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The Liberty Times
Editorial: WikiLeaks reveals KMT’s naivety
WikiLeaks was launched in December 2006. Since the end of last year the
WikiLeaks Web site has gradually released about 250,000 confidential US
diplomatic cables.
The US government has made every effort to jail the site’s editor-in-chief,
Julian Assange, but remains unable to stop the constant release of information.
Many of the world’s most powerful countries are worried, wondering which of them
is next.
Taiwan’s media have sat back and watched the fun, never expecting that this
nation could suddenly become the focus of attention. However, cables from the
American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) to Washington have now been published. What
an embarrassment, both to the AIT and to the Taiwanese politicians involved.
Eric Chu (朱立倫), now mayor of New Taipei City (新北市), has captured a lot of the
attention as he was quoted as telling then-AIT director Stephen Young that
“President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is not naive about China; he is not former Chinese
Nationalist Party [KMT] chairman Lien Chan (連戰).”
In other words, Lien is naive about China. That has to be a big secret.
However, Chu’s interpretation of Ma’s and Lien’s attitudes describes the tension
between the two, as well as Ma’s refusal to let Lien encroach on his control of
Taiwan’s China policy. Still, Chu did not really touch the core of the issue: Ma
himself is very naive when it comes to dealing with China.
Although Ma refuses to let Lien become the figurehead of Taiwan’s China policy,
one must ask which of Ma’s China policies over the past four years go beyond the
five-point “common vision” reached by Lien and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤)
in Beijing in April 2005? At the time, Lien and Hu said the two sides of the
Taiwan Strait insisted on the so-called “1992 consensus” and opposed Taiwanese
independence.
Moreover, Ma has now included that outdated and fabricated “1992 consensus” and
opposition to Taiwanese independence into his policies.
Lien and Hu’s promotion of economic and trade exchanges and the opening of
direct cross-strait links, giving priority to a joint cross-strait market, was
clearly the origin of the opening of direct flights in 2008 and the signing of
the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement last year.
Lien and Hu also said the two sides should start negotiations over greater
international space for Taiwan and that priority should be given to World Health
Assembly participation for Taiwan. Then, since 2009, Taiwan has been able to
attend the annual assembly meeting despite being called “Taiwan Province, China”
on the assembly’s official Web site.
So, given these examples, in which ways has Ma escaped the control of Lien and
Hu? More frightening still, Lien and Hu have said they would push for a
cross-strait peace agreement and work to build a military mutual trust
mechanism.
These are goals that Ma has listed in his policy white paper. If he is
re-elected next year, the two sides are likely to enter political negotiations
in the near future.
Since Lien is so naive about China, why did the KMT officially list the
five-point “common vision” in its party platform? Why has Ma followed Lien’s
rules of the game after coming to power in 2008? Is the KMT a naive ruling party
and Ma a naive president? This is, perhaps, the most constructive tip from the
latest batch of leaks.
The KMT did not develop this naivete after it relocated to Taiwan. On Aug. 30,
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences announced in Beijing that it will publish
a 36-volume History of the Republic of China (ROC).
In the book, the academy concludes once and for all that when the KMT was forced
to flee to Taiwan in 1949, after a brief 38 years in charge of China, the main
factor behind the party’s defeat was then-KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石)
naive approach toward Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東).
The “common vision” that Lien shared with Hu may be naive, but the fact is that
Ma has already accomplished four of the five points included in that vision.
If we allow him to also accomplish the fifth and final point, will Taiwan follow
in the footsteps of the ROC and become but a shared historical memory?
Translated by Eddy Chang
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