Mon, Jun 23, 2025 page12

• Notes from Central Taiwan: What does ‘understanding China’ really mean?

  Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s recent trip to China does not ‘maintain Taiwan’s voice,’ it just pays lip service to the CCP’s ‘united front’ work

  • By Michael Turton / Contributing reporter
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  Dr. Y. Tony Yang, Associate Dean of Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University, argued last week in a piece for the Taipei Times about former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leading a student delegation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that, “The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world” (“Ma’s Visit, DPP’s Blind Spot,” June 18, page 8).

  Yang contends that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a blind spot: “By treating any engagement with Beijing as inherently treasonous, Taiwan’s ruling party has effectively ceded the entire diplomatic space to the opposition.”

  This description is erroneous in several ways. First, the government’s policy is to treat all interactions with Beijing, especially those by politicians allied to the PRC, as potentially problematic, not outright treasonous. The Ma student exchange case simply veers much closer to treason than the myriad other exchanges Taiwan has with the PRC via tourism, commercial ties or crime fighting.

  

  A large screen on April 10, 2024 shows news coverage of Chinese President Xi Jinping meeting former president Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing.

  Photo: AFP

  The second issue is that the DPP has not “conceded the diplomatic space to the opposition” because the opposition is not in a “diplomatic space.” In diplomacy, nations engage while serving their own interests. In Taiwan, the opposition appears to be serving PRC interests. After all, as the Taiwan Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) observed when it expressed “regret” at Ma’s trip, the Straits Forum is part of the CCP’s “united front” platform. Other “exchange” activities, such as recent influencer trips and religious visits, are also part of that program.

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  Yang contends that Ma’s trip preserves “Taiwan’s voice in cross-strait discourse at a time when official channels remain largely shut.” The use of passive voice enables Yang to ignore the reason official channels are closed: the PRC closed them. Nor is Ma “Taiwan’s voice.” He is merely a high-ranking politician from a pro-PRC party, a party the public does not trust to handle exchanges with the PRC.

  

  Wang Huning (center), Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman, on May 28 addresses the audience at the 36th meeting of the Chairpersons Council of the 14th CPPCC National Committee in Beijing, China.

  Photo: EPA-EFE

  Next, Yang argues that Ma is “a credible Taiwanese interlocutor who can articulate Taiwan’s democratic values and political constraints, which Beijing desperately needs to understand.”

  Both of these claims are ideological nonsense. The claim that Ma is credible is laughable. Indeed, Wang Huning (王滬寧), the PRC representative at the Straits Forum, described Ma as “well-known for having national sentiment, agreeing that people on both sides of the Strait are Chinese, being committed to the so-called ‘1992 consensus,’ opposing Taiwanese independence and being a pro-unification patriot in Taiwan who continues to strive for the nation’s unification and the rejuvenation of the Zhonghua minzu (中華民族, Chinese ethnic group),” he said.

  Clearly none of Ma’s views are mainstream in Taiwan, a fact Yang blithely ignores. Hence, Ma’s service to the “united front” cannot represent part of “a sophisticated, multi-track approach” to the PRC. In an excellent Nikkei Asia interview, Robert Tsao (曹興誠), the chip billionaire who is driving the recall campaign against the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), put Wang’s approving nod at Ma in blunt perspective, saying: “Beijing wants to use the KMT to annex Taiwan.”

  Second, Beijing does not lack understanding of Taiwan. It regularly scrapes Taiwan’s media organs and social media platforms, riddles Taiwan with espionage agents and constantly interacts with Taiwanese businessmen, the KMT itself and with academics who study Taiwan. No nation on earth knows more about Taiwan than the PRC.

  SUPERFLUOUS

  Finally, Yang claims that Ma’s trip ensures continued access for Taiwan’s business community and civil society to China’s networks that drive economic and cultural exchanges.” Yeah, no. A wide range of pro-China organizations and politicians already interact with the PRC. Long before Ma was president, Taiwanese businessmen were active in the PRC. Ma is in fact superfluous.

  Yang then moves on to posit that the students on the exchange program “would return to Taiwan with firsthand knowledge of Chinese society, its economy and governance.” This is an astonishing claim, since such high-profile trips are organized as part of “united front” programs that show only what Beijing allows to be seen.

  Absurdly, Yang contends that the alternative to Ma’s student exchange program is “a generation of Taiwanese who know China only through political rhetoric and media reports.” There is no such animal. Tapping the sign again: tens of thousands of Taiwanese have lived in and traveled in the PRC. They consume its entertainment and media (hello, Tiktok!), purchase its products (hello, Shein, Taobao and Temu!), and are deeply aware of its history and culture. No nation on earth understands the PRC better than Taiwan.

  AMBIGUOUS

  Reaching for that KMT shibboleth, the “1992 Consensus,” Yang reveals his ideological commitments. “Taiwan could develop a similar framework for cross-strait engagement — one that acknowledges the so-called ‘1992 consensus,’ while maintaining strategic ambiguity about its applicability,” he says, as if this were not a zombie idea still shuffling along decades after its death. The PRC will not and has never accepted “two interpretations” in any form. It will accept only submission.

  Naturally Yang never touches any of the “united front” work intended to subvert Taiwan’s democracy and pave the way for the PRC to annex Taiwan, nor does he forthrightly confront PRC refusal to engage in talks, nor does he ever hint that Ma’s views (and his own) on Taiwan are outliers. Comically, after denying that the question of whether Ma’s visit is right or wrong is important, Yang spends the bulk of the piece trying to prove that it is right. Classic.

  Yang’s piece is awful on its face, but it is useful in showing how pro-KMT writers deploy a barrage of social class-based terms in criticizing DPP opposition to PRC expansionism. Since KMTers think of themselves as “high class mainlanders,” one word KMT writers love is “sophisticated,” with its implication that the DPP represents a gaggle of bumpkins with “market names,” capable only of crudities. Another favorite of pro-PRC writers is “nuance.” Generally, if the term “nuance” appears in a text as a criticism of a policy toward the PRC, it’s a signal that the text is pro-PRC.

  By deploying the right jargon, KMTers educated in the West can signal social class solidarity with the educated there, leveraging that solidarity to mask the authoritarian, anti-democracy ideology that underpins their writing and thinking.

  As in Yang’s piece, this ideology constantly attempts to forward the core claim of pro-PRC writers: people who criticize the PRC simply lack “understanding.” If they had the “right” understanding, they would support the PRC.

  Instead, we stubbornly see that the PRC is an expansionist, imperial state, making resistance the only practical and moral stance toward it.

  Notes from Central Taiwan is a column written by long-term resident Michael Turton, who provides incisive commentary informed by three decades of living in and writing about his adoptive country. The views expressed here are his own.
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