President William Lai (賴清德) has come under fire for saying that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) once said the Republic of China (ROC) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are not subordinate to each other.
Asked about comments made during his inaugural address that “the ROC and the PRC are not subservient to each other,” Lai said he was “not the first person to express this truth.”
“During her 2021 National Day Address, former president Tsai [Ing-wen (蔡英文)] said that the ROC and PRC should not be subordinate to each other. Former president Ma Ying-jeou [(馬英九)] had also once said the ROC is a sovereign and independent state, and that neither side of the Strait is subordinate to the other,” Lai said during an interview with Time magazine.
Photo: I-Hwa Cheng, Bloomberg
However, representatives of Ma and a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said Lai was misrepresenting Ma in the interview, with the waters further muddied by inconsistent definitions and translations in a companion piece published by Time.
Although the ROC has come to be colloquially referred to as “Taiwan’s official name,” the KMT maintains that the ROC’s constitution precludes recognition of the PRC as a separate country.
Ma had pointedly refrained from referring to the ROC and PRC when describing the cross-strait relationship during his time in office, opting instead for the more ambiguous “two sides,” Ma Ying-jeou Culture and Education Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said.
Lai was “twisting Ma’s words” by deliberately conflating “two sides” with “two countries,” Hsiao said in a news release.
“If President Lai has the courage, he should directly declare Taiwan independence instead of deceiving foreigners who don’t understand Chinese,” Hsiao said.
Hsiao added that Ma’s notion of cross-strait relations refers to the two separate regions across the Taiwan Strait, rather than two separate countries.
Ma on Friday said he was “surprised” to see Lai use his words to “endorse” his stance.
“My argument is clear: According to the Constitution of the Republic of China and the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Republic of China includes Taiwan and the mainland,” Ma said.
“Moreover, both ‘sides’ [the ROC and the PRC] do not recognize each other’s sovereignty nor deny each other’s governance, but do adhere to the principle of ‘one China,’” he added.
In an attempt to clarify matters, the Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement asserting that “the ROC does not belong to any country or region in the world.”
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