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People must wake up
to the truth of Ma’s policy
By Michael Danielsen
People in the international community who continue to believe that President Ma
Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policies secure Taiwan’s unique position in the world must
suffer from collective tomfoolery.
Such pluralistic ignorance is widespread because almost everyone has praised
Ma’s efforts in creating peace across the Taiwan Strait, defending Taiwan’s
international position and fighting for its democracy. Those who know no better
follow the crowd in believing that his achievements are beyond reproach.
However, it is encouraging to see that some people are coming to realize that
they have been victims of pluralistic ignorance and have been misled by
government information. The abundance of statements and policies from Ma and the
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government that are leading Taiwan closer to
China have caused this realization.
This direction is hard to ignore and, moreover, it is becoming increasingly
clear that China has the upper hand.
Recently, the international community has been getting the impression that the
relationship between Taiwan and China is growing more intimate and that Taiwan
might become a part of China in the not too distant future because of the KMT’s
“one country two areas (一國兩區)” proposal, which resembles China’s “one country,
two systems (一國兩制)” formula.
It is also puzzling to many that the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA)
has not been officially registered at the WTO. Consequently, the ECFA is
interpreted as a local Chinese agreement. Moreover, it has been noticed that
Taiwan is listed as a province of China by the WHO. Even Taiwan’s apparent
initiative to establish free-trade agreements (FTAs) with New Zealand and
Singapore is considered possible only because China has already inked FTAs with
both countries.
EU diplomats would confirm that seeking a free-trade pact with the EU is a
fruitless endeavor because the EU has not even started FTA negotiations with
Beijing.
However, now that EU politicians have noticed that Taiwan has fallen in the
international democratic rankings and international observers concluded that the
January election was “mostly free, but partly unfair,” the awakening from
pluralistic ignorance has received a boost.
The same politicians might be worrying even more since Ma said he viewed the
issue of Chinese dissidents from the point of view of traditional Chinese
values, not Western human rights. Does Ma believe that Chinese values are
contrary to Western human rights? What do “Western human rights” mean to him?
The human rights accords of Western countries are typically based on the UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so are Ma’s views opposed to the UN’s?
When it comes to Taiwan’s military defense, the international community might
also start questioning how Taiwan plans to defend itself. It is disturbing that
Ma has apparently hinted that Taiwan does not need the upgrade for its old F-16s
that the US has offered.
Collective tomfoolery must be avoided, even if it is hard to admit that the
policies of Taiwan’s government no longer match its earlier ideals and that
Taiwan is not the great Asian model it once was. The way out of this conundrum
is to listen to and support Taiwanese and defend Taiwan’s democracy.
Michael Danielsen is the chairman of Taiwan Corner.
[Editor’s note: President Ma never hinted that Taiwan does not need an upgrade
for the F-16A/Bs, a package that was notified to US Congress in September last
year and for which the Ministry of National Defense is expected to sign the
letter of agreement by the end of next month. Where the Ma administration
appears to be having second thoughts is on the issue of the F-16C/Ds, which
Washington has yet to make available.]
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