Taiwan, a bystander victim in the South China Sea dispute

This was first posted on Asia Times.

Over the weekend, the BaoDiao folks in the Bay Area held a press conference to voice their protest against the South China Sea ruling by Permanent Court of Arbitration in Hague.

Supporters pose for photos with Taiwanese fishermen before setting sail to Itu Aba, which Taiwan calls Taiping, Taiwan’s sole holding in the disputed Spratly Islands, in protest against a tribunal’s ruling on the South China Sea, in Pingtung, Taiwan July 20, 2016. REUTERS/Damon Lin

The ruling has turned the largest island and the only one held by Taiwan, the Taiping Island, into a rock and denied the Taiwan government of the 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

BaoDiao is Chinese shorthand for the movement to defend China’s sovereignty over the Diao Yu Islands in East China Sea. The movement began in 1972 in response to the US handing over the islands to Japan. (The Japanese government calls them Senkaku Islands.)

According to the Cairo Conference and subsequent Potsdam Declaration, the terms of Japan’s unconditional surrender to end WWII include giving up all claims to outlying islands in the Pacific, Diao Yu Islands included. The American government reneged on the terms in favor of Japan at the expense of China.

The tug of war over the Diao Yu Islands continues to this day and BaoDiao chapters in various forms have proliferated around the globe wherever significant numbers of overseas Chinese reside, as well as, of course, in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland.

A lighthouse is seen in Itu Aba, which the Taiwanese call Taiping, at the South China Sea, March 23, 2016. REUTERS/Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Handout via Reuters

Some of the original joiners of that movement were student hotheads in those days. Now, the remaining ones are senior citizens who nonetheless continue to be full of passion and feelings to defend what has rightfully belonged to China. The Bay Area folks mostly identify “China” as the Republic of China or Taiwan.

At the conference, after the organizers rose to present their prepared remarks, some 20 members in the audience were invited to speak. Each got up and spoke in agitation with rising decibels as they expressed their outrage over the acts of American imperialism against ROC’s sovereignty and national interest.

This group vehemently objected to the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s (PCA’s) capricious ruling that rendered Taiping Island (Itu Aba) from an island with 200 mile of EEZ into a rock with a mere 12 mile EEZ. The ruling was made despite Taiping meeting all the official qualifications of an island, namely the island has own sources of fresh water and can and has sustained human life for decades.

Conversely, the US NOAA claims that US possessions of Johnston Atoll, Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef do qualify as islands and the therefore the 200 mile of EEZ. None of the three has sources of fresh water and cannot sustain human life. Kingman Reef is even completely submerged at high tide. (These three “rocks” are located in the middle of the Pacific south of the Hawaii islands.)

Japan claims 200 mile EEZ on an outcrop located over 1,000 miles south of Tokyo. Thanks to the use of reinforced concrete to keep the sand from being washed away, Japan government has claimed Okinotorishima as an island. At high tide, highest point is about 6 inches above the ocean. Total area above the ocean is around 100 sq. ft. Needless to say, no fresh water and no way for humans to survive.

However, rocks in the possession of the U.S. or Japan become bona fide islands while a real island in Taiwan’s possession is merely a rock. The conveners were furious over the double standard and the betrayal by allegedly Taiwan’s two best friends, namely Japan and the US.

According to the most recent reports in the media, the Philippines government has requested from the US government the reimbursement of the $30 million spent by the Philippines as legal expenses and fees in filing the case with the PCA.

Apparently, the Philippines served as the stalking horse for Washington and the US has been behind-the-scene instigator of this suit for arbitration.

The official international recognition that Taiping Island and the U shape lines around South China Sea belong to China has been established since 1947. The US even assisted ROC in taking control of some of the islands from the Japanese troops stationed there during WWII.

To challenge China (ROC or PRC) on their claims of the U shape lines around South China Sea is a challenge of their sovereignty. PCA has no affiliation with the UN or with the International Court of Justice and has no legal jurisdiction to rule on issues related to sovereignty. This is why Beijing has ignored the PCA.

The 200 miles of EEC is important to the fishing industry and livelihood of the Taiwan people. The ruling, if allowed to stand, will jeopardize Taiwan people’s economic interest.

This is a clear example of how the might of a hegemon can overwhelm the interests of an island entity of 23 million people. Taipei was not even a party to the dispute submitted to the PCA and was unaware that Taiping Island was included in the litigation.

While Beijing will continue to build and expand the islands in their possession because PRC is strong enough to stand up to the US, Taiwan needs to find allies. In this dispute, the Taipei government shares common ground with Beijing and two sides should stand united in opposing the American hegemony, according to the BaoDiao protesters.

Commentators inside Taiwan are already criticizing President Tsai for acting soft and unwilling to stand up to the US and assert Taiwan’s rights on Taiping Island. They are accusing Tsai of being ready to give up ownership of Taiping Island just to stay on the good side of America—and not have to be an awkward buddy to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The newly elected Philippines President Duterte takes a different view. He has already publicly said, “I want to work with China rather than the US. China has money and the US does not.”

Unlike his predecessor, he clearly understands being on the front line of conflict on the side of the Americans is not a winning proposition for the Philippines.

Book Review on Chiang and Mao

This book review first appeared online in Asia Times.

Ruling a Quarter of Mankind is political science professor Paul Tai’s comparative analysis of the personalities of Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Zedong — two most important figures in China’s modern history — based on meticulous research.

Tai drew not just from western sources, but from more than twice as many Chinese sources from both sides of the Taiwan straits. He also laboriously reviewed Chiang’s voluminous diaries covering nearly every day of his life for 55 years. The end result is a highly readable narrative.

The book is not just about comparing the leadership qualities of Chiang, who took overall control of a fragmented and virtually disintegrated China and united it to resist the invasion of Japan’s imperial troops, and Mao, who seized control of a consolidated China from Chiang after WWII.

Woven into Tai’s story are numerous facts and anecdotes involving other major figures, some from inside China and some from the global arena who played critical roles in the struggle between Chiang’s KMT and Mao’s CCP.

Written in elegant yet gentlemanly non polemic style, Tai’s book is one of those rare scholarly treatises that is easy to read and fascinating for anyone interested in understanding how today’s China came to be and the key roles played by Chiang and Mao. Because he drew heavily from Chinese sources, Tai’s book presents a more complete presentation of the birth of modern China than heretofore available from western sources.

Chiang, being five years older than Mao, began his rise to power earlier, first being appointed the head of the Whampoa Military Academy, China’s first West Point-like institution. Many of the Academy graduates trained by Chiang became the core team of officers under his command later.

From Guangzhou, Chiang proposed and led the Northern Expeditionary force with a modest sized force to unify a country riven with warlords. En route to Beijing, at the time the nominal capital of China, he defeated regional warlords having forces much larger than his and convinced others to join his command rather than to oppose him. His success amazed the nation and by late 1920s, Chiang secured his position as a national leader.

Chiang, the unifying force

His indispensable role as one capable of leading the nation against Japanese aggression was evident from the aftermath of the Xian Incident in 1936. He was held captive by the two generals under his command that rebelled against him. The two generals invited Mao’s CCP to the confab in order to jointly persuade Chiang to stop fighting each other and to unitedly fight the Japanese. Even Mao realized that Chiang was the only national leader capable of uniting all the Chinese factions against the invading Japanese.

Chiang’s strategy with Japan was to “trade space for time” with measured retreat and force the Japanese troops to expend blood and resources as they occupy increasing portion of China and as they move to the interior from northeast to southwest. After Pearl Harbor drew the US into the war, Chiang’s strategy was the obvious. American forces needed China to tie down the Japanese forces while the GI’s fought across the Pacific.

Chiang’s greatest contribution to modern China was to become Franklin Roosevelt’s trusted wartime ally. Roosevelt overcame Churchill’s disdain for Chiang and insisted on including Chiang at the Cairo conference and treating China as a great power thereby earning it a permanent seat at the UN Security Council after WWII. From the author’s point of view, China was a country in total disarray before the war, and it regained its sovereignty after the war because of Chiang’s leadership.

Chiang’s failings caused his “loss” of China. First, he valued loyalty over competence and ability. One victim of his bias was General Sun Li-jen, who was trained at VMI in the US and not at Whampoa. In Burma, Sun saved the fleeing British forces from the pursuing Japanese troops and became Stillwell’s favorite KMT general. Once he followed the KMT retreat to Taiwan, his payback was house arrest because Chiang feared Sun as America’s designated leader to replace him.

General Xue Yue was another case. He was known as the defender of Changsha and the only KMT general to consistently check and defeat Japanese advances. Claire Chennault was a sworn brother and called Xue the “Patton of Asia.” After following Chiang to Taiwan in 1949, he lived to a ripe old age of 101 in “leisure” and was only given honorific types of postings. He was Chiang’s student at Whampoa but fell out of the inner circle when he vocally supported national unity to fight the Japanese after the Xian Incident.

During the civil war that ensued after WWII, KMT generals trusted by Chiang got preferential treatment and the troops suffered from jealousy and poor coordination among their commanders. This was a critical flaw that led to their rapid disintegration on the battlefield.

Chiang’s second failing was his lack of comprehension and appreciation of the importance of financial discipline. He did not care about amassing money to his personal account but regarded the printing press of the central bank as his to use freely. He would send bundles of cash along with arms to sway warlords to his side. He also sent cash awards to his line officers to ensure their loyalty.

Tai observed, “He (Chiang) considered his under-the-table monetary operations entirely legitimate and necessarily secretive. Such perception of the fusion of power and money is perhaps one factor accountable for the widely known corruption in his regime.”

Post WWII, keeping Chiang’s government afloat depended on keeping the printing presses running leading to runaway inflation. Coupled with his inconsistency in dealing with corruption, the outcome was disastrous. Execution with a bullet in the head was levied on lower rank and file but he was more lenient with senior officials in his inner circle who committed more egregious offenses. The uneven treatment led to the widespread belief that corruption was acceptable. Rampant inflation mixed with endemic culture of corruption accelerated his loss of power and hastened his retreat to Taiwan.

The author pointed out that Chiang learned his bitter lesson and once he settled down in Taiwan, he entrusted the running of the economy to technocrats and experts and the result was a long booming economy that put Taiwan in the ranks of the four little tigers second only to Japan. Tai suggested that Beijing’s policy makers might have benefited by following Taiwan’s experience. I think that might be a bit of stretch. (When Beijing began its economic reform under Deng Xiaoping, its officials held many exchanges and survey visits with Japan and Singapore to learn from their practices. Official exchanges with Taiwan came much later.)

Portrait of Mao not so sympathetic

Arguably, Tai’s greater familiarity of Chiang’s life from his academic studies and his careful reading of Chiang’s diary enabled him to form a more sympathetic portrait of Chiang. Despite his intention to be impartial and objective, Tai was not as familiar with Mao’s life. He relied heavily on the words of Li Zhisui, Mao’s longtime personal physician, and on the biography by Chang and Halliday. Both sources were quite critical of Mao. Inevitably, I think, his portrait of Mao was not as sympathetic.

Nevertheless, the consequences of Mao’s mistakes were colossal. Like Chiang, Mao was also illiterate in science and economics, but his ignorance did not keep him from making policies with disastrous outcomes. His campaign of backyard furnaces that consumed pots and pans made no sense, put the economy on negative growth and led to a famine that killed tens of millions.

Mao’s Great Cultural Revolution was designed to keep him in power but denied an entire young generation of proper education, and disrupted the functioning of the government and the national economy. His lack of respect for learning was particularly ironic and appalling. He actually thought the uneducated ruling class of workers, peasants and soldiers can take over and run the country.

His biggest mistake in foreign policy was to not object to Stalin’s directive to support North Korea’s invasion of South Korea. Mao gave up on his own plan to invade Taiwan at a time when momentum was all on his side and the US had given up on Chiang and would not have interfered with the PLA assault on Taiwan. By sending Chinese volunteers across the border and fighting the American-led troops, Mao created the stalemate that still stands today, i.e., a divided Korean peninsula and a divided China.

Mao’s place in history can be attributed to his brilliance as a military strategist, in particular, the practice of guerrilla warfare. He effectively dodged the superior forces of the KMT until after the Xian Incident when the two parties agreed to unitedly fight the Japanese. After WWII, his PLA again overcame the numerically superior force and better weaponry with guerrilla-based tactics to systematically cut the KMT forces to pieces. (Tai had a fascinating section describing Mao’s success in embedding his secret agents in Chiang’s command structure. Mao knew about a particular plan of surprise attack on his home base three days before Chiang’s commanders of the forward elements were given the plan.)

After his PLA consolidated the takeover of the mainland, Mao declared on Oct. 1, 1949 that China had stood up. This was a major psychological milestone for the people of China after a hundred years of humiliation in the hands of the western power. For the next quarter of a century until his death, Mao worked on strengthening China and boosting the national pride of its people. In 1964 despite the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution underway, China became a nuclear power by detonating its own atomic bomb.

In 1972, at Mao’s invitation, Nixon went to China as the first step to normalizing relations between the two countries. Nixon saw that admitting the nation of a quarter of mankind to the community of nations was necessary and inevitable. Mao too saw that Nixon needed help to extricate the Americans from the Vietnam quagmire and he represented an opportunity to strike a bargain. Out of the visit came the Shanghai Communiqué that must be considered an extraordinary document in the chronicles of world diplomacy. Indeed to this day, every US president refers to the Shanghai Communiqué as the tie that binds the two nations.

The author concluded that the two leaders were more similar than different. Mao was a visionary who saw China’s eventual place on the world stage. Chiang did not, perhaps because he had to focus on fighting for his country’s survival against Japan. At the end of WWII, Chiang strived hard on regaining China’s sovereignty. Mao completed the tasks that Chiang had left incomplete. Both were ruthless in seizing and keeping control. Both wanted a strong, unified China.

Professor Tai’s study on Chiang and Mao, the subtitle of his book, is an excellent starting point for anyone wanting to understand today’s China. His treasure trove of bibliographic references will enable anyone to explore further any aspect of the early days of China as a republic.

As Tsai Ing-wen takes over Taiwan, the reality sets in

This was first posted on Asia Times.

Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen handily won the January election to become the next president of Taiwan. Now comes the hard part; on May 20 she will take office and govern.

Tsai ran on the platform of keeping the status quo but not accepting the one China principle and not recognizing the 1992 consensus. She is going to find out that there is a price to having status quo across the Taiwan Straits.

“One China” is short hand for the recognition that Taiwan is part of China, a fact confirmed by the U.N. Resolution No. 2758 enacted in 1971. The “1992 consensus” refers to the last summit meeting between the representatives of Beijing and Taipei held in Hong Kong where both sides agreed to “one China” but each according their interpretation as to exactly what that means.

The mutually accepted ambiguity inherent in the consensus allowed Ma Ying-jeou to establish closer ties and economic cooperation with the mainland when he came into office in 2008.

When Ma came into office, Taiwan was in terrible shape. Chen Shui-bian, Ma’s predecessor mismanaged the economy and tried hard to agitate for the U.S. to step in and confront the mainland, a move that only deepened the antipathy of then President, George W. Bush, had for Chen.

There was no communication or economic linkage between Taiwan and the mainland and no respect for Chen. Aside from his hard-core supporters, it was clear that Chen and his family was thoroughly corrupt. As soon as Chen was out of the office and lost his immunity from prosecution, he was sent to jail convicted of a variety of criminal charges.

The eight years under Ma has dramatically altered the cross-strait relationship.  Cross-strait trade has increased to nearly $190 billion in 2015. Since both sides signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) in 2010, bilateral trade has increased by 70% and surplus grown from roughly 2 to 1 every year to more than 3 to 1 in Taiwan’s favor in 2015.

Under Chen’s regime, there were no tourist from the mainland and no direct flights. Now there are 890 cross-straits flights per week from 61 destinations on the mainland. With over 4 million tourist visits, mainland visitors make up 40% of all visits and half of Taiwan’s earnings from tourism.

Unhappily for Ma and his party KMT, he failed to fully explain the benefits of cross-strait collaboration and because of the global financial crisis that coincided with his coming into office, Ma under-delivered on the economic benefits of economic cooperation with the mainland as compared to his campaign promises.

Instead of growing closer to the mainland, the people of Taiwan, especially the younger generation became more antagonistic over the fear of mainlanders dominating the Taiwan economy. It did not helped that the younger generation has been raised on textbooks revised under Chen’s administration—textbooks that refute the historical and cultural ties between the people of Taiwan and the mainland.

Tsai’s dilemma will be finding a way of pleasing her core supporters that do not believe in collaborating with the mainland while somehow maintaining the status quo across the straits. Beijing has already hinted to Tsai that there is no automatic granting of status quo if she is unwilling to concede to the one China principle.

Recently Ma’s lame duck government received an invitation from the World Health Organization to send observers to the World Health Assembly, an annual gathering of nations to discuss problems related to public health. The invite was referred to Tsai’s incoming administration to handle.

For the first time since 2007 when Chen was president, the invitation explicitly mentioned that the invitation was extended to Taiwan under UN resolution 2785. The significance is that accepting the invitation is equivalent to the Tsai government accepting the principle that Taiwan is part of China.

Now that KMT has become the opposition, they are jeering at Tsai’s having to handle the first of likely many hot potatoes. They said that DPP used to castigate Ma for agreeing to the 1992 consensus and now Tsai doesn’t even have the advantage of ambiguity as cover.

Tsai will feel the sting of Taiwan’s lacking international recognition as a sovereign state in other ways.

Recently, a group of citizens of Taiwan were arrested in Kenya and accused of conducting some kind of scam. Before Taipei can intervene, the accused were sent to Beijing for adjudication because Kenya like most members of the UN has no diplomatic relations with Taipei.

Even Japan has not treated Taiwan kindly. Recently, the Japanese Navy seized a Taiwanese fishing boat and demanded the posting of bail bond before releasing the captain of the boat. Some people in Taiwan observed that Japan would not have dared to seize a PRC fishing boat much less demanded a ransom.

On the top of it all, the latest imbroglio being debated in Taiwan is whether Chen Shui-bian will accept Tsai’s formal VIP invitation and attend Tsai’s inaugural banquet. One view is that Chen has been released from jail on medical grounds. Therefore if he is well enough to attend the public event, he is healthy enough to be sent back to jail post haste.

Another view is that Chen’s presence on the head table among former presidents will draw all the media’s attention and deprive Tsai the limelight that she deserves. Chen’s son publicly questioned as to why Taiwan can’t be more like the U.S. where former presidents are honored as a group irrespective of political party affiliation, overlooking his father’s criminal record.

The fountain of pettiness from the Chen’s family never runs dry and continues to spew forth and feed the Taiwan’s morbid curiosity about the former first family.

Tsai is trained in economics and international law. She is bright enough to know that if she cannot successfully stimulate Taiwan’s economy, everything else won’t matter much and she will be a likely one-term president.

The KMT is in such tatters that it’s an opposition that won’t be bothersome to her. Her concern will be finding a way to continue to collaborate with Beijing. Taiwan’s economy is integrated with and dependent on the mainland. She won’t be able to do much to Taiwan’s economy without being an integral part of China’s economy.

The people of Taiwan and on the mainland will be listening intently to her forthcoming inauguration speech to understand her vision of a thriving Taiwan future in interesting times.

Xi-Ma summit has changed the status quo

This piece first ran on Asia Times and reposted on New America Media

My good friend, a university mathematics professor and keen observer of Taiwan politics, pointed out to me that by virtue of the Xi-Ma historic summit having taken place, the goal posts of Taiwan’s status quo has already moved a step farther from independence.

China’s President Xi Jinping and Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou greet each other at Singapore

Up to now, the leader from Beijing would not agree to meet the leader from Taipei because that would imply a meeting of equals. In Singapore last Saturday, that meeting actually took place thus breaking the ice once and for all.

The summit was expected to be largely symbolic and no concrete developments were to come out of the meeting. In fact, the two sides found common ground where both Xi and Ma urged the other party to strengthen the cross-straits relations based on the 1992 consensus.

Of course, from Xi’s perspective the important part of the 1992 consensus is that both sides recognize that there is one China and Taiwan is part of that China. In Ma’s view, yes one China but according to each side’s interpretation. The opposition party in Taiwan, the DPP, and its leader, Tsai Ing-wen, does not accept the existence of the 1992 consensus at all.

According to the hundreds of journalists present to witness the historic event, the meeting was warm and cordial. At the scheduled time, both leaders strolled toward each other, smiling broadly and Xi was first to extend his hand.

The handshake lasted well over a minute as both men turned slowly to the right and left to give all the photographers a vantage point. This was a far cry from Xi’s stiff body language when he awkwardly shook Japan’s Prime Minister Abe’s hand earlier in the year.

Xi’s public remark was brief and in generalities. He said blood is thicker than water and tragedies of the past must not be repeated. Let this meeting be symbolic of both leaders turning a new page together in the cross-straits history.

Ma’s remarks followed and his was longer and spent a good part of it reviewing the accomplishments under his administration: 23 cross straits agreements related to economic cooperation, 40,000 students now studying across the straits, 8 million tourists visiting the other side (about half from the mainland to Taiwan and half in the opposite direction), and bilateral annual trade has now exceeded $170 billion with the trade surplus going to Taiwan.

Some specific accomplishments also came out of the closed-door conference between the two sides. Ma proposed installing a hot line across the straits and increasing the nature and frequency of bilateral exchanges. Xi agreed and delegated to China’s Taiwan Affairs Office for implementation.

Ma also asked for more access for Taiwan to the international community, heretofore severely limited by Beijing as the only sovereign government of China. Xi agreed to review on a case by case basis. In turn Xi indicated that Taiwan would be welcome as a member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and participate in his One Belt, One Road initiatives.

Before the summit, Tsai Ing-wen, who is expected to win the next presidential election by a landslide, opined that the Xi-Ma summit would be considered historic if Ma is treated with equality and mutual respect and Taiwan keeps its current status without any preconditions. Otherwise, it would be merely a meeting.

To no one’s surprise, Tsai immediately dismissed the summit as “failure on all counts” after the conclusion of the closed-door conference by the two parties.

Assuming that Tsai wins the election and takes over the Taiwan government next year, she may yet come to appreciate the legacy Ma has left for her—the legacy being a bridge for future leaders to meet and confer.

The last time the DPP was routed from power, Chen Shui-bian was the sitting president and he had badly mismanaged Taiwan’s economy. Tsai knows full well she will face the same fate if she also fails to keep the economy humming. To do so, she will sooner or later have to work with Beijing.

In the 1990’s, Taiwan’s economy was comparable to the mainland and Taiwan businesses and manufacturing concerns were collectively the largest group of foreign direct investments in the mainland. Beijing welcomed these investments and granted the Taishang (Taiwan businessmen) most favorable terms.

Lee Teng-hui, then president of Taiwan, was worried that Taiwan was putting all its eggs in the mainland basket. He urged Taishang to diversify and put their factories elsewhere in Southeast Asia, anywhere but in China.

Many listened to Lee’s advice and invested elsewhere such as Philippines and Vietnam. Lacking the advantage of cultural affinity and common language, most of those investments ended in the red. The negative experiences only serve to affirm their focus on China.

Today, China’s economy is about 20 fold larger than Taiwan’s. Taishang’s presence and success on the mainland is far more important to Taiwan than to China. If Tsai attempts to roll back Taiwan’s economic integration with China and diversify Taiwan’s economic interests away from China, she will likely stumble just like Lee Teng-hui did.

I believe the day will come when Tsai will have to forego her separate dream and seek to join Xi’s China Dream. Then she will be glad to travel on the bridge to China that Ma built.

Taiwan and China set to take a positive step forward

This piece first posted in Asia Times.

An historic summit is about to take place between Ma Ying-jeou, leader of the ruling party of Taiwan, and Xi Jinping, leader of the ruling party on mainland China.

China’s President Xi Jinping (L) and Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou

The meeting in Singapore on November 7 will be the first time a leader of the KMT party meets leader of China’s CCP in 66 years since the KMT lost their hold on the mainland and relocated the Republic of China to Taiwan.

The announcement for the Xi-Ma summit has the feel of a “Hail Mary” pass — from American football terminology. The impression of a last minute desperation heave is because Ma’s term of office is nearing its end and his likely successor Tsai Ing-wen from the opposition party, DPP, with her generally negative attitude about the cross-straits relations, is hardly the person Xi would like to partner for ice-breaking across the Taiwan Straits.

Both sides denied that this was a last minute, hastily arranged meeting or that it was called in response to the rising tension over the South China Sea.  It took months for the two sides to agree on how to address each other so as not to incur any implied recognition of Taiwan’s sovereignty status. They finally agreed to call each other “Mister.” After their meeting, they will have a “no-host” dinner together and split the bill.

According to spokesperson for Ma, he had proposed such a meeting over two years ago to be held on the sidelines of an APEC summit but Beijing had demurred.

The generally accepted explanation was that Beijing did not wish to give any appearance of recognizing Taiwan as a separate sovereign state. Holding the meeting now with a few remaining months before Ma leaves office is subject to a number of mutually non-exclusive interpretations.

Having returned from successful state visits to the US and UK, Xi Jinping is confident in his role as a globetrotting leader and comfortable in his skin as a diplomat. Seems the right time to begin the meeting with Taiwan from the top.

Since Ma took office in 2008, he has worked hard to improve the cross-traits relations. Even though he has failed to articulate the importance of a close relationship with the mainland to the people of Taiwan, Xi can expect Ma to appreciate the importance and can anticipate that their conversation will be fruitful.

It is also important to break the no meet/no speak embargo and begin the precedence of a cross-straits summit now than wait for the next Taiwan administration.

Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP is expected to become the next leader of Taiwan after the election next year. Given her less than cordial attitude about the mainland, any summit could be icy and unproductive if they occur at all. To initiate precedence breaking first meeting under Tsai’s administration would be a daunting task.

Despite the preferential trade agreement Beijing has extended to Taiwan under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), many in Taiwan especially among the younger generation have not appreciated the benefits of being economically integrated with the mainland.

By establishing a platform of more direct dialogue after the summit in Singapore, Beijing will have future opportunity to talk more directly with the people of Taiwan and persuade them of advantages of a closer relationship.

Tsai has grudgingly accepted the notion of having such a summit provided the results of the meeting do not go into a “black box,” i.e., kept secret and undisclosed to the public in Taiwan.

She has expressed concern that this could be a last minute surprise maneuver reminiscent of the assassin bullet that grazed Chen Shui-bian’s belly and changed the outcome of the election of 2004. (The alleged assassination attempt garnered Chen enough sympathy to win him the election with the thinnest of margins.)

Ma sought to assure the Taiwan people that the purpose of the meeting in Singapore is to “consolidate cross-strait peace and maintain the status quo.” He promised that the summit would produce no agreements or joint declarations.

In their closed-door session that will last about one hour, Xi should take the opportunity to say to Ma, “Mr. Ma, in a few months you will become the senior statesman in Taiwan. I hope you will take advantage of your status being above the fray of politics to explain the importance of the economic linkage across the straits to the economic well-being of Taiwan.

“Through your past efforts to strengthen the ties with the mainland, Taiwan’s economy is strong. Tell the people of Taiwan that if and when they decide that they do not wish to be part of China, we would have to withdraw the favorable economic terms given to our brethren to date. The consequences for Taiwan would be disastrous.”

When Eric Chu, KMT candidate for president, heard about the impending Xi-Ma summit, he said, “Both sides of the strait must continue to engage with each other and promote cooperation to achieve a win-win situation based on peaceful development.”

Win-win is the foundation of Xi’s global diplomacy. Chu’s remark should be music to his ears. Too bad Chu is running far behind Tsai and is unlikely to be the next Taiwan leader and move cross-straits relations forward toward win-win engagements.

Cross Strait Relations Going Back to Bad Old Days

This is the second of two commentaries on Taiwan, written before but in anticipation of KMT's midstream change in candidate for the president--originally posted in China-U.S. Focus.

Despite warming relations between the mainland and Taiwan under seven years of Ma Ying-jeou’s administration, around the corner, the cross-straits relationship could be in for a period of deep freeze. Ma’s ineffective leadership is one obvious reason but there are many other contributory causes for the gloomy overcast on the Taiwan Straits.

When Ma won the presidential election in 2008 by a landslide, Taiwan was a mess. Eight years under Chen Shui-bian saw Taiwan’s economy stagnating and news of scandal and accusation of wrongdoing pelted one after another.

Chen Shui-bian established many firsts in Taiwan’s history. He was the first from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to wrestle the presidency from the then ruling Kuomintang (KMT), and he was the first to win the seat with less than 40% of the popular vote. He was the first to “survive” a last minute assassination attempt of doubtful authenticity but garnered enough voter sympathy to be re-elected by the thinnest of margins. He was also the first to go directly to prison for corruption after he left office.

Over a million of Taiwan’s best and brightest left Taiwan to establish residence on the mainland, to invest and begin their businesses and to make their fortunes there. Chen did not stop the investments across the straits but he also did not take advantage of economic synergy with the mainland.

So long as the Taishang (Taiwan businessmen) going back and forth did not try to influence the politics on Taiwan, i.e., did not publicly extoll the virtues of cooperating with the mainland, Chen left them alone. Instead Chen concentrated on every opportunity to line his pockets.

When he was finally put on trial for massive corruption, he blamed the wrongdoings on his wife. And then, in exchange for dismissing all the charges against him, he offered to repatriate millions from off shore bank accounts back to Taiwan. The court merely sent him to prison.

While being president, Chen promoted his predecessor’s (Lee Teng-hui) policy of moving the people’s sentiments away from China toward a native Taiwan identity. The textbooks deleted mention of Taiwan’s common root in history and culture with China and emphasized the Taiwan dialect as if it sprang from native soil, ignoring its origin from southern Fujian. Chen even issued a new Taiwan passport without any reference to “Republic of China.”

When Ma won the election and returned the KMT to power, he promptly reversed many of Chen’s policy. He began the cross-straits dialogue in earnest, leading to the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and 23 agreements related to economic cooperation.

Ma began to welcome tourists from the mainland. Today, Taiwan is becoming one of the more popular destinations for China’s outbound tourists and China’s tourist spending represents roughly a ten billion dollar benefit to Taiwan’s annual economy.

Despite Ma having won terms favorable to Taiwan under ECFA and returned Taiwan to economic health, he failed to influence the attitudes of the people on Taiwan that ranged from being skeptical to hostile to the mainland. He was timid and unwilling to emphasize the obvious to the Taiwan public, namely Taiwan’s economy was going to be better off tied to China than not.

In 2013, Ma accused Wang Jin-pyng of influence peddling and stripped Wang of his membership in the KMT. Wang sued and regained his membership. Without his KMT membership, Wang would no longer remain the speaker of the Legislative Yuan. The end result was an irrevocably divided KMT.

Led by students, the Sunflower movement in 2014 seemed to have discombobulated the KMT and exposed Ma as a weak and indecisive leader. The efficient and highly organized protesters stormed and occupied the Legislative Yuan and then the Executive Yuan. They energetically objected to the passing of additional trade agreements with China.

The student ideologues claimed to worry more about losing their native identity because of closer integration with China than jobs and economic wellbeing that the trade accord promised. Wang promptly and unilaterally declared the intention not to act on the pending trade pact and Ma was sidelined and remained silent.

Later in the year, the KMT lost major municipal elections and Ma resigned his chairmanship of KMT. Eric Chu, mayor of New Taipei City, was elected to replace Ma as the new chairman.

Out of the disarray emerged an old face, Tsai Ing-wen, from the DPP to become the new favorite to win the presidential election in 2016.  Tsai ran for the mayor of New Taipei City and lost to Chu in 2010 and ran for president in 2012 and lost to Ma. But thanks to KMT’s implosion, Tsai suddenly became the odds on favorite.

Self-inflicted damage is nothing new to the KMT. The party split into two camps in the run up for the 2000 election, which enabled Chen Shui-bian to eke out a win with barely 39% of the votes.

KMT’s proclivity for self-destruction continues. First they nominated Hung Hsiu-chu to run against Tsai because no one else wanted the nomination. Now the KMT is about to de-nominate Hung and put Chu in her place because the party leaders suddenly realized that they couldn’t afford to be routed by the DPP.

For obvious reasons, Beijing can do even less to influence Taiwan’s drift away from unification than they can with Hong Kong. To complicate matters further and not often discussed is the presence of ethnic Japanese living in Taiwan but identified as Taiwanese.

As Taiwan’s first elected president, Lee Teng-hui, has proudly proclaimed, he prefers to be known by his Japanese name, Iwasato Masao, and his first language is Japanese. He has even stated that Japan is Taiwan’s motherland.

Lee could be a tip of the iceberg that could seed the coming freeze. After WWII, faced with returning to an uncertain future in a devastated Japan, around 300,000 Japanese elected to remain in Taiwan. They took on Chinese surnames and merged into the local community.

My friend in Taiwan tells me that this group of ethnic Japanese has multiplied into an estimated group of 2 million descendants. It would be natural to assume that most of the nearly 10% of Taiwan’s population would not share any feeling of fealty to being a Chinese. Harder to know is the actual fraction that has actually become anti China/ pro Japan/ pro Taiwan independence agitators following Lee’s lead.

Early this month, Tsai made a visit to Japan to meet with cabinet members and other leaders of Japan’s LDP. She and Japan’s Prime Minister Abe are old friends and around lunchtime they were seen entering and leaving the same Tokyo hotel separately. When questioned by the media, they both denied that a clandestine meeting took place.

Assuming that Tsai wins the expected landslide election and sweep the DPP into majority control of the legislature, she is likely to take more independent actions, including meeting openly with Japan’s Abe. Her mentor, Chen, has been released from prison earlier this year. He was given a medical parole based on his being mentally unbalanced. With a warm DPP embrace, I wouldn’t be surprised if Chen is suddenly no longer psychologically disturbed and become active in politics again.

Beijing could be facing a Taiwan with fewer options. Military threats have not had the desired effect and economic incentives have not made many friends, especially among the youth. Japan could join the U.S. and decide to actively interfere with the cross-straits relationship.

Sadly, a long winter of discontent looms ahead. The one glimmer of light is that the vast majority in Taiwan still prefers the “status quo,” meaning no unification and no independence. As is usually the case, the voice of the silent majority cannot rise above the din of a noisy minority. But, if this majority understands the implications of letting the protesters have their way, perhaps they will vote against ice in favor of sunshine.

Tension Across the Taiwan Straits About to Go Sky High

This first of two commentaries on the Taiwan situation I have written recently. This one appeared in Asia Times.

Taiwan is about to elect its fourth president since the first open election in 1996. With less than 100 days before Election Day, the chairman of Kuomintang (KMT), Eric Chu, is calling for extraordinary party congress for the purpose of making the rumor swirling around Taiwan’s political circles come true. Namely, he will replace KMT’s duly nominated presidential candidate, Hung Hsiu-chu, with himself.

At the regular nominating party convention in July, Hung was the only one to declare her candidacy for the presidency. By then, Tsai Ing-wen, the candidate for the opposition party, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), had become such an overwhelming favorite to win in a cakewalk that none of the KMT stalwarts were willing to run against her.

Hung’s credentials were less than stellar compared to her more seasoned colleagues in the KMT camp but she was willing and her straight talking, no nonsense style woke up some of the comatose rank and file. Her one China, one interpretation and pro-unification position certainly caught the attention of the Chinese diaspora in America, at least the part of the community that have always regarded Taiwan as part of China.

Unfortunately for Hung, her one China message was not what the Taiwan populace wanted to hear. Starting from a low base to begin with, the gap in the polls between Hung and Tsai widened. The KMT elders became alarmed. They were resigned to losing the presidency but now Hung presented a real danger of having a toxic coattail on those running for the legislature on the same ticket.

Previously even when the KMT lost the office of the president, they maintained a controlling grip on the legislative body. They now face the real prospect of losing both. Thus the call for the unprecedented extraordinary party congress on October 17 is to change jockey in the middle of the race. The KMT leaders do not foresee victory in the presidential election but they hope to salvage seats in the Legislative Yuan.

When Ma Ying-jeou won the presidency in 2008, the office returned to KMT control and the people in Taiwan along with leaders in Beijing and Washington expelled a collective breath of relief. His record was untainted by corruption, he promised economic reform and regular dialogue with Beijing and he won by a landslide against his DPP opponent. He was a popular and welcomed change from the two corrupt regimes that preceded him. So what happened? How have the KMT fallen so far?

To truly understand the devolution of the KMT to the current sorry state, we need to review its history since Taiwan reverted to the Nationalist government after WWII. In the early 1970’s Chiang Ching-kuo became the strongman of Taiwan gradually assuming increasing power from his father, Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist leader that lost the mainland to the Chinese Communist Party.

CCK’s position became official when he was elected President of the Republic of China by the rubber stamp legislature in 1978. He introduced measures to stimulate Taiwan’s economy and he also began political reform by allowing the formation of an opposition party, the DPP, and he picked Lee Teng-hui to be his second in command.

Lee was selected because he was not a follower of Chiang Kai-shek’s retreat from the mainland but a native born Taiwanese. CCK wanted to broadened government participation to include more native Taiwanese.

A member of CCK’s inner circle told me that LTH was considered a safe choice. A PhD agriculture economist by training, he was respectful bordering on being obsequious in the presence of his superiors and demonstrated all the attributes of a reliable and pliable official loyal to the KMT.

No one knew at the time about his having twice joined the Chinese Communist Party shortly after the end of the WWII. And it was much later that the people of Taiwan became aware that LTH was given an elite education and groomed for being part of a puppet administration by the Japanese government during their occupation of Taiwan.

CCK died suddenly in 1988 and Lee became the President of Taiwan. Gradually his true colors began to show, as his background became known. He skillfully formed “rotating” alliances with members of the old guards to gang up on others and remove them from power, one by one.

Lee began to publicly refer Japan as Taiwan’s true motherland and that Taiwan has never been part of China but was a sovereign state. He skillfully ratcheted up the tension across the straits. In 1996 as Taiwan was about to stage the first popular election for the president, Beijing made a foolish mistake of firing missiles over Taiwan’s airspace. The threat did not intimidate the people of Taiwan but gave Lee the margin necessary to become the first elected president of Taiwan.

In 2000, Lee was termed out and Taiwan people prepared to vote for the next president. Lee cleverly split the KMT majority into two camps headed by James Soong and Lien Chan, both were one time Lee’s lieutenant in his administration. Thus, Lee made it possible for Chen Shui-bian of the DPP to win the election with just over 39% of the vote.

Once out of the office, Lee openly identified himself as Iwasato Masao and confessed that Japanese was his first language. He formed a splinter party called Taiwan Solidarity Union to promote Taiwan independence. He was accused of shipping illicit funds out of Taiwan but escaped conviction on charges associated with the “black gold” scandal.

He was promptly drummed out of the KMT but Lee succeeded in getting a pro-independence candidate elected president. That candidate, Chen Shui-bian, ran on a platform of clean government and strong economy. He turned out to be more corrupt than his predecessor and had no clue as to how Taiwan can get out of its economic stagnation.

During Chen Shui-bian’s eight years in the presidential palace, everything was for sale for a price, if not directly into his pockets, it went to offshore bank accounts handled by his wife. After he left the government and tried for corruption, he even had the gall to negotiate with the presiding judge in court. He offered to repatriate millions of dollars from offshore accounts in exchange for dismissal of charges against him.

Chen answered his critics on his mismanagement of Taiwan’s economy by blaming everybody but his administration. During this period about one million of Taiwan’s best and brightest have taken up residence on the mainland, built factories and made their fortunes in China. Those remaining in Taiwan faced unemployment and dimmed career prospects and Chen channeled their frustration into antagonism against the mainland.

By the 2008 election, Chen Shui-bian had totally destroyed the credibility of DPP. Ma Ying-jeou ran as the KMT candidate and won by a landslide margin of 17%. He immediately began a dialogue with Beijing on economic cooperation and two-way tourism. He was to sign 23 agreements with the PRC and by 2010 Taiwan’s economy grew by more than 10%.

Under Chen, Taiwan tried to develop tourism. Even Chen recognized that tourism would stimulate the economy but he refused to look across the strait for tourists from the mainland. Ma did the obvious and opened Taiwan to Chinese tourists. China has become the world’s biggest source of outbound tourists and biggest per person spender and is by far the largest source of tourists to visit Taiwan representing approximately 10 billion dollar infusion to Taiwan’s economy.

Despite economic integration and closer cooperation, the feelings of the Taiwan people grew no closer to China but drifted farther apart under the seven years under Ma’s administration. I have not seen any analysis to explain this counter-intuitive trend but I have my own conclusions.

The twenty years under the control of Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian did a lot to poison the minds against China. Not often mentioned but they were abetted by the under covered Japanese living among them. After WWII about 300,000 Japanese were stranded in Taiwan and choose to remain. They adopted Chinese surnames and assimilated. They have multiplied and now number about 2 million out of Taiwan’s total population of 23 million. Certain portion of this group is likely supporter and agitator of Lee’s notion that Japan is the motherland.

Ma being a mainlander felt neither comfortable nor confident enough to exercise his leadership and explain to the people of Taiwan how their future is tied to China. Rather he was intimidated by the anti-mainland sentiments and backed away from taking any active role in explaining much less promoting the historical, cultural and traditional bond between Taiwan and China.

To make matters worse, in midst of his second term, Ma accused Wang Jin-pyng of corruption and then backed off and left the charges suspended in ether. Wang presides over the Legislative Yuan and is the leader of another major faction of the KMT. The acrimony between the two has further weakened an already divided KMT. Consequently, Ma’s leadership has floundered so badly that he had to resign his post as the chairman of KMT and to personify a true lame duck for the remainder of his term as Taiwan’s president.

In the meantime, not having any worthy challengers, Tsai Ing-wen was emboldened to take a jaunt to Tokyo and meet various leaders of the LDP. She and Japan’s Prime Minister Abe are old friends and they were seen entering and leaving the same Tokyo hotel around lunchtime. They both publicly denied that a clandestine meeting took place.

The U.S. and U.K. educated Tsai entered politics when she was appointed by Chen to head the Mainland Affairs Council, a position that gave her high visibility though she showed a total lack of enthusiasm for developing closer ties across the Taiwan Straits with the mainland.

Tsai ran for the mayor of New Taipei City (the area outside of old Taipei) in 2010 and lost the election to Eric Chu, the current chairman of KMT. She headed the DPP ticket against Ma’s re-election bid in 2012 and again lost.

Now thanks in part to the self-destruction of KMT, Tsai has emerged as the overwhelming frontrunner and poised to take control of Taiwan with a majority in the Legislative Yuan as well. Earlier this year, her mentor, Chen Shui-bian, was released from prison on medical parole on the grounds that he had become mentally unbalanced. I would not be surprised if he recovers from his psychologically disturbed state soon after DPP resumes control of Taiwan.

These ominous developments bode badly for peace and stability. For the next four years, Taiwan will once again become the conundrum for Beijing and Tsai can be expected to raise the stakes of the Great tug-of-war Game between China, Japan and the U.S.