, each president has faced similar limitations. It is only after leaving office that they begin revealing their inner thoughts on matters.
This phenomenon sticks out like a sore thumb, even though Taiwan has been implementing democracy for more than 30 years. There are some aspects of the nation that are yet to be normalized.
In 2000, after Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) left office, he used his status as a former president to revive the freedom to conduct trips abroad with his trip in a private capacity to his alma mater, Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York.
Up until Lee died in 2020, “Mr Democracy” had shifted his discourse from the restricted “two-state theory” of the latter years of his administration to that of “Taiwanese independence” after his time in office.
China views Lee with contempt and hatred, and continues to call him an unrepentant enemy. Beijing also tried to suppress former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). The administrations of Lee and Chen operated in a post-Cold War era amid globalization and relatively smooth China-US relations, with China’s economy rising rapidly. Their activities in pursuit of normalizing Taiwan have long been sullied and stigmatized by China and its proxies, who refer to Lee and Chen as “troublemakers.”
This has created a lopsided caricature on the global stage: A democratic Taiwan that has many who volunteer for its causes, but who are struggling to make inroads in the international community, while a dictatorial China keeps growing more powerful.
The wheels of time keep spinning and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “great rejuvenation of the Chinese people” — also called the “China dream” — touches upon the dramatic changes in peripheral politics. The international community’s consensus now is that China is a “destroyer of the international order.”
Chen, of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was the first Taiwanese president to have the opportunity to oversee a peaceful transition of power, with Lee having been a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Unfortunately, the DPP did not have a legislative majority, which greatly impeded any space for civil governance.
Moreover, he was embroiled in scandal and imprisoned after leaving office. There was no way he could emulate Lee’s example.
Despite that, while in office, Chen, on behalf of Taiwan, called on the international community to acknowledge that there is “one country on each side of the Strait” — which China demonized.
Ma, for his part, left office in 2016. Although the consensus is that his administration was a failure — he has helped guide the KMT to losses in every presidential race since stepping down — the losses have not stopped him from traveling to China and international events.
Curiously, during Ma’s administration, he put forth his “three noes” policy — no unification with the People’s Republic of China in the short term, no declaration of independence and no use of force — a throw-back and play on words of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) “three noes” policy toward the CCP — no contact, no negotiation and no compromise.
However, Ma has changed his tune since stepping down, becoming a bullhorn for Beijing’s propaganda.
It even seems at times that he completely disregards the KMT’s electoral sentiments, while spouting pro-Beijing catchphrases and rhetoric, including to “trust Xi Jinping” and that “cross-strait development should be decided by the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.”
Ma continues to advocate the concept of there is “no room for foreign interference,” in addition to pushing a narrative of skepticism toward US commitments to Taiwan and suspicions of President William Lai (賴清德), not to mention adhering to the idea that the “one China” fallacy could help Taiwan avoid war.
His “counterpropaganda” might best be referred to as a disaster for the Republic of China or a “KMT box office bomb.”
Perhaps the DPP secretly favors Ma the bumbler’s spirited performances.
The latest president to leave office was Tsai.
Compared with the failures of the Ma administration — and despite the legislature changing hands twice during her two terms — the eight years of her administration garnered much respect from the international community, even with the shadow cast by China’s military aggressiveness.
The prime example is how Taiwan fended off the spread of SARS-CoV-2 for nearly the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring that no hiccups occurred in Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain. This put a positive light on Taiwan’s global image. Democracies everywhere began paying more attention to Taiwan’s security and to upholding the “status quo” of Taiwanese independence.
Tsai promotes and cheerleads for Taiwan at international forums as a former president and she is, of course, much more persuasive than Ma, despite the KMT’s flurry of pro-annexation activities in the post-Ma era.
Due to the changes in peripheral politics, Beijing’s political propaganda via tired euphemisms such as “peaceful unification” and “peaceful rise” have by now been hobbled by some of its most aggressive and enthusiastic cheerleaders, who try to disrupt the global order. Ma the bumbler’s “parallel universe” talking points fall on deaf ears, apart from those who would continue listening to “friends of Xi Jinping.”
The irony is that in more than 30 years, Taiwan has democratically elected its presidents, but it seems that it is only after each president leaves office that they loosen up and begin to expound what they really want to say.
During their administrations, there is an “invisible framework” that delimits their policies and actions. For example, Lee, Chen and Tsai could “refuse unification,” but they could not “secretly advocate for independence.”
Meanwhile, Ma got a pass to “oppose independence,” but could not sign a “unification treaty.”
The main factors behind this are China and the US. The former has its “one China principle,” which weaves a conditional web in Beijingese logic that only allows for Taiwan to “unify” and “forbids secession.” To advocate more stridently for independence would spell war.
The US’ “one China policy” and the “unresolved status of Taiwan” are central to its stance regarding Taiwan. It acts to prevent China from using military force to annex Taiwan, yet does not wish for both sides of the Strait to come to the negotiation table, consequently risking the unsinkable aircraft carrier within the first island chain — but especially in a world where China views the US with deepening enmity.
The differences in the Taiwan stances between Washington and Beijing are a realistic reflection of the common roots of China’s “Anti-secession” Law and the US’ Taiwan Relations Act, and delineate where the rhetorical tree trunk branches. Both countries use “domestic law” to stipulate their Taiwan policies. Taiwan’s unique nature in international affairs can be viewed on the whole from this angle.
Ma and Tsai began issuing opposing propositions in the international community after leaving office. Negative derivative results cannot be easily waved away. What demands the most vigilance is the misunderstandings that could result in the international community, such as the existence of a low-grade “state of civil war” with regard to Taiwanese national identity and recognition, with those wanting to be absorbed by China on one side, and those who wish to retain sovereignty and nationhood on the other.
Then there is the issue of Lai’s administration dealing with two “double minorities.” They are the Beijing-friendly opposition blue-and-white camp coalition holding more than half of the seats in the legislature, and Beijing’s continued manipulation of the international community by spreading its twisted lawfare interpretations of UN Resolution 2758 to try to shoehorn Taiwan as Chinese territory when the resolution makes no claims whatsoever regarding Taiwan’s sovereignty or territory.
What this shows is that retired presidents’ divergent performances regarding Taiwan should serve as a reminder to voters to be prudent about whom they vote for.
The re-election of Donald Trump as US president and his nominations of US Senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state and US Representative Marc Waltz for national security adviser — both China hawks — as well as those who have deep business investments in China, such as Elon Musk and even Trump himself, are shifting the US position from US President Joe Biden’s stance to send troops to protect Taiwan back to the “strategic ambiguity” of the first Trump presidency and previous US administrations.
For Lai, there are many internal and external variables, including a possible end to Russia’s war against Ukraine, which would no doubt have a ripple effect on Taiwan.
This era is a test for Lai, yet conversely, it is also his chance to forge a new era.
Translated by Tim Smith
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