by Brian Hioe

語言:
English
Photo Credit: Ma Ying-jeou/Facebook

COMMENTS BY FORMER president Ma Ying-jeou at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center largely continued the KMT’s familiar lines of attack on the DPP. Still, it is significant to what extent the KMT now leans into views of the CCP through a rose-tinted lens.

Much of what Ma said was familiar. Ma emphasized what he framed as his own accomplishments in cementing cross-strait ties through the 1992 Consensus, then touting his 2015 meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Singapore.

Nevertheless, Ma’s gloss on the 1992 Consensus emphasized that Taiwan and China agreed on that there was “One China” but each side has “respective interpretations” of what China means. China has generally dropped the “respective interpretations” aspect of the 1992 Consensus.

Unsurprisingly, Ma depicted the deterioration of cross-strait relations as the fault of the DPP, citing The Economist’s description of Taiwan as “the most dangerous place on Earth”. Ma faulted the deterioration in cross-strait relations to the DPP’s refusal to accept the 1992 Consensus, then went on to try and depict Lai Ching-te’s presidential administration as dangerously pro-independence. Ma framed comments by Lai stating that the ROC is not subordinate to the PRC as a two-state theory of Taiwanese independence.

Ma then went on to suggest that the US was in agreement with him that Lai was a troublemaker when it came to cross-strait relations, then to attack the idea of raising Taiwan increasing military expenditures in the face of rising threats from China.

Very little is new for the KMT, in terms of seeking to depict the DPP as dangerously provocative when it comes to cross-strait relations. By contrast, the KMT has historically sought to try to depict itself as the only political party in Taiwan able to maintain stable cross-strait relations and, in this way, dial back cross-strait tensions.

Photo credit: Ma Ying-jeou/Facebook

To this extent, one sees how the KMT has sought to depict statements by Lai Ching-te of the DPP as dangerously provocative. Lai has, like his predecessor Tsai, emphasized adherence to the ROC, maintaining that the ROC is a sovereign and independent country that has no need to declare independence to justify why Taiwan does not need to declare independence in a manner that would provoke China.

But, even as the KMT has lashed out at DPP presidential administrations with the claim that they are undermining and denigrating the institutions of the ROC, the KMT has sought to frame Lai’s emphasis on the ROC as insincere and simply being another veil for Taiwanese independence. This occurs even as Lai simply maintains the baseline assertion of the ROC’s sovereignty in the face of China.

What proves more questionable is Ma’s claims that the US agrees with him that Lai is dangerously pro-independence. From such claims, Ma then immediately went on to attack the idea of raising the military budget, an issue that the KMT legislative caucus has dug its heels in on, in seeking to block the entirety of next year’s budget.

Certainly, there are some in the US who have come to the view that Lai represents a qualitative break from Lai, rather than continuity. But one also notes that the US has requested that Taiwan raise its military budget for years and so Ma’s comments on the US position on Taiwan are strange.

Moreover, in past years, it has been more common for the KMT to lean into US-skeptic views of Taiwan. Since the war in Ukraine, the KMT has increasingly leaned into the claim that the US would be an unreliable ally in wartime, not directly intervening militarily and at best providing arms from afar–though this also blends into more conspiratorial claims from elements of the pan-Blue camp that the US abets war in Taiwan and hopes for a war, or that it merely seeks to foist useless and dangerous weapons onto Taiwan in order to profit.

But the DPP has sought to drive home the point that the US needs to shore up faith in its support in Taiwan, while the KMT seeks to encourage US-skeptic views so that the Taiwanese public is less likely to resist in the event of a conflict with China. The corollary, however, may be Ma and others like him seeking to sow distrust in the US about the Lai administration, as a further means of deteriorating a political and military relationship that would be a bulwark against China. This may be why Ma has such interest in engaging the US at this juncture, then, through his comments at Harvard.

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