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Ma¡¦s fight with AP not at the heart of
the issue
By Lai I-chung ¿à©É©¾
In recent days, President Ma Ying-jeou (°¨^¤E) has had another fight with The
Associated Press (AP) over whether he will enter into political talks with China
if he is re-elected in 2012. Ma remains adamant that he never made any statement
to the effect that he was planning such a move if re-elected and he insisted
that it was all a misunderstanding by the AP reporter. Ma even demanded that AP
offer an apology. However, regardless of whether AP eventually folds under
mounting political pressure, the press release issued by the Presidential Office
shows that the AP¡¦s conclusion is based on fact.
The transcript of the interview released by the Presidential Office makes it
clear that Ma first told the AP reporter that the question of whether he would
engage in political dialogue with China if he were re-elected would be dependent
on how the situation develops at that time. When the AP reporter continued with
a follow-up question and asked whether political dialogue would take place once
the economic issues were resolved, Ma once again said that it would depend on
how the situation was developing at that time.
If we take a closer look at these answers, it is clear that Ma never gave an
unambiguous ¡§no¡¨ in response to the AP¡¦s questions. In international diplomacy,
a failure to offer a clear denial frequently implies tacit approval. In
addition, the Ma administration is pushing for ¡§mutual non-denial¡¨ as a way of
dealing with cross-strait relations. It is therefore no wonder the AP came to
the conclusion that Ma would not discount the possibility of engaging in
political dialogue with China if he is re-elected in 2012.
More importantly, on May 8 last year during an interview with a reporter from
Singapore¡¦s The Straits Times, Ma said that he would not discount the
possibility of talking about political issues with China if he were to win a
second term in office in 2012. During another interview three days later, this
time with the Taiwanese TV station China Television Co (CTV), he further
explained how he would not discount the possibility of negotiating peace
agreements with China if he were re-elected. So from this, we can see that the
conclusions reached by the AP¡¦s reporter are exactly the same as what Ma
advocates.
Given this situation, the real problem is not whether Ma should be using an
English interpreter during his interviews with international media. The real
problem lies instead in the policies Ma promotes and how these policies have
caused the international community to think that there is a possibility that
political talks with China would be opened if Ma is given a second term in
office.
Instead of continuously trying to cover up his real views on the issue of
political talks with China, Ma should be open and honest about them. Considering
that this is something Ma has said on repeated occasions in the past, blaming
the AP reporter¡¦s English is not the way he should go about handling this issue.
Lai I-chung is an executive committee member of the Taiwan
Thinktank.
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