One in the hand...

There's always a sense of depression when returning to Taiwan from a vacation in Japan. The latter country, after all, is a reminder that Asia doesn't have to be the stereotyped image so many Westerners have of this part of the world, which makes coming back to Taiwan, where so much of that "Asian" atmosphere is still so obviously apparent, all the more harder. But what is making things even worse this time around is the new government in power here. Barely a month in office, and already the worst fears about giving in to the Chinese seem to be coming true. And then there was that whole Gilbert and Sullivan farce over the Senkaku Islands 尖閣諸島.

What was going on here? The premier was threatening war, and the foreign minister recalled Taiwan's unofficial ambassador to Japan. Much noise was made about sending reinforcements to protect Taiwanese fishermen. Was anyone in the new administration aware of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty 日米安保, a certain piece of paper that obligates the United States to come to the defense of Japan if the latter is attacked? The treaty covers all areas under Japanese administration, and that includes the Senkakus. If anyone in the KMT 中国国民党 had bothered to look it up, they might have read how it was the USA that controlled the islands from 1945 to 1972 (even using a couple of them for military training purposes), and that it was the same country which gave the Senkakus to Japan when it returned Okinawa Prefecture 沖縄県 to Tōkyō in 1972. And if the KMT was perhaps expecting their ethnic cousins on the Chinese mainland to back them up, the recent agreement between China and Japan to share in the development of disputed gas fields in the East China Sea probably put paid to that notion. Still, I wish some of those KMT legislators had gone through with their chest-puffing, flag-waving intention of sailing to the Senkakus in order to demonstrate Taiwan's claim to the islands. With any luck, some of them might have jumped into the sea and drowned (which is what happened to a most glorious Chinese patriot from Hong Kong in 1996, an act which should have demonstrated the idiocy of identifying oneself with any form of nationalism), and thus helped to have thinned the herd a little. No such luck, though.

Oh, and where was Mr. Ma 馬英九 while all of this was going on? For a while there, Taiwan's new president had turned into the invisible man. Being the leader of a government that has simultaneously cozied up to an enemy threatening to destroy it, while needlessly antagonizing a key ally, Ma hasn't exactly done much to inspire confidence in his leadership abilities.

But things seem to be returning to what constitutes "normal" in this brave, new KMT world, and to outside observers at least, there are great opportunities waiting to be seized by both China and Taiwan, according to Richard Bush in "Balancing act across Taiwan Strait", from today's Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ. It's not a bad article, but it doesn't really cover any new ground, or say anything different from the numerous stories that have appeared in both the Western and Japanese media since Ma won the election back in March. In short, there are both opportunities and risks, and the leaders on both sides of the Taiwan Straits need to be cautious in their approaches. And as is the case with almost all of these commentaries, the conclusion is generally sunny:

"Beijing may not yet realize how much Ma is depending on its positive moves to help him ensure sustained political support within Taiwan for his policy agenda. Yet the two sides have learned something from the experience of the last 15 years. They have stared into the abyss of mutual fear. They appear to understand what can be gained from seizing today's strategic opportunity. For all the difficulties that lie ahead, they are off to a good start."

To me, it seems like the beginning of a Taiwan Special Administrative Region is in the making. But then I'm not a learned member of a major think tank, nor a former chairman of the AIT. I just live here, so what do I know?