Letters from Taiwan

Did President Ma Just Tacitly Admit A Roadmap To Unification?

Look at this Taiwan Today article:

ROC President Ma Ying-jeou said Oct. 29 that Germany’s experience has been very valuable as a reference in promoting cross-strait relations and handling disputes over the Diaoyutai Archipelago.

Ma made the remarks while receiving a delegation led by German parliamentarian Franz Josef Jung at the Presidential Office in Taipei City.

“I’ve visited Germany 15 times since 1985,” the president said. “In early trips I learned a great deal about relations between East and West Germany, and the mechanisms established to handle affairs between them,” such as the 1972 Basic Treaty and reciprocal permanent missions, he added.

“When we later began drafting the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, and when we set up the Mainland Affairs Council under the Executive Yuan and the Straits Exchange Foundation, the German experience was an important source of information, adapted of course to suit our conditions.”

Ma also took a trip to Germany in 1990 when the two sides were in the process of unification. “The understanding we gained at that time has been very beneficial to the conduct of cross-strait relations.”

First of all, President Ma has just admitted what many observers of Taiwanese politics have long suspected - that the Act Governing Relations Between The Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area was a KMT birdcage law designed, along with careful wording in the constitutional amendments, to set a course for unification of Taiwan into the PRC.  The KMT, realising that their absolute iron and monopolistic grip on Taiwanese politics was coming to an end put in place safeguards that would give it the legal ability to push for self annexation sometime in the future whilst also preventing any declaration of formal Taiwanese independence.  Notice how Ma specifically references East/West Germany as a model upon which legislation and institutions were set up to facilitate later relations with the PRC.  To Ma, Taiwan is but a part of China awaiting unification, nothing more, nothing less.  This should be absolutely clear now.

Secondly, look at that last paragraph above again.  

Ma also took a trip to Germany in 1990 when the two sides were in the process of unification. “The understanding we gained at that time has been very beneficial to the conduct of cross-strait relations.”

Ma directly referenced the German process of unification as being beneficial to his Government’s conduct of cross-strait relations.  There is no other conclusion to take from this other than by Ma’s own admission, his Administration’s conduct of cross-strait affairs is based on the German model of unification, and therefore his policy towards the PRC has also been based on understanding the right conditions for unification.  If unification were off the table, Ma’s cross-strait conduct would not be influenced by his understanding of the German experience.  Ma has directly contradicted his mantra of ‘No Unification, No Independence and No Use of Force’.

This should be in all the newspapers tomorrow under the headline:

PRESIDENT MA: CONDUCT OF CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS BASED ON GERMAN MODEL OF UNIFICATION.

But it won’t be.

ADDED: President Ma, as my friend Michael pointed out to me, has form in saying these things when German dignitaries arrive. However, I still feel that Ma’s wording this time is even more indicative than usual of his ultimate policy goal regarding relations with the PRC.

Note also how Ma reserves his most transparent and provocative comments for foreign audiences and usually delivers them in English.  His comments above were not intended for a domestic audience and I suspect he knows full well they won’t be covered at any great depth by local media.  In this regard he continues a tradition of sugar coating policy for the Taiwanese audience whilst conveying a more accurate rendition to international audiences.