President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has always prided himself — in particular vis-a-vis the US — that he would pull “no surprises.” However, his announcement that he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore on Saturday is one very big surprise.
What has prompted Ma to make this move at this time?
Obviously, he has only about seven months left in office, and he wants to salvage his legacy. After so many disastrous stances and moves, his standing in the polls is way down, and he feels he wants to do something drastic to burnish his image.
However, it is doubtful a meeting with Xi would really help him very much: He is generally considered a down-and-out has-been politician, and very few people outside his own little circle believe him anymore.
Of course, he is also trying to turn the tide in the presidential elections, with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫), still way behind in the opinion polls. The party’s showing with Ma’s protege, Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), as candidate was disastrous.
Ma and his advisers thought that by switching to Chu as candidate, the picture would improve, but polls during the past two weeks show the opposite: Chu’s manipulation of Hung’s ouster did not earn him much credit, and his numbers are at about the same level as Hung’s were.
A third reason is that Ma wants to nail Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) down on cross-strait relations. Ma has been trumpeting that cross-strait “stability” cannot be guaranteed unless Tsai agrees to embrace the so-called “1992 consensus.”
He wants to reinforce this point by meeting with Xi and thus restrict Tsai’s room for maneuver once she becomes president. However, for Tsai and the DPP, the “1992 consensus” is a slippery slope toward unification, and she wants to keep all options open for Taiwan, providing Taiwanese the opportunity to choose their future freely in an open and democratic process.
Contrary to popular perception, the present “peace and stability” is only artificial, as it is predicated on the fact that Ma has given China the impression that Taiwan is inexorably drifting in its direction. As is very clear from opinion polls, that is simply not the case: Taiwanese prefer their democracy and freedom.
What then would be a wise course to follow? Certainly not what Ma is trying to do on Saturday. He is a lame duck, who is trying to pull a self-serving trick to cement his place in history. He does not have a popular mandate for any cross-strait negotiations whatsoever.
A truly fruitful and productive meeting between the leaders from the two sides can only be held in due time, after Taiwan itself has reached a broad consensus on future cross-strait relations in a transparent and open political process. What Ma is doing now is playing poker with the future of the country.
Gerrit van der Wees is editor of Taiwan Communique, a publication based in Washington.
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
RSS