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.
US President Donald Trump has gotten off to a head-spinning start in his foreign policy. He has pressured Denmark to cede Greenland to the United States, threatened to take over the Panama Canal, urged Canada to become the 51st US state, unilaterally renamed the Gulf of Mexico to “the Gulf of America” and announced plans for the United States to annex and administer Gaza. He has imposed and then suspended 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico for their roles in the flow of fentanyl into the United States, while at the same time increasing tariffs on China by 10
As an American living in Taiwan, I have to confess how impressed I have been over the years by the Chinese Communist Party’s wholehearted embrace of high-speed rail and electric vehicles, and this at a time when my own democratic country has chosen a leader openly committed to doing everything in his power to put obstacles in the way of sustainable energy across the board — and democracy to boot. It really does make me wonder: “Are those of us right who hold that democracy is the right way to go?” Has Taiwan made the wrong choice? Many in China obviously
US President Donald Trump last week announced plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on eight countries. As Taiwan, a key hub for semiconductor manufacturing, is among them, the policy would significantly affect the country. In response, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) dispatched two officials to the US for negotiations, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) board of directors convened its first-ever meeting in the US. Those developments highlight how the US’ unstable trade policies are posing a growing threat to Taiwan. Can the US truly gain an advantage in chip manufacturing by reversing trade liberalization? Is it realistic to
About 6.1 million couples tied the knot last year, down from 7.28 million in 2023 — a drop of more than 20 percent, data from the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs showed. That is more serious than the precipitous drop of 12.2 percent in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the saying goes, a single leaf reveals an entire autumn. The decline in marriages reveals problems in China’s economic development, painting a dismal picture of the nation’s future. A giant question mark hangs over economic data that Beijing releases due to a lack of clarity, freedom of the press
RSS