Cross-strait affairs are matters of great sensitivity and warrant the careful assessment of those in power, as they relate to Taiwan’s security, sovereignty and national dignity.
As such, it is dumbfounding that Taiwanese had to find out via a media scoop that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is due to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in just a few days.
An exclusive on Tuesday night on the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) Web site broke the story.
How long was the Presidential Office planning to keep the meeting a secret?
Since winning re-election in 2012, Ma has not been shy about his ambition to leave a legacy. He has also on several occasions openly expressed his wish to meet with Xi.
Under normal circumstances, there would be nothing wrong with the nation’s president meeting the leader of China; it could reasonably be construed as the extension of an olive branch. However, it is a different matter when the design of the meeting has been carried out in an underhand manner, with decisions taken behind closed doors, in open defiance of the legislature and the public.
The Ma-Xi meeting directly contradicts a promise Ma made during his re-election campaign. In case he needs a reminder, on Nov. 18, 2011, Ma said: “I absolutely will not meet with the Chinese leader if I am re-elected.”
Ma also promised that a meeting between him and Xi would only occur “when the nation needs it, the public supports it and the legislature supervises the process.”
Therefore, it must be asked: Has he won the consent of Taiwanese for this meeting with Xi? That is to say nothing of Ma’s pledge to gain legislative supervision: Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said he only learned about the meeting on Tuesday evening when he received calls from media outlets requesting a response.
The nation is in a dire economic situation, with soaring housing prices, a deteriorating labor market, weakening household incomes and plunging exports. Ministry of Labor statistics show the number of furloughed workers last month was at its highest level since February last year, and Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics data show that the unemployment rate climbed from 3.82 percent in July to 3.9 percent in August.
Central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) on Monday said it would be hard for the nation to record GDP growth of more than 1 percent this year.
Rather than finding remedies to tackle the sluggish economy and declining competitiveness, Ma is focusing on fulfilling his desire to leave a legacy — by having a chance to shake hands with Xi.
It is cringeworthy — not to mention frightening — that the president seems to be more interested in leaving his personal mark on history than improving the lives of his people.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said the Ma-Xi meeting would be a significant step forward in the cross-strait relationship and that it would help the development of cross-strait ties.
However, rather than earning the esteem of the public, the opaque decisionmaking process and underhanded way in which Ma has gone about arranging his tete a tete has only inspired the contempt and repulsion of the public.
US president-elect Donald Trump continues to make nominations for his Cabinet and US agencies, with most of his picks being staunchly against Beijing. For US ambassador to China, Trump has tapped former US senator David Perdue. This appointment makes it crystal clear that Trump has no intention of letting China continue to steal from the US while infiltrating it in a surreptitious quasi-war, harming world peace and stability. Originally earning a name for himself in the business world, Perdue made his start with Chinese supply chains as a manager for several US firms. He later served as the CEO of Reebok and
US$18.278 billion is a simple dollar figure; one that’s illustrative of the first Trump administration’s defense commitment to Taiwan. But what does Donald Trump care for money? During President Trump’s first term, the US defense department approved gross sales of “defense articles and services” to Taiwan of over US$18 billion. In September, the US-Taiwan Business Council compared Trump’s figure to the other four presidential administrations since 1993: President Clinton approved a total of US$8.702 billion from 1993 through 2000. President George W. Bush approved US$15.614 billion in eight years. This total would have been significantly greater had Taiwan’s Kuomintang-controlled Legislative Yuan been cooperative. During
US president-elect Donald Trump in an interview with NBC News on Monday said he would “never say” if the US is committed to defending Taiwan against China. Trump said he would “prefer” that China does not attempt to invade Taiwan, and that he has a “very good relationship” with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Before committing US troops to defending Taiwan he would “have to negotiate things,” he said. This is a departure from the stance of incumbent US President Joe Biden, who on several occasions expressed resolutely that he would commit US troops in the event of a conflict in
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in recent days was the focus of the media due to his role in arranging a Chinese “student” group to visit Taiwan. While his team defends the visit as friendly, civilized and apolitical, the general impression is that it was a political stunt orchestrated as part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, as its members were mainly young communists or university graduates who speak of a future of a unified country. While Ma lived in Taiwan almost his entire life — except during his early childhood in Hong Kong and student years in the US —
RSS