The Ma Ying-jeou Foundation on Monday last week announced that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would visit Beijing and other places in China from yesterday to Friday next week. Observers speculated that the trip would include a second meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). China’s Taiwan Affairs Office set the tone for the visit by saying that it welcomes Ma and his delegation and hopes that they could jointly further the cause of national rejuvenation.
The timing of this pro-unification drama staged by China less than two months before the May 20 inauguration of president-elect William Lai (賴清德) is enough to show its real purpose.
Answering lawmakers’ questions in the Legislative Yuan, Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said he hoped that Ma would tell Xi that Taiwan is a sovereign and independent country, and that he would make sure to uphold freedom and democracy during his visit.
Ma’s office quickly rejected this suggestion, saying that this was a request to assert Taiwanese independence. “Taiwan is not a country, but a part of China,” it said. This makes it obvious that Ma’s visit to China is not intended to express the voice of the majority of Taiwanese, and would at most satisfy his personal notion of a “voyage of trust.”
China is an authoritarian country that has become even more oppressive since Xi came to power. Whether and when parties or politicians from Taiwan could go to China, what ranks of officials they could meet and what they could do while there are all decided by the Chinese side, and this is as true of Ma’s trip as any other.
With the majority of democratic countries viewing China as a major threat and challenge, the international community is joining hands to contain and suppress Beijing’s “wolf warrior” expansionism.
In view of China’s social and economic fragility, Xi’s government is focused on maintaining domestic stability.
In its policies regarding Taiwan, it persists in its two-handed carrot-and-stick approach. Accordingly, its “invitation” to Ma is merely a show of “peace,” while sowing divisions in Taiwan and putting pressure on Lai’s incoming administration. It is just a prelude to an expected hardline approach.
Meanwhile, China is being provocative in its dispute with the Philippines over islands and reefs in the South China Sea, which makes Beijing look bad. Therefore, China is using Ma’s visit to put on a different mask, to shift the focus of attention and conceal its expansionist nature.
This month leaders of the US, Japan and the Philippines are to hold a summit about how to respond to the situation in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) just returned after visiting the US and Europe. As democratic countries bolster their alliances and cooperation, Beijing believes it can use Ma to weaken Taiwan’s connections with other democracies. For China, Ma is just a political tool.
Shortly before January’s presidential and legislative elections, Ma was interviewed by German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle. When pressed to say whether he trusted Xi, Ma said that when it comes to cross-strait relations, you have to trust the other side.
This “heartfelt statement” by the former president immediately became the object of ridicule. To prevent it from affecting the election, then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) drew a line between himself and Ma, saying that he had never had unrealistic expectations about China.
Ma was also not invited to appear on stage at the KMT’s final campaign rally on the evening before the Jan. 13 election. Ma’s revelation of his true feelings had an impact on the KMT’s election prospects, so the party’s central leadership had to dissociate itself from his statements.
This caused dissatisfaction among Ma’s supporters, some of whom might have abstained from voting in protest. The loss of votes on both sides badly hurt the KMT at the polls. As an internal problem for the pan-blue camp, it could be viewed as a storm in a teacup and that is now in the past, unlike the “united front” campaign that China is staging.
To outside observers, Ma’s talk of trusting Xi further confirmed his status as the Chinese Communist Party’s best representative in Taiwan.
Even though he is a poisoned chalice at election time, in China’s eyes, his status as the “former leader of the Taiwan region” still carries a fair amount of residual value, be it for reining in the KMT or boosting China’s “big external propaganda.”
When Ma and Xi met for the first time in November 2015, China used the meeting to influence Taiwan’s January 2016 presidential election, and even thought it could manipulate Taiwan’s post-election political landscape.
However, the movement against the cross-strait service trade agreement the year before already marked the abandonment of the China-friendly approach that had prevailed under Ma’s presidency.
Consequently, when President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration took office in May 2016, few political ripples remained from Ma and Xi’s meeting. Nevertheless, the KMT was still stuck in the mud of its China-friendly mindset, and suffered another major setback in the 2020 presidential election.
The KMT did some soul-searching after losing that election. KMT Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), seen as representing young and middle-aged party members, was elected to chairman of the party. Chiang said a few things such as that the so-called “1992 consensus” was getting a bit old, and he tried to keep his distance from Ma’s political line.
Still, he could not overcome the combined pressure of conservative and reactionary forces within the pan-blue camp, and the KMT could not escape the cobwebs of Ma and his supporters.
Although Ma’s political value has declined, his outlandish comments such as “the first battle [between Taiwan and China] will also be the last one” and accusing the US of “weaponizing” Taiwan are still often taken up by pan-blue politicians and supporters when criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party.
Recently, Chiang and other KMT legislators have been calling for Tsai to follow the example of Ma, who, before leaving office, visited Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) in the South China Sea to “affirm our sovereignty.” This also shows that pan-blue politicians have not yet emerged from the fog of the Ma years and are still trapped within the framework of their greater China mentality.
Eight years ago, Ma visited Taiping, not long after he met with Xi. Did China object? You would think that Taiwan’s head of state “upholding our sovereignty” would be something that Beijing would be keen to suppress. That China said nothing on that occasion has to do with the island’s sovereignty. Remember what Ma’s office said when criticizing Chen, that Taiwan is not a country, but part of China?
From that point of view, Taiwan’s longstanding control of Taiping is not like a dispute between the Philippines and China, where China would feel compelled to wave a big stick. Rather, it has become the best propaganda tool for Beijing to claim that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait jointly uphold China’s sovereignty,” which further serves to weaken democratic countries’ united resistance to China.
Taiwan is a sovereign, independent country. For Ma’s team to hurriedly deny that reality just before he sets off for China shows how concerned he is about caring for “Chinese sovereignty.” Such a statement runs contrary to international and domestic opinion, just like the “1992 consensus” that Ma still claims exists. Maybe he could fool himself, but he could hardly fool anyone else. Only members of the pan-blue camp have still not shaken off the erroneous ideas of the past. That is why they are irrationally calling for Tsai to declare sovereignty by visiting Taiping. How could anyone believe in Ma’s “voyage of trust?” Just like the things he said in the run-up to January’s elections, believing or rejecting them is a test for the KMT itself.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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