Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou was asked questions by the NYU’s School of Law Professor Jerome A. Cohen, and an audience, on Thursday.
It’s a 78-minutes , and Cohen did nearly everything to make his guest and former student look good, but it’ s also a potentially worthwile piece of Sunday infotainment for people who are interested in Taiwanese history, and with concern for the threats and opportunities Taiwan faces in the present age.
That said, if you strongly dislike Ma’s presidential record, especially his China policies, it might be a good idea to skip the 28th to 29th minute, where Cohen calls ECFA one of the overlooked international diplomatic feats, and suggests a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
Links within blockquotes added during translation — JR
1. Chinese State Council “Taiwan Affairs Office”, Febr 22
State Council Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman An Fengshan told a regular press conference on February 22 that the February 28 incident which occured seventy years ago was the Taiwanese compatriots’ resistance against dictatorship, a righteous movement to obtain basic rights, and part of the Chinese peoples’ struggle for liberation. Ever since a long time ago, this incident has been intentionally used by “Taiwan independence” splittist forces on the island who distorted historic facts, incited contradictions in their province of citizenship [Update, Febr 26: or between citizens with different provinces of origin], to tear apart the Taiwanese community, to create antagonism withinn society. Their despicable intention to carry out separatist “Taiwan independence” activities was absolutely despicable.
The Taiwan Affairs Office holds a regular press conference on the 8th of February (Wednesday) at 10 in the morning, at the Taiwan Affairs Office press conference room (6-1, Guang’anmen South Road, Guang’an Building). There will be a live broadcast online, please follow it closely.
Xinhua reporter: Two questions. First question, this year is the seventieth anniversary of the 2-2-8 incident, may I ask if there will be related mainland activities? Second question, the “Taiwan Solidarity Uion” is currently announcing that they plan to invite “Xinjiang independence” element Rebiya Kadeer to visit Taiwan and hope to effect a meeting between her and Tsai Ing-wen. I would like to ask how the spokesman has [spokesman being addressed in the third person] comments on this?
An Fengshan: Concerning your first question, it is understood that the relevant mainland departments are going to hold a number of commemorative activities at the scheduled time. Concerning your second question, as is well known, Rebiya Kadeer is a ethnic group splittist element, a leading figure of the “East Turkestan” separatist force. We are firmly opposed to an arrival of Rebiya Kadeer at Taiwanese activities in any form. “Taiwanese independence” forces inviting such a person to visit Taiwan, intending to manufacture disturbances, is bound to harm cross-strait relations.
Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) held a press conference – or a “tea reception” for reporters – at → Taipei Guest House on Saturday afternoon local time.
The following are excerpts from her introductory statement, translated into English. Links within blockquotes added during translation.
I’m very glad to meet with all the friends from the press here today. Apart from being happy to speak to the reporters ahead of schedule, I would also like to take the opportunity of this tea reception to report to all our compatriots about the efforts we have made for this country since the new government came into office.
I believe that all reporters present here, and many compatriots too, will know that a few days ago, the dispute concerning the national highway toll station dispute has been resolved.
Although some different views and opinions remain, concerning the solution to this dispute, I believe that, when watching on television how everyone smiled while the curtain fell on the dispute, many people, just like me, felt happy for them and their families.
To some people, this solution only means to give in to a group of people protesting in the streets. However, I want to look at the entire issue from a different perspective. As far as we are concerned, the point is that now that the curtain has fallen on this struggle, this society and above all some families can get back to their daily lives.
This is what governments are for. Some people →say that this [approach] is called giving out sweets to those who quarrel. But as far as this government is concerned, the real issue here isn’t the noise. The issue is if the noise is justified, and if the government listens. My expectation to myself and to my team, during the past three months, has been that we are prepared to listen, to communicate, and to find a solution.
I know that the friends from the press are curious about what I have done since May 20 [inauguration day], on a daily basis. In fact, after becoming president, my life and work have seen changes, and although the issues now are different, they have changed in a rather simple way, as mentioned in my inaugural speech: they are about solving problems.
Many problems have accumulated for a long time, and the previous government wanted to solve some of them, but wasn’t successful. There have also been some problems the past government neither wanted to solve, nor had the strength to solve.
The people who elected us want the new government to address and solve issues in a pragmatic and courageous way. The people do not want the new government to shift responsibilities altogether to the past. Therefore, I tell myself every day, and my governing team, too, that the people expects to see a different government.
In the decisionmaking process, I have to admit that we haven’t considered things sufficiently, and that we haven’t dealt with them sufficiently. When that happens, we will adapt, honestly face this, and that we will change. We won’t harden, we won’t weaken. During the Democratic Progressive Party government, and no half-minute incident.
For the past three months, the new government’s main four areas of attention have been as follows.
(1): Aborigines, Industrial Relations
The first one has been about solving longstanding problems in Taiwanese society. On August 1, I apologized to the aborigine nation on behalf of the government. For several hundred years, the aborigine people have suffered unfair treatment, that can’t be changed by a simple apology. But this society needs a starting point. I want to make the first step. Although the form of my apology sparked some controversy, we can take a successive approach and honestly face the problems that have accumulated during the past few hundred years.
Industrial relations disputes have long existed in Taiwanese society. In the wake of global economic change as well as economic slowdowns, weak labor rights and protection, have become more and more important issues. As for enterprises, and small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, there have been transformational problems, which has also led to more and more tense industrial relations.
The new government has not tried to avoid the issue. We have chosen to handle the problem directly. Of course, we admit that to solve years-old disputes in a short time and to achieve social consensus in a short time is difficult. We want to communicate with society again, especially with labour organizations’ and small and medium-sized enterprises’ views, and we want to listen more carefully. This will be reflected in my future arrangements.
We also need to understand that if the Taiwanese economy doesn’t speed up transformation, labor disputes, even if solved for a while, will continue to trouble labour and industry.
我們也清楚，如果臺灣經濟不加速轉型，勞資爭議縱然一時能夠解決，但仍然會持續地困擾勞工與產業。
(2): “Ill-Gotten Party Assets”, Judicial Yuan Nominations, Pension Reform
The second field of work discussed by President Tsai is recently-passed legislation on “ill-gotten party assets”, as described →here by the English-language Taipei Times in July. Tsai, in her address to the press on Saturday, referred to the process as a first step in the handling of rightening the authoritarian period in Taiwan (i. e. the decades of martial law under KMT rule). Tsai Ing-wen conjured a duty on the part of the KMT to share responsibility in the process:
I want to emphasize in particular that this is done to remind all politicians that many things that were considered natural within the authoritarian system, will not be allowed to happen again in today’s democratic society. What matters more is that, to create a more fair political environment in Taiwan, is our common responsibility.
In that “second field of work”, Tsai also mentioned a controversy concerning judicial yuan nominations – both nominees chosen by Tsai Ing-wen herself – which resulted with the nominees →bowing out:
I admit that the previous judicial yuan nomination sparked controversy in society. In the end, both nominees decided to decline with thanks, and I want to thank the two nominees for granting me a chance to think again. Of course, this was my responsibility. I will remember this experience carefully. The new government will communicate more carefully with the masses in future.
Another major issue addressed as part of the second field of work is pension reform.
(3): Taiwan’s New Economic Development Model
The third field of work for the new government is the new model for Taiwan’s economic development. During the past three months, our ministries and commissions in charge have actively worked on this matter. National construction programs made by think-tanks during our time in opposition have been turned into policies by the government offices. From here, the budgets of the offices in charge will be devised.
Concerning involvement in economic construction, and the promotional economic development plan concerning the five big innovative industries and the acceleration of technological innovation etc., our budgets for the coming year will grow correspondingly. This stands for our goal to build the new economic model round innovation.
As for a safe internet, for our social housing policies, and for the expansion of community care, raising the quality of long-term care, treatment and prevention, etc., we are also increasing the budgets.
Involvement in overall economic development will not limit itself to government budgeting. We will also encourage publicly-owned institutions to invest in new kinds of industries, lending impetus to non-governmental enterprises, especially the upgrading transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The budgeting is only the beginning, and the real test is to do things well. In fact, the cabinet is in a state of overall mobilization. During the past three months, under the → executive yuan president‘s leadership and the coordination of the government affairs committee as well as the efforts of the heads of ministries and commissions, the new government hasn’t been lax. I have lists from every governmental commission concerning their issues and their progress, and can explain each of them. I believe that these lists can also be found on the executive yuan’s website.
I do not hope that people will use the first one-hundred days to judge my successes and failures, and I’m not going to judge the cabinet members’ performances based on the first one-hundred days.
我不希望別人用一百天來評斷我個人執政的成敗；同樣的，我也不會只用一百天的時間來評論內閣閣員的表現。
Reform takes time. I’m not going to shrink back in the light of lacking short-term results or because of difficulties in promoting reform. When something goes wrong, it will be corrected, and what goes well, will be advanced boldly. I believe that this is what the Taiwanese people expect from government at this stage.
(4): Cross Strait Relations, Remembering Wang Tuoh
Fourthly, we will maintain the necessary communication with the relevant countries to maintain regional peace and stability, and to handle external relations. In particular, after the outcome of the arbitrational →decision concerning the South China Sea has been issued, we will, together with all countries, maintain the stability of the South China Sea situation. The people want the government to do more regarding sovereignty in the South China Sea, and we understand and acknowledge that.
As for the cross-strait relations [with China], I re-emphasize the importance of “maintaining the status quo”. Our goal is to build consistent, calculable and sustainable cross-strait relations under the current constitutional systems.
We will soon announce the staffing issues at the Strait Exchange Foundation. At the current stage, we have a choice among several candidates, and are at the final stage of consultations and assessments. Apart form the Strait Exchange Foundation, we will fill the remaining vacancies in government staff as soon as possible.
Some move quickly on the road of reform, and some move slowly, but as long as there is a common direction, we should support and encourage each other. There may be bumps on the government’s path in the coming days, but we will continue to make efforts forward.
Some say that solving the highway toll station staff issue is something “the previous government didn’t succeed to do”. As far as I am concerned, this is the greatest encouragement for our new government. To do what the previous government didn’t succeed at is what change of government is about.
There is one more thing. I want to mention a very particular man. When I took the office of Democratic Progressive Party chairpersonship in 2008, the party’s secretary general was → Mr. Wang Tuoh. Not long ago, he also left us. On his sickbed, he still showed concern for me. I will always remember how, when I wasn’t viewed favorably by the outside world, when the Democratic Progressive Party’s morale was at its lowest point, he bravely stepped forward, and together with me, he helped the Democratic Progressive Party to climb out from that lowest point.
In those difficult days, he often encouraged me, and he reminded me that when the thing you are doing is right, you must stick to it. I’m really sad that he can’t be in this world to see, with us, the changes of Taiwan.
But I will always remember what he said during his last days, he said “our way of governing must be different from the past, it must be successful.” I want to use these words to wind up my address. Everyone in the government team, put up the ante.
Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou said on Tuesday that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) commemorations of the Japanese War were manipulating history in an unacceptable way. Ma spoke on a Special Exhibition on the Truth about the Japanese War (對日抗戰真相特展).
According to Radio Taiwan International ‘s (RTI) Chinese service, Ma Ying-jeou said that remarks by former Chinese leader Hu Jintao during the 60th Japanese War commemorations hadn’t been correct either. According to Ma, Hu had said that the KMT army had fought the frontal battles against the Japanese, while the CCP had fought the Japanese behind enemy lines. In fact, Ma said, KMT troops had fought both kinds of war. However, Hu Jintao’s remarks had been closer to the truth than the way mainland Chinese media were now painting a picture with the CCP as the leading force in the war of resistance.
President Ma said: Mainland reports emphasize again that the war of resistance had been CCP-led. We cannot accept this, in the light of the sacrifices of so many officers and soldiers. One can’t talk to a point where inaccurate situations emerge.
At another venue on Tuesday, a symposium on the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ma said that events marking the victory over the Japanese in WWII were not affecting relations between Taiwan and Japan, RTI’s English section reports.
“I think we should focus on the issues at hand. [We should] have empathy and a clear concept of what is right and wrong. That’s the basis of making friends, and a basis for enabling the Chinese-speaking community and the Japanese people to build a long-standing friendship.”
In Taiwanese CNA newsagency’s quotation:
I have learned that when outsiders address my attitude towards Japan, they often believe that I belong to an anti-Japanese camp, because I frequently attend Japanese-war commemoration events, and because of my support for comfort women, and there are others who, because of my acknowledgement of Yoichi Hatta‘s contributions for Taiwan’s farming population, think of me as belonging to a “pro-Japan camp”. I don’t think that I’m belonging to either. I’m in the Friends-of-Japan camp, because I believe that taking matters on their merits, to feel for others, and clear distinction between kindness and resentment is the way real friends interact with each other, and it is on this principle that the Chinese nation and the Japanese nation can built lasting friendship.
A Beijing-leaning Hong Kong news agency, CRNTT (中國評論通訊社), writes that the exhibition was organized by Taiwan’s ministry of defense. According to the report, Ma said that while the CCP did play a role in the war of resistance against Japan, the war had been led by the government of the Republic of China and Chiang Kai-shek, and this was an irrevocable fact which needed to be honestly faced. The CCP’s involvement had been limited, and this needed to be honestly acknowledged, CRNTT quotes the Taiwanese president.
It had been a long and challenging journey, the president said. But there he was, at the lectern at Cornell University, his alma mater, delivering his Olin lecture.
He represented a country with a per-capita income of USD 12,000, its international trade totalling US$180 billion in 1994, and foreign exchange reserves of over US$99 billion, more than those of any other nation in the world except Japan.
His country had developed from a developing country to an industrialized country, and, in a peaceful transition, into a democracy.
Almost every president of the world may tell this kind of story. But this one, told on June 9, 1995, at Cornell University, was a true story. And the president who told it wasn’t welcomed by his colleague Bill Clinton, but shunned instead.
There were no official diplomatic relations between the visiting president’s country, Taiwan, and the United States. Washington recognized the Chinese government in Beijing, which claimed to represent both China and Taiwan.
That the Taiwanese president in 1995, Lee Teng-hui, had been allowed to visit the US didn’t go without saying. He wasn’t a state guest, but the university’s guest.
But his concern wasn’t that of agricultural economist or an academic – it was a politician’s concern:
I deem this invitation to attend the reunion at Cornell not only a personal honor, but, more significantly, an honor for the 21 million people of the Republic of China on Taiwan. In fact, this invitation constitutes recognition of their remarkable achievements in developing their nation over the past several decades. And it is the people of my nation that I most want to talk about on this occasion.
He only fulfilled this promise by half, if at all. Much of his talk was about himself: how he had listened in America and in Taiwan, and how he had learned. That he spoke on behalf of his people. That he heard the yearning of his people to contribute to the international community, with the Taiwan experience, development and democracy.
2. Lee Teng-hui
Even back then, twenty years ago, Lee was seen as the “father” of Taiwanese democracy, even if the ultimate goal or final success of democratization hadn’t yet been reached.
Like all Taiwanese of his generation (and the generation before), Lee grew up as a subject of the Japanese Emperor. From 1895 to 1945, Taiwan had been a Japanese colony. As a colony, Taiwan’s experience with Japan was less bad than China’s in the Japanese war from 1937 to 1945. And parts of Taiwanese population – especially the elites, and not only those of the upper classes – were co-opted by the Japanese elites. Lee Teng-hui’s family was probably co-opted, too. Lee’s brother, Lee Teng-chin, was killed in the Second World War, as a member of the Japanese military. His name is registered in the internationally controversial Yasukuni Shrine, which also contains the name of 14 A-class war criminals.
Reportedly, Lee also tried Communism, out of hatred against the KMT, Chiang Kai-shek‘s Nationalist Party, that had fled to Taiwan to “recover the Chinese mainland” from there.
After Communism, Lee tried the Christian religion, apparently with lasting success. And finally, he had himself co-opted by the (more or less) hated KMT: in 1971, he joined the one-party dictatorship, became minister of agriculture shortly afterwards, then Taipei mayor in 1978, and vice-president in 1984. Chiang Ching-kuo, son of Chiang Kai-shek and his father’s successor as a Republic-of-China president on Taiwan, supported the careers of “indigenous” Taiwanese like Lee, at the cost of the faction of traditional KMT officials who had fled Taiwan along with the Chiangs.
Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988. The KMT’s central committee elected Lee Teng-hui as party chairman and made him president of the Republic of China on Taiwan.
Lee had tried a lot of things, and he had achieved a lot. And he had no small plans for his country.
3. The Will of the People, the Chicken, and the Egg
What a people wants, and if it “can want” anything, is up for arguments.
When a man follows the leader, he actually follows the mass, the majority group that the leader so perfectly represents,
Jacques Ellul wrote in the 1960s, and added:
The leader loses all power when he is separated from his group; no propaganda can emanate from a solitary leader.
Basically, it seems that political leaders in democratic mass societies opportunites to shape their countries are limited. But Lee had become president in extraordinary times. Opposition groups, and “illegally” founded political parties among them, had demanded the lifting of the decades-old martial law for a long time. And when Lee began his second term as president in 1990, after the two remaining years of what had originally been Chiang Ching-kuo’s term, students occupied what is now Taipei’s Liberty Square. Once Lee had been sworn in again, he received a fifty-students delegation and promised Taiwan’s democratization, less than a year after the Tian An Men massacre in China.
Democratization was hardly only on the minds of the opposition, or on Lee’s mind. Chiang Ching-kuo might have had similar plans, even if less ambitious, and American influence probably continued to matter, too, even after Washington had switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing, in 1979. But with Chiang Kai-shek in office, a bloodbath in reaction to the 1990 events would have been much more likely than democratic reform.
4. Full Speed, 1995
Lee Teng-hui’s Cornell speech was part of the first presidential election campaign ever since the KMT had seized power in Taiwan. The mass media, still quite under KMT control, made sure that Lee’s visit to the US wouldn’t go unnoticed at home. On June 6, 1995, Taiwan’s domestic media had started coverage, and that culminated on June 10 (local time in Taiwan), with the Olin lecture.
Back then, when Lee approached a convincing election victory in March 1996, there were misgivings within the KMT about Lee’s loyalty to the KMT goal of “unification” of China and Taiwan. In summer 1999, toward the end of his first democratically legitimized presidential term (and his last term), Lee defined Taiwan’s relations with China as state-to-state relations, or at least special state-to-state relations. Not for the first time, Beijing reacted angrily to the “splittist” in Taipei’s presidential palace.
5. The “New Central Plains”
A lot seems to suggest that in 2000, when his presidency ended, Lee helped to bring about a victory of the oppositional Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and their presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian. That spelled completion of the Taiwanese democratization project, but at the cost of Lee’s KMT.
After that, Lee continued his search for ways and visions for Taiwan. In “Taiwan’s Position”, a book published in 1999, Lee focused on his country’s Chinese heritage, but without making clear if he referred to China or Taiwan.
My active advocacy for the “reform of heart and soul” in recent years is based on my hope to make society leave the old framework, applying new thought, face a new era, stir new vigor, from a transformation of peoples’ hearts. This goes deeper than political reform, and it is a more difficult transformation project, but we are confident that we will, based on the existing foundations of freedom and openness, achieve the building of a new Central Plain.
Lee had first used the term of “new central plains” in 1996. Scholars kept arguing about what he actually meant with the term. But these were hardly Chiang Kai-shek’s central plains, and, no less likely, Beijing’s.
But obviously, without the KMT, who had expulsed him for his “Taiwanization” business in 2001, and without public office, Lee wasn’t nearly as influential as before. Or, as propaganda expert Jacques Ellul put it in the 1960s, Moses (isolated from the masses) is dead on the propaganda level.
Incumbent Ma Ying-jeou, again a KMT president with rather “Chinese” manners, led a technocratically efficient government, but has been lacking success in terms of propaganda – and in terms of policies that would benefit all classes of society. Now, another “Taiwanese” politician is trying her luck. Tsai Ing-wenconcludes her visit to the US today. In March 2016, Taiwan will elect another president. It could be her.
PRC ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming (刘晓明), wrote an article for the Daily Telegraph, published online by the Telegraph on Wednesday, and by China News Service on Thursday.
The following is no translation in full, but you will find the full Chinese wording – according to China News Service – here.
The Telegraph version is shorter, and the emphasis is at times different, too. China News Service says that their version is the ambassador’s article in full. The following paragraphs are excerpts from the Chinese and the Telegraph versions.
Liu Xiaoming’s article for the Daily Telegraph, as quoted by China News Service online:
My first post as an ambassador was in Egypt. This ancient and beautiful country left many unforgettable memories, among them, the Mena House Hotel at the feet of the Cheops Pyramid, where the Cairo meeting was held. On November 27, 1943, it was here that the heads of China, Britain and America discussed the Japanese war and post-war order and plans, and produced the “Cairo Declaration”.
My first ambassadorial post was to Egypt. I have many memories of this ancient and beautiful country. One is the Mena House Hotel, which I visited many times. Situated at the foot of the spectacular Cheops Pyramid, the hotel is the venue that produced the famous Cairo Declaration. It was published on 27 November 1943 after discussions between the leaders of China, Britain and the United States, and was the master plan for rebuilding international order following the war with Nazi Germany and Japan.
[…]
China News Service online:
History does not tolerate the reversal of a verdict. The Second World War brought deep suffering to many people, which cannot be forgotten. China and Britain have both suffered from fascism, which has deeply influenced them. Chinese and British forces once were in the battlefield, resisting and attacking Japanese fascism shoulder to shoulder, and made major contributions to the world’s victory over fascism. To acknowledge the results of the victory over fascism, to protect the post-war order, and to defend the “United Nations Charter’s” goals and principles is the common responsibility of Chinese and British society.
History shall not be reversed. We must not forget the untold sufferings incurred during World War II. China and Britain are both victims of fascism. We have shared memories and pains. Chinese and British troops fought side by side on the battleground against Japanese military fascism. It is the common responsibility of China and Britain and the entire international community to reaffirm the outcomes of the war against fascism and maintain the post-war international order.
China News Service:
German chancellor Brandt’s courage to kneel in Warsaw and his sincerity won Germany new trust and respect, in contrast to Japan, which lost the war, too, but never abandoned its historical baggage, which didn’t deeply reflect on its war crimes, which didn’t sincerely apologize, but rather tried to reverse history. This not only makes it hard to be trusted by its neighbors, but also keeps it from being forgiven by the world.
Nazism was born in Germany. On December 7, 1970, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt travelled to Poland and dropped to his knees before the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943. Many in the world were deeply moved by this famous gesture of repentance and apology. The extraordinary courage and sincerity of Germany won it trust and respect.
[…]
The last paragraphs of the China News Service version are much more lengthy and angry than the one published by the Daily Telegraph. Other paragraphs may differ from version to version, too – I just translated the ones that caught my eye right away.
This blog is mostly read from the office – traffic during holidays would suggest that anyway. China’s holidays are still ahead, around May 1, and you can guess what’s going to happen on Alishan in Taiwan then, once you’ve read MKL‘s piece – Parallel worlds on Taiwan’s famous mountain.
An even bigger event should be the Golden Week, around October 1.
The second photo of MKL’s post shows – from left to right – Deng Xiaoping (with a white and a black cat tucked under his right and left arm respectively), Chiang Kai-shek (“my dreams have come true! At last, our mainland brothers have returned to the motherland!”), Chiang Ching-kuo (I guess), Mao Zedong (“At last! We have taken back our last province!”), and Soong May-ling (I guess).
Both his post and the comments following it include some thoughts about how Chinese and Taiwanese sightseeing patterns differ in Taiwan – and how they resemble each other once people from either side travels Europe or any other more distant place.
Now that President Ma Ying-jeou has been re-elected, Taiwan must try to conclude a peace accord with the People’s Republic of China, writes Joe Hung, in an article for the (pan-blue) China Post. Hung blames former president Chen Shui-bian (DPP) for China’s “anti-secession law”, and basically credits Lien Chan, the then-chairman of the Kuomintang, with having made a journey of peace to declare together with Chinese Communist Party Secretary-General Hu Jintao in Beijing to work toward a peace accord across the Taiwan Strait.
A peace accord would have nothing to do with Chinese unification, Hung adds. Rather, the pact is one to end formally the long Chinese civil war, which started or resumed right after World War II. Lee Teng-hui’s administration had put an end to Chiang Kai-shek’s civil war, but Beijing has never accepted Taipei’s claim that the war is over.
Hung argues that the Chinese civil war hadn’t begun as a war between two sovereign states, but international law applied now, because the People’s Republic exists side by side with the Republic of China in Taiwan:
The difficulty facing Beijing and Taipei is that of the rectification of names. Taiwan has to negotiate with China as an independent, sovereign state named the Republic of China while the People’s Republic, with the endorsement of the United Nations, regards it as one of its provinces. But there is a modus operandi. There exist the “private-profit organizations” of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) in Taipei and its Chinese counterpart Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS). They have concluded 19 agreements in line with the modus vivendi of the “1992 Consensus,” a tacit pact under which both Taipei and Beijing are agreed that there is but one China whose connotations can be orally and separately enunciated.
Which makes me wonder what there would be to be gained for Taiwan, by a peace accord with China. Hung himself points out how Taiwan would be in a much weaker position in such negotiations than China. What’s the use of a peace treaty or accord, if it isn’t sanctioned by the United Nations, and if any future Chinese aggression can still come in the name of “unification” – justified by a need to stop “secession”, or a need to establish any other kind of “order” in the “province” of Taiwan, in accordance with the Chinese leaders’ wishes?
If the recommended path was taken, Hung writes,
Ma must initiate a referendum, which certainly will be adopted. The SEF and the ARATS can do the rest of the work. The new Legislative Yuan will ratify it to usher in a lasting peace across the Strait.
But it’s hard to see how “lasting peace” should be more likely with, than without an accord.
A-Gu suggests that
From Beijing’s perspective, the best course of action is to lock Taiwan in to some sort of political framework before anyone else can win or lose. From the KMT’s perspective, this is also beneficial, as it gives them the option of painting any non-’92 policy the DPP may advocate as “dangerous,” as they’ve just done, but perhaps with a stronger effect. Indeed, both the KMT and CCP hope that they can ultimately force the DPP to adopt the ’92 consensus and eventually the “inevitability” of political integration.
Certainly, the idea of a “peace accord” sounds nice. “Peace” usually does. And as they once said at a conference organized by the UNESCO, “peace is a journey – a never-ending process”. That’s what many Taiwanese citizens could certainly live with.
But the UNESCO had the role of religion on its mind, not negotiations between two sovereign states. If it is up to Beijing, there is a defined destination point for the journey Lien Chan – in Joe Hung’s view, anyway – started in April, 2005.
Peace isn’t necessarily war. But as long as China can only listen to its own narrative about Taiwan, and as long as Beijing remains committed to annex the country either by means of peace or war, peace isn’t really peace, either. The best result of the recommended negotiations would be the status quo – exactly what Taiwan has today. When there is nothing to gain, but a lot to lose, why should Taiwan’s government seek “peace talks”?
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