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EDITORIAL: Ma
sabotaging Taiwan’s democracy
A delegation headed by former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu
Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) departed for China yesterday and is today scheduled to meet
with Chinese President and Chinese Community Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi
Jinping (習近平). It is the first such meeting under the KMT-CCP communication
platform since Xi took the CCP’s helm in November last year. Among the
delegation are former National Security Council secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起)
and former KMT vice chairman Chan Chun-po (詹春柏), who was also the office
director of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) KMT chairmanship re-election
campaign.
At first glance, some may describe the meeting as conventional, posing no threat
to Taiwan. They would then be buying into Ma and the KMT’s claims that the
political party-to-party communication channel serves to develop cross-strait
ties and that more channels of communication help stabilize cross-strait
relations.
Surely no one could object to options that improve cross-strait relations.
However, what sort of “win-win situation” is there for Taiwan when the so-called
“improved cross-strait relations” of the opaque KMT-CCP communication platform
is built on marginalizing Taiwan’s democratic mechanisms? And where has the
government’s integrity gone when its authority appears to have been usurped by
this political platform setting the agenda for cross-strait development?
A meeting is scheduled for tomorrow in Taipei to set up a round of talks between
Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Lin Join-sane (林中森) and
China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) Chairman
Chen Deming (陳德銘). At the to-be-scheduled talks a cross-strait service trade
agreement is expected to be signed.
All this delivers an unsettling sense of deja vu: In May 2008, two months after
the KMT returned to power, then-KMT chairman Wu immediately headed a delegation
to Beijing to meet then-CCP general secretary and Chinese president Hu Jintao
(胡錦濤) and touched on cross-strait charter flights and tourism. Less than one
month later, the SEF and ARATS inked two agreements on weekend charter flights
and opening Taiwan to Chinese tourists.
In response to concerns that the KMT-CCP forum could dictate cross-strait
development, Ma has often said that this would not happen because all matters
decided through the KMT-CCP communication platform must be approved by the
government and agreed to by the SEF and ARATS.
Such assurances carry little weight, because the KMT-dominated legislature
appears to blindly endorse any agreements ratified by the SEF and ARATS.
Taiwan is a democratic country, and yet the most crucial democratic element —
public oversight and participation — has been shut out of the negotiation
process.
Adding insult to injury, Ma reiterated to Wu prior to his departure in a meeting
on Monday that Taiwan and China “do not have state-to-state relations.”
Granted, Ma may justify his statement with reference to the Republic of China
(ROC) Constitution, which states that ROC territory includes China. The point is
that China does not recognize this constitution. In other words, Ma’s insistence
that Taiwan and China do not have state-to-state relations ends up pandering to
Xi because it translates to “Taiwan is not a country.”
The nation’s democracy may be lauded as successful, but a chapter of sabotage
from within is unfolding under the lead of the Ma government. This government
disregards the voice of the people, while it clings to the concept of “leading
the government with the party.”
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