Why Premier Chen Wanted to Muffle Ma
By Hsiao Hsu-tsen
The Storm Media, May 1, 2023
Recently former President Ma Ying-jeou went to Greece to attend an international conference. Due to an error in Mr. Ma’s title used by the organizer, the former head of state had to fight alone to have it corrected while high-ranking officials of the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen sat by idly, causing a bizarre phenomenon. In the meantime, Premier Chen Chien-jen did nothing but requested Mr. Ma to cancel his trip. Why did Chen have to do this?
The answer is simple: both Premier Chen and President Tsai, who pulls the strings from behind, absolutely did not want Mr. Ma to reveal the truth to the world. The key point for the current risk of war between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait is that President Tsai does not comply with the Constitution of the Republic of China but regards mainland China as a foreign country and intends to drag the whole world into a regional conflict, turning Taiwan into a second Ukraine.
Many friends have recently asked me the reason behind the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) relentless attacks on Mr. Ma since his visit to mainland China. The DPP’s Chairman William Lai and Premier Chen have been taking turns criticizing him as if their party has no other goals.
I believe that the more ferociously and loudly the DPP assaults, the more anxious and insecure it appears. It tells us that Mr. Ma must have done something right.
First, Mr. Ma told the world that in President Tsai’s first inaugural address in 2016, she promised to handle cross-strait affairs in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China as well as the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area. For the past seven years, however, she has violated the "One China” principle under the Constitution, also termed the "1992 Consensus,” thus pushing the two sides to the brink of war.
Second, 77 percent of Taiwanese people supported Ma's visit to mainland China, including 40 percent of the so-called “Nativist” pro-independence young people. These figures prove that most Taiwanese do not support President Tsai's cross-strait policy.
Third, as long as both sides of the Taiwan Strait return to the "1992 Consensus" based on their respective constitutions, there will be peace in the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan will not become Ukraine. During Mr. Ma's presidency from 2008 to 2016, concrete practices were made to ensure that equal, dignified, and peaceful relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait were possible.
The DPP does not want the Taiwanese people to know this. But the fact is after the situation in the Taiwan Strait started escalating, Indonesia, Japan, and the Philippines have all proposed to evacuate their citizens from Taiwan, being concerned that a war might break out. But the DPP choose to remain silent, exactly like when the mainland Chinese missiles flew over Taipei during the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) military exercises last August, the public was also kept in the dark.
Lately, a tendency of easing tensions between the United States and mainland China has emerged. The Biden administration has been trying to engage with mainland China, and there also have been voices of introspection in the United States. For instance, opinion leaders such as Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof have both recently written articles calling on the United States and China to regain mutual trust and avoid war. Unfortunately, once more the DPP is turning a deaf ear to these dovish voices.
The DPP hopes that the people of Taiwan will continue to remain in the fervor of “resisting China to protect Taiwan.” Similarly, it anticipates them to buy the notion that Taiwan and China are two separate countries. Moreover, the DPP trusts that with Taiwan continually escalating the situation and abandoning its strategy of avoiding war, eventually, for the sake of “democratic values,” the United States will unite with her allies from around the world to come to Taiwan’s rescue.
This elaborate scheme, nevertheless, was frustrated by Mr. Ma’s successful visit to China and then Greece. His mainland China visit has paved the way to promoting renewed exchanges between people on the two sides. And in Greece, he also stated the fact that “the vast majority of Taiwanese people hope for such exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, and Taiwan should not become another Ukraine,” thus breaking the “anti-China” atmosphere dominated by the English press in the past.
Mr. Ma disclosed to the international community that there was another path to peace, exposing the scheme of the Tsai administration to endanger Taiwan. That was the truth that the administration had been hiding from its own people. Since the truth has come to light, it is not difficult to understand why President Tsai’s top officials became so furious at the incident involving Mr. Ma’s title in Greece.
(The author is the executive director of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation and former deputy secretary-general of the Office of the President.)