| twitchyzero | 09-14-2011 08:05 PM |
Taiwan Leader’s ‘Surrender Tour’ to Beijing?
Quote:
On Monday, President Ma Ying-jeou’s office denied that the Taiwan leader would go to China should he be re-elected in January. “As of now, there’s no such plan,” said spokesman Fan Chiang Tai-chi in Taipei.
The official response came hours after the executive director of Ma’s campaign organization told Hong Kong’s Phoenix Television that the president was not ruling out a China visit, which would be the first by a Taiwan leader. “Once the two sides have developed tacit understanding and are capable of setting aside disputes and solving bilateral issues in a practical manner, the likelihood of this and addressing further issues is on the rise,” King Pu-tsung said. “The two sides may hold more dialogues on daily affairs, culture, sports, economy and even politics.”
Tsai Ing-wen, Ma’s opponent in the early 2012 presidential contest, assailed King’s remarks and urged Ma to rein in his campaign manager. Yet Tsai must have been pleased that her opponent’s camp, the Kuomintang, looked like it had committed an unforced error. Although the island’s electorate wants stable relations with Beijing, polling reveals unease with the fast pace of “reconciliation” with the Chinese.
After inaugurated in 2008, Ma quickly signed a raft of agreements with China, including last June’s sweeping Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, but Taiwan’s voters evidently feel that the new relationship with Beijing has not yielded promised benefits. Perhaps as important, the electorate generally marks down Ma for not protecting Taiwan’s fragile international profile. Many suspect the closer economic link to China the president favors is the prelude to a surrender of the island’s independent status to Beijing.
In late 1949, Mao Zedong’s Communist Party drove Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, from the Chinese mainland to Taiwan during the latter stages of the Chinese civil war. Since then, the Kuomintang has maintained its claims to “the Mainland” and considers Taiwan a province of a larger nation, the Republic of China. Beijing similarly views Taiwan as a part of “China,” but in this case the People’s Republic of China. Tsai’s opposition Democratic Progressive Party, on the other hand, generally rejects the notion that there is a greater Chinese nation and sees the island as simply “Taiwan.”
In a poll last month, a slight majority of the island’s citizens identify themselves as “Taiwanese” and not “Chinese,” while only 3 percent see themselves as Chinese and not Taiwanese. Given the high Taiwan identity on the island, it is not surprising that, according to polls, support for unification of Taiwan and China is almost always in single digits.
A Ma visit to Beijing would probably not be popular in Taiwan for various reasons. As an initial matter, the trip, the first time for either side’s leader to cross the Taiwan Strait, would be perceived as an admission of weakness because, especially in Chinese culture, supplicants travel to meet their masters. More important, virtually no one believes that China’s Chinese would be willing to accord Ma the respect due to a head of state. After all, in Beijing’s view he is nothing more than a provincial governor.
And that is why Tsai’s DPP thinks it can score points with the voters. Its immediate response to King’s words was to argue that, if Ma were to go to China, he should do so only in his capacity as head of state. “If he cannot visit in that capacity, that would mean he cannot uphold the nation’s dignity,” said DPP spokesman Chen Chi-mai.
Tsai has fallen back in the latest polls after drawing even with Ma in recent months. Yet her party has done extremely well in the off-year elections, and its successes point to the widespread concern that, among other things, Ma is selling out Taiwan to the Chinese.
On Monday, Ma’s campaign manager just confirmed many voters’ worst fears about his boss’s ultimate plans. So far, countries in the region and the United States have ignored what’s going on in Taiwan. Yet if President Ma actually intends to deliver the island to the Chinese on a silver platter—as he might do on a “surrender tour” to Beijing—he will change the balance of power in East Asia and give an aggressive China a new base from which to destabilize the region.
| So some turbulent news is stirring up in taiwan as they prepare for their 5th presidential election. I think the media is blowing this out of proportions. I know most people think politics in taiwan is a joke, but for any one who gives two shits or wants a good insight this is definitely a worthwhile read. Taiwan Leader |
