20101127 Taking a stand on North Korea

Taking a stand on North Korea

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) seems to speak with confidence only when talking about pie-in-the-sky goals for cross-strait trade or plans to crack down on corruption — as long as it’s not about members of his own party — and judicial reform — as long as it involves judges who are viewed as too lenient on former political rivals. When it comes to standing up for Taiwan and representing this nation on crucial international issues, however, he waffles.

During a visit to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei on Thursday morning to mark the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) 116th anniversary, Ma was asked about North Korea’s unprovoked shelling of a South Korean island on Tuesday, which killed four people, and was the latest in a string of provocative acts by Pyongyang that threaten peace and stability in the region.

“We condemn North Korea,” Ma was quoted as saying.

Great. Except he was quoted as speaking in his role of KMT chairman, not as Taiwan’s president. While his words were clear, the fact that he waited until Thursday to say them and then did so at a KMT-themed outing dulled their impact.

Taipei had condemned the incident on Tuesday night, calling on North Korea to stop such provocations. However, this message came not from Ma, but Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添). Granted, with world leaders from Washington to Moscow and everywhere in between weighing in, and given Taiwan’s position on the sidelines of the world stage, few people outside Taiwan were waiting for a statement from the Presidential Office.

However, the two major flashpoints for conflict in the region, if not the world, remain the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula. Taiwanese have lived with the threat of hundreds of Chinese missiles targeted at them for more than a decade, missiles Beijing has not hesitated to “test fire.” So Taiwan should be more sensitive to, and appreciative of, the threat that South Korea faces from the North — no matter how angry some people are over the recent taekwondo imbroglio.

We would do well to remember that Pyongyang has a very nasty track record of being aggressive, especially at times of generational change and economic stagnation, and it has shown a willingness to attack far from home. In the early 1980s, in preparation to succeed his father, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il gained key seats and consolidated his power in the North’s political and military apparatus. Not surprisingly, in 1983, Seoul accused Kim of being behind the bombing of a temple in Rangoon (now Yangon) that killed 17 members of a visiting South Korean delegation, including four Cabinet ministers. In addition, Kim was more concretely linked to the bombing of Korean Air flight 858 in 1987 that killed all 115 people aboard.

Now Kim is evidently ill and preparations are under way for his youngest son to succeed him. Consequently, we have seen a naval skirmish with the South in 2002 that killed several South Korean sailors, underground nuclear tests in 2006, the “test firing” of missiles over the Sea of Japan last year and then the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel this March.

If Ma really wanted to extend Taiwan’s role on the international stage, he should be using what limited influence he has with China to encourage Beijing to take a tough line with Pyongyang, which needs Chinese aid to prop it up. Ma should also be reaching out to Tokyo, Seoul and Washington to discuss other options.

Ma should remember that he was elected to represent the 23 million people of Taiwan, not just the KMT. So far, he has shown great unwillingness to do so, from his Uriah Heep-like willingness to be called “Mister” by visiting Beijing functionaries to his focus on an agenda of economic unification with China.