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The Liberty Times Editorial: Votes will express nation’s opinion
Internationally, since 2000, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has spent most of its time complaining to its US allies about its pesky rival, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The DPP, both by its leadership and in its policies, has created a high degree of uncertainty over regional stability. However, from what President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said during an interview with German media, Taiwanese are in no doubt that the greatest source of instability for the next two years will be none other than Ma himself.
In a joint interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur, German newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung and French daily Le Figaro, Ma emphasized a number of points. The first was that he said he was interested in learning from the German experience of the way in which in an area formerly divided into East Germany and West Germany dealt with reunification.
He then said that he would like, within the remainder of his term, to see China and Taiwan set up trade offices in each other’s territories.
He also took the opportunity to reiterate to the international media his desire to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) during the APEC summit to be held in Beijing next month.
Third, he made the — faintly ridiculous — contention that his policy on China enjoys more than 50 percent public support in Taiwan. Next, he said that he did not believe the Sunflower movement would affect Taiwanese politics in the long term.
Finally, he said that a policy aimed at improving ties with China was the only viable way forward for Taiwan, as the alternatives left Taiwan with extremely limited options.
These comments made to the international media cannot simply be brushed aside as the delusional ravings of a madman. We have to ask ourselves, was Ma communicating with Beijing from afar? That is, was he asking Xi to reconsider the possibility of meeting him, offering the trade offices in return? Or perhaps the offices are already the first step in a planned unification.
His political proposals are aimed at pushing through his own personal agenda. They are not the result of democratic processes in Taiwan, and therefore lack legitimacy. There has not even been an attempt to give the slightest explanation of these proposals to the public, yet he talks openly to major international media outlets about them, as a representative of Taiwanese. Does he really think the Taiwanese have no place to intervene, or that the legislature has no right to study the proposals?
Furthermore, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) has confirmed that Ma was not referred to as the president in the APEC invitations sent out by China, and was only called “Mr Ma.” How very degrading.
Ma has declared that Taiwan is to study the German experience. This proposition is completely at odds with the reality of the situation. There are very few people in Taiwan as obsessed as Ma seems to be with the historical process of German reunification. This road, promoting ever closer ties with China, has yet to be discussed and debated in Taiwan.
The consensus already reached within Taiwan is this: That any moves toward changing the “status quo” in Taiwan need to be decided through a referendum.
There is no comparison with the way in which Germany split and the situation between China and Taiwan at present. The German split was the result of decisions made in 1945 at the end of World War II at the Yalta Conference. Germany was divided by the Allies into four quarters. The areas controlled by the US, France and Britain later became the Federal Republic of Germany, or West Germany, and those controlled by the former USSR later became the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany.
On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was torn down. However, as West Germany had not claimed to represent all of Germany, and had accepted the division of the country, the two countries had equal standing and in 1972 signed the Grundlagenvertrag, or the Basic Treaty, concerning the basis of relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic. It was because of this treaty that, two years later, they set up representative offices — de facto embassies named permanent missions — in each other’s territories. Interestingly, both territories had seats on the UN, and both were recognized internationally — other countries could have official diplomatic relations with both East and West Germany at the same time.
These relations were possible because East Germany and West Germany recognized the existence of the other and that they were countries in their own right, although at the same time they did not see each other as foreign countries. They saw their dealings as part of a special relationship — what might be called “special non-country-to-country relations.” This type of formula was rejected by Ma not long after he became president and he has never really come clean to the electorate during election campaigns about his true intentions in this regard.
Now, in the time he has left in office, Ma is looking inward, thinking about the two years he has left. He wants to set up cross-strait trade offices to secure that all-important meeting with Xi at the APEC summit.
This dream of unification of his is not only completely unrelated to how West and East Germany dealt with the situation — through mutual recognition — but it also runs counter to the mainstream historical narrative of most Taiwanese. It is the wish of a minority of exiled stragglers in the KMT, a throwback, and even shows Ma’s personal need just for that handshake.
What will be the effect of the Sunflower movement on Taiwanese politics? Is it going to be felt over the long term, or will it disappear overnight? This is really not for one person to say. Ma misread the situation in the first place, failing to understand that the March 18 storming of the legislature that started it all already meant the movement had gone beyond being exclusively a student protest, and had become a civic movement of considerable scale.
What this means is for society as a whole to decide. Neither must the powers-that-be mistakenly think that the disillusionment of Taiwanese is confined to the system of constitutional government: The public has already lost all faith in the government.
November is to see not only the APEC summit in China. The nine-in-one local elections, the biggest elections ever held in Taiwan, are scheduled for Nov. 29. These elections are a mid-term test for the government, but the national leader said that Taiwan would look at the German experience of unification, and was caught out in the blatant lie that more than half of the public support his China policy, without even consulting his own citizens first.
At this point in time, the electorate has the chance, the right and the responsibility to use their votes to express their opinions.
Translated by Paul Cooper
source: Taipei Times
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