Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said.
“As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.”
Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.”
Photo: Tony Yao, Taipei Times
Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup was more likely a contrived attempt by the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) president to score political points back home, Wang Hsin-hsien said.
National Cheng Kung University professor of political science Wang Hung-jen (王宏仁) agreed that the incident had been preplanned.
By referencing the ROC — an entity that Beijing remains technically at war with — Ma hoped to appear “not too weak” next to Xi, Wang Hung-jen said.
Meanwhile, Xi’s mentioning of the so-called “1992 consensus” was a reassertion of his “bottom line” to Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Wang Hsin-hsien said.
The pair’s emphasis on the “consensus” was consistent with the motif of their 2015 meeting in Singapore, Wang Hung-jen said.
The so-called “1992 consensus” — a term that former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000 — refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
The DPP has never acknowledged the “1992 consensus.” It says that Beijing allows no room for “China” to be interpreted as the ROC and that acceptance of the consensus would imply agreement with China’s claim over Taiwan.
During Xi’s speech, he repeatedly used the terms “Chinese nation,” “Chinese culture” and “youth exchanges,” which Wang Hsin-hsien said were currently the main focus of the CCP’s Taiwan policy.
China’s definition of Taiwanese independence includes attempts at desinicization, including alienation from Chinese nationalism and culture, which explains why Xi repeatedly brought up those terms in his speech, Wang Hsin-hsien said.
Wang Hung-jen said Xi’s rhetoric was directed at the “China-loving unification-minded forces” in Taiwan, while his special emphasis on the youth and students was likely because they were more impressionable.
Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies honorary professor Chao Chun-shan (趙春山) said the phrase “Zhonghua” (中華) — used in Chinese for “ROC” and “the Chinese nation” — was a “magic word” between Ma and Xi.
If China is to “rejuvenate” the Chinese nation, identification with “Zhonghua,” a term indicating a general relation to Chinese civilization, would be key, Chao said.
Rejection of the term would indicate a lack of national or cultural ties between China and Taiwan, rendering any political arrangements between Beijing and Taipei futile, he said.
Conversely, acceptance of “Zhonghua” as a middle ground would provide a politically viable alternative for Beijing, he added.
Chao said that Wednesday’s meeting between Ma and Xi was sending a message to Vice President William Lai (賴清德), who is to take office as president on May 20, that “the two sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to the same nation under ‘one China.’”
Moreover, Ma’s rhetoric demonstrated that both sides having different interpretations of “one China” was still possible, Chao added.
If the DPP can learn from this and adjust its cross-strait policy accordingly, there would be a chance to promote peace under the incoming administration, Chao said.
However, if the DPP continues to be ambivalent toward such concepts, Beijing would continue to view it as an outsider, Chao added.
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