In the 1960s, the US went to some lengths to persuade dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to be pragmatic and accept a two-China arrangement in an attempt to preserve Taiwan’s international status.
Chiang dug his heels in. At the time, US State Department officials predicted that two Chinas, or one China and one Taiwan, would only be accepted after Chiang’s death, when a new generation would be in power in China and Taiwan.
This prediction was borne out: Chiang’s son and successor, Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), launched a policy of “innovation to protect Taiwan”; former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) set about democratizing Taiwan and advocating a two-states policy; and former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) added his approach of “one country on each side” of the Taiwan Strait.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is currently reversing this process with his vassal state mentality, however, and China has him exactly where it wants him.
Ma is a strange fish: His is neither your average Chinese nor your average Taiwanese family, and as such he has neither empathy for, nor a natural affinity with, ordinary people. He is the product of a very specific mindset meticulously engineered by his elders. He studied in the US, yet the spirit of democracy has not rubbed off on him; he grew up in Taiwan, yet he has no natural affinity with this country.
He has inherited the vested interests and exile mentality of his father and has remained consistent throughout his rise to power in that he doesn’t really instigate anything: He only knows how to oppose. From the very beginning, he has spoken out against the two enemies of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — the Chinese communists and Taiwanese independence advocates. This has won him friends in the older generations in China.
With the democratization of Taiwan and the expansion of his political arena, his mindset has run into conflict with political considerations. He fears Beijing, but doesn’t like to talk of being “anti-communist”; he worries about losing votes, but declines to elaborate on his objections to Taiwanese independence; he is not pro-democracy, but you will only see this in his actions, for he will not articulate it.
To continue his oppositionist tendency, he needed to find a new enemy, so he chose Chen. Chen’s “one country on each side” got officials’ tongues wagging, and the fact that certain family members were sending large sums of cash of unknown origin abroad just so happened to give these same officials the excuse to take aim at Chen under the guise of attacking corruption.
Under these two banners, Ma attacked the idea of one country on each side of the Strait, mobilizing staunch pan-blue supporters and moderates to give him the presidency. Once in power, however, he has proven to be arrogant, incompetent and cold, and seems to be content to associate with criminals.
However, Ma doesn’t seem to realize any of this, and blames anyone and anything for problems as they arise. When he is criticized for errors that he has made, he has had the audacity to make comparisons with Chen.
Then, after being hit by an election setback, he returned to persecuting the former president. One minute he is taking his cues from Chen, the next he is criticizing him.
Does he really think the public is fooled by such duplicity?
Opposing Chen no longer works, but then again, Ma’s biggest enemy now is his own incompetence and lack of affinity with the public’s expectations. If he needs something new to fight against, he should look no further than himself.
James Wang is a media commentator.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
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