Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Ma Ying-jeou/Facebook
FORMER PRESIDENT MA YING-JEOU hit out at current president Lai Ching-te last week with an 800-character essay on Facebook hitting out at the idea that relations between Taiwan and China are those between two countries.
Ma has sought to frame Lai’s inauguration address as pro-independence in nature, given that Lai referred to the PRC and ROC as not being subordinate to each other, and that the PRC should face the existence of the ROC. This continues how the KMT has sought to frame the DPP and Lai administration as dangerously pro-independence, to suggest that it is the only party in Taiwan able to communicate with the CCP, and that this is why the KMT should hold power.
Indeed, this is the traditional justification by the KMT as to why it should hold political power. Consequently, with the Lai administration taking office, the KMT has continued to circumvent the Lai administration to directly hold meetings with Chinese government officials. This has been the case with an April trip to China by Ma himself, during which he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as with a delegation of 17 KMT lawmakers led by party caucus convener Fu Kun-chi later the same month.
It is no surprise that Ma’s statement framed the DPP as motivated by a dangerous pro-independence ideology. Still, it is also worth noting that Ma framed Lai’s statement as continuing Tsai Ing-wen’s shift toward framing Taiwan and China as separate countries, claiming that this began with Tsai’s 2021 inaugural address.
The DPP has historically framed the ROC as a colonial imposition on Taiwan. It was under the Tsai administration that the DPP began to embrace the ROC framing, publicly referring to the “ROC (Taiwan)” to seize the political middle ground as a means of political compromise. In turn, the KMT continued to frame the DPP as pushing for Taiwanese independence, framing the “ROC (Taiwan)” as not being the ROC that the KMT historically stood for, and in this way accusing the DPP of “desinicization”.
Lai’s speech was understood by many observers in Taiwan as simply carrying on Tsai’s policy on cross-strait relations. By contrast, some observers in the US had strong reactions to Lai’s speech, particularly because Lai referred to “China” (中國) and did not state “Chinese mainland” (中國大陸), seeing his speech as breaking from precedents set by Tsai. Tsai did use “China” on numerous public occasions, though not in inaugurations.
Yet it is interesting to note that Ma, on the other hand, framed Lai as continuing the precedent set by Tsai. Ma also wished to frame Lai as a loose cannon in his statement, framing Lai’s inaugural address as being overly provocative and, in this way, having walked back by the Mainland Affairs Council after, while also suggesting a lack of coordination in different parts of the Lai administration with regards to the aftermath of the Lai inauguration.
Ma perhaps was hoping to evoke parallels to how statements by US President Joe Biden expressing US commitment to Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion were walked back by the White House and State Department after the fact. Still, one notes coordination on the part of the Lai administration, rather than that Lai’s statements were walked back.
Perhaps that Ma emphasized continuity between Lai and Tsai as the point of outrage and outside observers claimed discontinuity between Lai and Tsai, again, pointing at the perception gap that exists between within Taiwan and outside of it. One notes that Ma is intent on forcing the DPP to admit to the 1992 Consensus, which he probably views as part of his historical legacy, while neither Lai nor Tsai ever admitted to it–the DPP has traditionally taken the view that the 1992 Consensus is a post-facto fabrication by the KMT and has no basis in historical actuality.
Either way, one expects continued framing from the KMT as such, which will hope to leverage on distrust or skepticism with the Lai administration. As for Ma himself, Ma’s comments have been a political risk to the KMT at points in the past, as in comments during an interview with Deutsche Welle about the need to have faith in Chinese President Xi Jinping that led him to be not invited to the KMT’s final rallies in the 2024 campaign season. Even so, Ma’s trip to China in April was largely embraced by the KMT.
Ma has sought to constrain his own political party to the 1992 Consensus. The KMT’s 2024 presidential candidate, Hou You-yi, was himself originally reluctant to embrace the 1992 Consensus but eventually did so after criticisms within the pan-Blue camp. Successive KMT chairs such as Eric Chu and Johnny Chiang also began their chairmanship suggesting that they might seek to drop the 1992 Consensus, but eventually dropped such efforts after pushback from Ma and others in the KMT.