President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has given the Dalai Lama permission to visit Taiwan to comfort the victims of Typhoon Morakot.
The government’s decision to allow the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader to visit came after Ma rejected a similar request last December, a move that at the time was widely interpreted as a nod in the direction of Beijing and part of Ma’s strategy to improve cross-strait relations. Ma could afford to do so at the time because he enjoyed strong support in opinion polls.
But things have changed drastically and Ma’s popularity is now at its lowest ebb. With the economy at rock bottom, his administration’s botched handling of Morakot, the bad press he received after several detached encounters with survivors and growing criticism of how he is dealing with a possible swine flu epidemic, the Ma camp has had to reassess its options.
Rejecting the visit of such a respected religious leader in the face of human suffering would have made the government appear even more heartless and could have dealt a fatal blow to Ma’s 2012 re-election hopes.
However, allowing the Dalai Lama into Taiwan sets back Ma’s pro-China agenda, which will be a problem for him at a time when Chinese officials appear increasingly impatient with what they view as his middle-of-the-road opportunism.
The Dalai Lama decision will make him unpopular in China, but Ma and his advisers have come to realize that how he is perceived by people in Taiwan is much more important than what Beijing thinks.
When he was elected by a landslide last year Ma was obviously confident he could win a second term, and he has made numerous predictions about his economic and cross-strait plans post-2012. But for the first time in his political career, Ma is having to come to terms with the fact that he is electorally vulnerable and that if he continues in this manner he stands a very good chance of losing.
Damage control must take precedent over policy.
The Democratic Progressive Party chiefs who invited the Dalai Lama no doubt did so with good intentions, but in the back of their minds they must have been excited about the dilemma this would create for Ma. The outmaneuvered Presidential Office must be quietly fuming.
The next test for Ma will be whether he meets the Dalai Lama, but that will be a bridge too far. Ma may have had his hands effectively tied behind his back when deciding to allow a visit, but a meeting between the two would be an almighty slap in the face for Beijing.
This will be hard for Ma, because not meeting the Dalai Lama will further harm his image in this post-Morakot era. The problem is that having tied up all his political capital in improving ties with Beijing, Ma will at some point have to tow its line in order to ensure the continued flow of “goodwill.”
The folly of Ma’s China policy has once again become glaringly apparent.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not