Fri, Sep 19, 2008 page8

• No more bargaining chips for Ma

  • By Lin Cho-Shui 林濁水
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  Judging from the US’ refusal to sell Taiwan F-16 C/D fighters, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has caused US diplomacy a lot of trouble.

  Ma has ruined relations between the US and Taiwan. This has made China very happy, although it has not rewarded Ma for his efforts. Under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), the direct links issue was something that Beijing would constantly bring up for possible discussion. Now that the second round of cross-strait negotiations is nearing, Taiwan is busy making suggestions on what issues the negotiations should cover but it’s still not clear what Beijing wants to discuss or if it wants to discuss anything at all.

  Even worse, Beijing has said it was rude of Ma to expect China to deliver on his election promises that the first chartered cross-strait flight to Taiwan should take place on July 4 and that Chinese tourists should be allowed to come to Taiwan. China now evidently views Ma as a troublemaker — much the same way the US does.

  Ma must be greatly surprised by the current state of affairs. Although Chinese authorities tried to give the impression of remaining neutral during the presidential campaign, Taiwan affairs offices throughout China and some Taiwanese business association officials collaborated to encourage Taiwanese businesspeople in China to vote for Ma. They didn’t even try to hide their support for Ma.

  But now that Ma has been elected, China has shown little interest in meeting Taiwan’s demands for trade exchanges. The reason is simple: After Ma’s election, Taiwan has lost all the bargaining power it had with Beijing.

  China is an old expert at using power politics in diplomacy. It knows that Taiwan has three main advantages in its favor when dealing with Beijing. First, the US views Taiwan as its friend. Second, there are independence advocates who strongly oppose unification with China. And third, Taiwan’s strength comes from an independent economy.

  These three advantages have greatly weakened since Ma became president. Ma’s unclear stance on sovereignty and his insistence that cross-strait relations take precedence over diplomatic relations have weakened US support for Taiwan. Washington’s refusal to sell the F-16 C/Ds to Taiwan is a clear reflection of this.

  Although there are still many independence advocates in Taiwan, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is no longer in power and senior members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) are tripping over each other to please Beijing without concern for the consequences. Worst of all, the Ma administration has given up on Taiwan independently developing its economy and wants to rely on China to revive the economy.

  Since these three advantages have been weakened, Beijing sees this as the perfect time to further encroach on Taiwan’s diplomatic space and feel that it no longer has to be polite in its dealings with Taipei.

  Businesspeople are well aware that you need to raise your price and terms at the start of negotiations. Ma, however, has done the opposite.

  Believing that cross-strait relations should take precedence over foreign diplomacy and that Taiwan needs to negotiate its diplomatic space with China, the Ma administration has promoted a diplomatic truce and stopped research and development of medium-range missiles. By undercutting his own position even before the issues have been discussed and saying Taiwan needs to discuss its diplomatic options with China, Ma has opened the door wide for China to interfere with Taiwan’s sovereignty.

  Voluntarily putting Taiwan’s sovereignty under pressure is nothing short of admitting that sovereignty over Taiwan belongs to China.

  Taiwan recently lowered its requirements for joining the UN, stating that it would not apply for membership in the world body, but only for “meaningful participation” in UN agencies. All such attempts were blocked by China. Beijing had solid reason for doing so since Taiwan had said it needed to discuss its diplomatic options with China. The Ma administration then turned around and said it would submit an application to join the UN without discussing it with Beijing.

  The administration is saying one thing and doing another, making Beijing feel that its blocking of Taiwan’s application is justified.

  With Ma giving away all his leverage, Beijing has rapidly come to see Ma as someone it can suppress rather than co-opt as a valuable ally. This is not strange at all: China’s united front strategy builds on Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) united front principles, which state that the secondary enemy should be co-opted in the fight against the primary enemy and that today’s ally could become tomorrow’s enemy.

  Although Beijing tolerated Ma when it was busy with the Olympic Games, it was unable to hide its dissatisfaction. Today, the Chinese economy is suffering from a host of problems, real estate prices are dropping, the stock market has fallen deeper than any other equity markets, exports are on the slide, the trade surplus is shrinking, “hot money” is flowing out and many companies have gone out of business. It appears that China can hardly fend for itself.

  Despite this, Ma seems intent on tying Taiwan’s economic development to China. It is only natural then for Beijing to treat Ma coldly and view Taiwan as a troublemaker. If the Ma government fails to adjust its humiliating cross-strait and diplomatic strategies, Taiwan will only fall deeper into trouble.

  Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.

  TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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