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Keep friends close,
enemies closer
By John Lim 林泉忠
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has formally begun his second term in office amid
seething public resentment. Where is Ma going to lead Taiwan?
Apart from livelihood issues, what concerns people most in Taiwan is the
direction of cross-strait relations. Taiwan has gradually opened its doors to
Chinese tourists and students over the past four years. As the government
relaxes restrictions day by day, it is conceivable that the two sides of the
Taiwan Strait will enter a new era of comprehensive exchanges, or even political
negotiations, within the next four years.
Taiwan no longer has any option but to work with “dynamic China,” voluntarily or
not. The question is, can Taiwan effectively safeguard its own values as it does
so? Can it highlight its own existence as a nation as it promotes “peaceful
development” with Beijing? To put it simply, how should Taiwan make friends with
China?
Cross-strait relations are one of the strong points of Ma’s Chinese Nationalist
Party (KMT) and Ma was re-elected partly because many voters believe that he
would be able to stabilize cross-strait relations. Undoubtedly, the cross-strait
peace index has improved significantly over the past four years, while the
chance of war has fallen to the lowest ever since the KMT government relocated
to Taiwan in 1949.
Plus, while the benefits of signing the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement
with China remain unclear, at least Taiwan need no longer worry about being left
behind, now that it has climbed aboard the Chinese express train that is leading
the world economy.
However, while more cross-strait exchanges take place, even some pro-blue
supporters are asking themselves whether Taiwan is compromising its sovereignty.
Increasingly, countries suffer similar anxieties when dealing with a rising
China. Still, Taiwan is in a more difficult situation, because China does not
claim sovereignty over other countries, but it does over Taiwan and it will
expect some change in the national identity of Taiwanese.
Regrettably, Ma seems unaware of the anxiety that people here are feeling. This
can be seen in his half-baked cross-strait discourse in his inaugural address
this year. As in his first inaugural address, which he delivered four years ago,
Ma once again upheld the title of the Republic of China (ROC). However, the
nation’s official title rarely appears in cross-strait exchanges these days and
has little international visibility.
Everyone knows that there is a major disparity between the status of the two
sides on the world stage. Even if they set aside the thorny issue of national
status, China’s position as a sovereign state remains unquestioned while the ROC
gradually fades away under the principle of “shelving controversies.” If this
goes on, Taiwan might lose all chance of making its voice heard in the
international community.
So, how can Ma find the right formula to ease Taiwanese anxiety about losing
sovereignty? The Ma administration should change its thinking on cross-strait
relations by boldly adjusting the kind of friendship that it has sought to
foster in its dealings with China over the past four years.
Generally, there are two ways to make friends. Ma’s choice up till now has been
the Chinese way, under which a person avoids saying or doing anything that his
friends might not like. That would explain why neither former KMT chairmen Lien
Chan (連戰) or Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) mentioned the ROC when they met Chinese
President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
Instead, in March of this year Wu floated the formula of “one country, two
areas” as a way of testing China’s reaction. His standpoint can hardly be
compared with that of former Straits Exchange Foundation chairman Koo Chen-fu
(辜振甫), who bravely pronounced the ROC’s national title when he met with
then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) in Beijing in October 1998.
Admittedly, Ma’s Chinese way of friendship has been quite effective in creating
a congenial atmosphere as he makes his first attempts to build mutual trust with
China. However, as the two sides interact according to this Chinese mode of
friendship, the ROC’s visibility has faded away bit by bit and that is precisely
what is making Taiwanese people worried.
A quite different way of making friends is the Western way, which emphasizes
that friends should tolerate each other’s different values. The world’s major
countries all adopt this method when dealing with China. Although countries like
the US, France and Australia have frictions with China from time to time, they
try not to let those frictions get in the way of their friendly dealings with
the Chinese. In agreeing to disagree, they state their differences with China
when the time seems appropriate and seek to decide what direction talks will
take and occupy the high ground. They do not find it necessary to make excessive
concessions in the hope of getting into Beijing’s good books.
The phrase “shelving controversies” occurred twice in Ma’s 2008 inaugural
address, but there was no sign of it in his inaugural speech this time. This
change indicates that Ma is preparing for the launch of cross-strait political
talks. After four years of interaction the two governments have built up a
certain degree of mutual trust. Nevertheless, if Ma’s approach to cross-strait
affairs is not one of acquiescing to China and moving toward the “eventual
unification” that Beijing hopes to see, and if he really wants to safeguard and
strengthen the ROC’s existence then as he begins to prepare for political talks
with China he should also adjust his mode of friendship-building with his
Chinese counterparts.
John Lim is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Modern History
at Academia Sinica.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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