Two articles in the Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ today, one by a writer who gets it, the other by someone who appears to have a tenuous grip on reality (no, it isn't Gregory Clark).
The always insightful Max Hirsch of Kyōdō News 共同通信社 writes of how "Taipei's next Tokyo envoy eludes in wake of Ma's handling of row":
"More than a month after Taiwan's envoy to Japan resigned his post, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九 faces a dearth of candidates he can trust to appoint as de facto ambassador to Tōkyō, revealing yet another stumbling block in bilateral relations..."
Hard to believe, yet the appointment process has so far failed to yield a replacement for the last representative, who was forced out by hardline elements in the ruling KMT 中国国民党:
"Koh Se-kai 許世楷, the last top envoy, resigned July 10 in the midst of a diplomatic row between Taipei and Tōkyō over a boat collision in disputed waters. Koh slammed Ma for his 'impulsive' handling of the row, which included recalling Koh and permitting a phalanx of Taiwan Coast Guard vessels to foray back into the waters to accompany a local protest boat. Prime Minister Liu Chao-shiuan 劉兆玄 threatened war on Japan over the disputed area in the East China Sea 東シナ海 that includes an uninhabited, Japan-administered chain of islets rich in fishery resources and possibly natural gas reserves."
The incident described above certainly did not get the Ma administration off on a good footing, and the president has been scrambling ever since to try and repair the damage he and his underlings have caused. Not only has a territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands 尖閣諸島 needlessly been allowed to disrupt relations between Japan and Taiwan, but:
"...the incident also reignited suspicions in Japan that at worst he is anti-Japan, or at best indifferent toward Tōkyō. Reinforcing those fears is his alleged dithering over whom to appoint as top representative to Japan — a post Ma has made little mention of since taking office May 20. In fact, Ma's inaugural speech raised eyebrows for its complete lack of reference to Japan, the island's second-biggest trading partner after China and a potential security benefactor."
Sources in Ma's government claim there are not enough qualified Japan experts to choose from, but considering the close historical and commercial ties between the two countries, this is really hard to swallow. There are plenty of knowledgeable Taiwanese when it comes to Japanese affairs, but I suspect most of them do not share the China-centric focus of the mainlander-dominated KMT. As Koh puts it in the conclusion to the article:
"...Ma's policy focus on Beijing over Tōkyō is causing many senior Japan experts to get cold feet in considering the position...'The representative needs to have mutual trust with Ma, so that's why this has become a fairly difficult search,' (Koh) said."
None of this would make any difference to UCLA professor Tom Plate, whose hero worship of Ma just gets more and more embarrassing to read with each article he gets published. Seriously, this guy comes across as a teenage girl with posters of the ROC 中華民国 president adorning her bedroom walls. Check out some of these quotes from "Ma goes for Taiwan gold in matters of trust" (even that headline says something):
"A true winner came to Los Angeles earlier this month...a refreshing breeze in Chinese politics. He is smart (educated at the best university in Taiwan before earning a law degree from Harvard), good-looking and charmingly modest...he translated his own Chinese into English. He was measured and casually precise."
Isn't he just dreamy?! All this hero-worship on Plate's part has apparently blinded him to the realities of Taiwan, and its position vis-a-vis China:
"He (Ma) is Chinese, but he has had nothing to do with the Beijing Olympics."
It could be argued that Ma isn't Taiwanese, so perhaps Plate has it (unintentionally) right here after all, but I haven't come across any other Western writers referring to the man as being Chinese.
"...Ma — a former mayor of the capital city — is a refreshing breeze in Chinese politics..."
And here I thought that Ma had been involved in "Taiwanese" politics all this time. Silly me, I'm not an academic at a prestigious West Coast school.
"At a dinner (in Los Angeles) in a downtown hotel, speaking mainly to professionals with strong ties to Taiwan, he outlined an approach to relations with China that deserves enthusiastic U.S. support. The key to improving the special relationship between Beijing, T'aipei and Washington, he said, is to maintain and practice 'high-level trust' — adding that 'mistrust will only breed more tension' and possible conflict. Beijing's leadership doesn't 'like surprises' any more than the average American CEO. Cross-strait conflict is something that the U.S. absolutely doesn't want, China itself probably doesn't want, and Taiwan certainly should not want."
None of this represents any new or profound thinking on the situation between China and Taiwan, yet Plate seems to think some kind of great breakthrough has occurred. The Taipei Times had an editorial today suggesting otherwise, which we will get to in a moment. Meanwhile, Plate is on a roll:
"Ma hasn't yet visited China as president, but when the invitation comes, he looks ready to handle it. He respects Beijing and its achievements, and wishes their Olympics every success. For its part, Beijing needs to respect the people of Taiwan, whose hard work and dedication have turned the little island into one of Asia's pre-eminent economic Tigers. Taiwan, he said, must accept China's rise to the budding status of a superpower, though without humiliating kowtowing. That means its policy must have both 'wisdom' and 'flexibility' — rooted in basic principles of decency and humanity, while recognizing China's own special problems and special interests."
And do those "special interests" include the annexation of a for-all-intents-and-purposes sovereign state? Plate doesn't say, but he appears to have found someone else to share in the Ma lovefest:
"A former U.S. diplomat still active in the Taiwan-U.S. relationship breathed a sigh of relief while listening to Ma, whom he clearly regarded as a godsend. The previous Taiwanese president — from the island's opposing pro-independence political party — had practically ground him and Washington down with his confrontational policy toward Beijing. Pushing the envelope — or baiting Beijing — can work only if you don't fly over the edge while doing so. Ma would rather use an envelope to send a serious adult message than push it into a hazardous area merely for political effect. And his main message would be: Let us make peace, not war. Let us proceed as adult Chinese, with mutual admiration and trust. In the language of the Olympics, the degree of difficulty for this trick is very high. But if Ma can pull it off, he will have gone far and gotten the gold."
So the last president, in the view of Plate and the unnamed diplomat, was a childlike warmonger who was borderline insane. Thank goodness we have an "adult Chinese" like Ma to put everything right. I guess there is no such thing as an "adult Taiwanese", because such a person would not be very trustful of a regime that has committed untold numbers of human rights abuses on its own peoples, while continually threatening to bring death and destruction down on a "little island".
As far as I can tell, Tom Plate is not of an ethnic Chinese background, so I don't know why he seems so enthusiastic about delivering a country that, in his own words, has "their own democracy" into the hands of an autocratic dictatorship promoting the idea of a "Greater China". I doubt he will ever read the Taipei Times' take on the present administration in Taiwan, but even if he did, it probably wouldn't change the homo-erotic attraction he feels towards Ma Ying-jeou. The editors of the TT, however, are less than impressed by the government's "achievements" so far. In "A newer KMT method of torture", they compare the present state of affairs to the Chinese water torture:
"Nowadays, it seems like those drops of water are being applied to Taiwan’s forehead, with each droplet taxing the nation’s identity a little more each time. What’s worse is that — like a real victim of torture — Taiwanese appear to be strapped to a chair and fated to a long period of suffering. And the torturer is a tag team: the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Drip: 'Chinese Taipei.' Drop: 'Chunghwa Post.' Drip: No WHO or UN application under the name 'Taiwan.' Drop: Our elected president is but a 'Mr.' Drip: The possible renaming of National Democracy Memorial Hall, after the murderous dictator the monument was built for."
So, Professor Plate, are renaming Taiwan Post to Chunghwa Post 中華郵政, applying for international organizations under the Olympic moniker "Chinese Taipei" (instead of as "Taiwan", or even the "Republic of China"), and the eventual restoration of the name of Chiang Kai-shek 蒋介石, a man responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Taiwanese, examples of a mature, responsible "Chinese" leader who will preserve Taiwan's "dignity"? Or are they the acts of a child bent on gradually handing over the fate of 23 million people to what, for many of them, is an alien regime? The Taipei Times concludes by writing of:
"...a blurring of the lines the Ma administration has undertaken and the confusing signals that make it increasingly difficult for the rest of the world to tell the difference between Taiwan and China. If those signals continue, the world could very well reach the conclusion that Taiwan just doesn’t care whether people can tell the difference between the two countries, which can only result in further isolation for Taiwanese."
Tom Plate apparently reached that stage a long time ago.
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