Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) landed himself in hot water again after he said in an interview with Deutsche Welle on Wednesday last week that Taiwanese would “accept unification” with China.
Ma said that unification is an aim of the Republic of China through the Constitution, and that Taiwanese would accept unification if it were achieved “peacefully and through a democratic process.”
While Ma is correct on the Constitution, he is wrong about public sentiment. Several independent polls regularly show Taiwanese overwhelmingly want to preserve the so-called “status quo” of Taiwan-China relations.
Arguably, the growing number of incursions by China’s military into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone indicate that no such “status quo” exists, and that China is seeking to push unification through the coercion of Taiwanese. Nevertheless, it could be said that most Taiwanese would not accept China’s proposal to turn Taiwan into a Special Administrative Region akin to Hong Kong and Macau. Taiwanese demonstrated this on Saturday last week when they voted for president-elect William Lai (賴清德).
Public opinion seems to be lost on Ma, who said in the interview that Taiwanese “have to” trust Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on cross-strait relations. He said that, despite Beijing blatantly breaking its promise to the UK to protect Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy until 2047 when it promulgated the territory’s National Security Law in 2020 and proceeded to carry out widespread arrests of democracy advocates.
Ma’s remarks were rebuffed by the Democratic Progressive Party and dismissed by his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and could be ignored as the personal opinions of an out-of-touch former president.
However, what should not be ignored are Ma’s comments on Taiwan’s defense. Ma told the interviewer that Taiwan should cut defense spending, saying it was “too optimistic” to expect Taiwan to defend itself during a Chinese attack until Japan or the US intervened.
“No matter how much you defend yourself, you can never fight a war with the mainland. You can never win, they [China] are too large, too much stronger than us,” the Central News Agency quoted Ma as saying.
Ma’s defeatist attitude is destructive to the morale of the military and of KMT supporters who might draw inspiration from him. His comments also fly in the face of the US military officials and analysts who have said that Taiwan needs to boost defense — which it has been doing. Taiwan is building and procuring more air-defense missile systems, and building its own corvettes and submarines, all of which are important measures needing support.
Thankfully, the defeated KMT presidential candidate, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), publicly responded to Ma’s interview, saying: “Ma’s thinking differs from my own.”
“My consistent policy is the 3D strategy of deterrence, strengthening national defense and armaments, and increasing self-defense capabilities while pursuing dialogue and discussion,” Hou said at a campaign event.
If elected, he would “stubbornly defend Taiwan’s democracy and freedom while opposing Beijing’s ‘one country, two systems’ formula for unifying with Taiwan,” he said.
Seemingly to clarify its non-alignment with Ma on Taiwan’s defense, the KMT did not invite him to its election-eve rally in New Taipei City.
“Former president Ma and I have very different positions on certain issues. If elected, I will not touch on issues regarding unification with China,” Hou said at the rally.
It is promising to see the KMT distance itself from Ma, and it shows it is aware that the public does not support unification. Given China’s cognitive warfare efforts and constant threats, Taiwan’s military needs affirmation and a morale boost. Anything that saps morale should be met with a swift response.
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
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS