Japan and Taiwan have struggled to escape their postwar legacies and the “normalization” of the state. Japan has had to address its relationship with its neighbors, including China, the two Koreas and, to a lesser degree, Taiwan — or at least the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) forces that previously governed the nation and which now form the biggest opposition party — as a result of the actions of imperial Japan during World War II. Taiwan is still unsure of its national identity, despite Japan having relinquished colonial control in 1945, in large part because the KMT refuses to acknowledge that it lost China to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949.
On Wednesday last week, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), as the head of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing. He said that his visit was a mission of peace to open up the possibility for further exchanges with China and a channel of communication with the CCP. Xi was the picture of welcome and friendship. Ma appeared overjoyed. Both men sought to convey that both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a history and a destiny. Even though Ma was there as a private citizen, the perception was of warm relations between former foes, the CCP and the KMT.
The next day, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivered a speech to the US Congress. During World War II, Japan and the US had been enemies, but much has changed since then. Kishida spoke of the warm relations between the two countries, and of how Japan had transformed itself from being “a reticent ally recovering from the devastation of World War II” to a “strong, committed ally, looking outward to the world.”
He lauded the US for its policy “based on the premise that humanity does not want to live oppressed by an authoritarian state, where you are tracked and surveilled and denied from expressing what is in your heart and on your mind.” He warned that the world is at an inflection point that would define the future of humanity.
He also said that the US-Japan partnership goes “beyond the bilateral” and includes cooperation and friendship with other nations, including South Korea. China was the exception, as the CCP’s foreign policy and military actions present an unprecedented challenge not only to Japan, but to the entire international community.
The world order is changing. Japan knows which side it is on: It is with the US, the democratic world and the established international world order. That is the trajectory President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has followed, and which her successor, William Lai (賴清德), would presumably continue. There is no guarantee this is the path that Taiwan will always take.
Ma called his trip one of “peace and friendship.” It was more than that. He has thrown in his lot not just with the “Chinese nation,” but with the CCP. The KMT and the CCP were once mortal enemies, but Ma and Xi share a longstanding desire to see the unification of China and Taiwan. To achieve that goal — against the wishes of the majority of Taiwanese — Ma is willing to consign Taiwan to oppression by an authoritarian state, where they would be tracked, surveilled and denied from expressing what is in their hearts and on their minds.
Before Ma’s trip, foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said that the KMT did not support the idea. On Tuesday, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) denied this, saying that the party had given the idea its blessing from the outset. He needs to clarify what he means by this.
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