- Fu Dongfei Rupert Wingfield-Hayes
- BBC reporter
Taiwan is at the center of a dangerous love triangle.
Last week, New York welcomed Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, and now she will land in California, where she will be hosted by the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, for an interview.
This is obviously no coincidence. The hostility of the United States to China is deepening and intensifying, which is prompting the United States to show its support for Taiwan more openly, and the Republican and Democratic parties are competing with each other.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desperate visit to Taipei last summer drew a furious reaction from Beijing, but there were reasons for it.
“I am personally very opposed to Pelosi’s visit,” said Prof William Stanton, former director of the Taipei Office of the American Institute in Taiwan.
“A high-ranking American politician’s visit to Taiwan is like kicking China in the foot, but he didn’t get much benefit. The consequences are quite scary.”
Beijing makes chilling threats as Chinese missiles fly over island of Taiwan. Governments in the region began to seriously discuss the timetable for China’s invasion of Taiwan.
Even so, after McCarthy was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in January this year, he from the Republican Party publicly stated that he would follow Pelosi as an example. But Prof Szeto said President Tsai didn’t think it was a good idea.
“I think McCarthy obviously wanted to be on par with Pelosi, but Tsai Ing-wen said, ‘Thanks. How about we drink tea in California instead?'” he said.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen will stop by the United States on her return trip to Central America to meet with House Speaker McCarthy
Maybe President Tsai doesn’t want another American leader to visit and cause controversy, but she also has to make it clear to mainland China that trying to cut off Taipei’s democratically elected government from its strongest ally in Washington will not succeed.
That’s where the California meeting came in. Even though China warned the US that it was “playing with fire on the Taiwan issue”, Mr McCarthy had no intention of downplaying it, calling it a “cross-party” meeting.
Song Wendi, a political scientist at the Australian National University, believes that the so-called “transit diplomacy” is very important for Taiwan.
China has successfully hunted down several official allies of Taiwan in recent years, reducing the number of governments that recognize Taipei to 13.
Song Wendi said: “These foreign visits meet the Taiwanese society’s need for international recognition. In the absence of international recognition, these other alternative declarations of support are just as important to Taiwanese.”
image source,Getty Images
In August last year, Pelosi (left) visited Taiwan, and Beijing strongly expressed its displeasure.
On the other hand, by inviting Ma Ying-jeou, Tsai Ing-wen’s predecessor, to visit the mainland, the CCP is also launching its charm offensive.
Mr. Ma launched an unprecedented five-city tour. Although on the surface he was returning to his hometown to pay respects to his ancestors, and he did visit the ancestral graves in Central China, it was still a political journey. This is actually the first visit by a former president of Taiwan since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Song Wendi said: “Beijing is trying to soften its approach to Taiwan…to win more popular support, while avoiding a wave of Taiwanese nationalism during the (2024) presidential election.”
He added that Ma Ying-jeou’s visit to the mainland just provided the necessary “political cover” for this.
When he arrived in Nanjing last week, Ma Ying-jeou delivered a surprisingly political speech: “People on both sides of the strait belong to the same Chinese nation, and they are all descendants of Yan and Huang.”
Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou made his first visit to mainland China: the first stop was to visit the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing, saying that he would “work together to avoid war”
Professor Situwen said: “Beijing treats Ma Ying-jeou politely because he represents concessions. He said ‘we belong to the Chinese nation’. This is what he agrees with Beijing, but not everyone in Taiwan agrees.”
Ma’s strategy has its risks: Some polls show that more than 60 percent of Taiwanese residents describe themselves as Taiwanese, not Chinese.
Song Wendi pointed out that there is also sweetness waiting. Other polls show that more than half of Taiwanese believe war with mainland China is now more likely, and Ma Ying-jeou is aiming to convince Taiwanese voters that only his party, the Chinese Nationalist Party, can avoid war.
“It’s all about cementing his legacy as a bridge across the Taiwan Strait, and at the local political level, Taiwan is about to start a presidential campaign, and the KMT’s pitch is that they can talk peace with China.”
image source,China News Service
Ma Ying-jeou led the eldest sister Ma Yinan, the second sister Ma Naixi, the third sister Ma Bingru and the younger sister Ma Lijun to worship their grandfather Ma Lian in their hometown in Xiangtan, Hunan.
However, the hot potato at hand is the deteriorating relationship between Taiwan’s two “suitors” – Washington and Beijing. Bonnie Glaser, director of Asia at the German Marshall Fund, an American think tank, believes that since China and the United States recognized each other in 1979, the relationship between the two countries has never been so bad.
She said: “They (Beijing) are not answering calls from President Biden or the Pentagon (US Department of Defense). Congress has declared China to be an existential threat (existential threat).”
For decades, Washington has walked on eggshells maintaining a status quo: acknowledging but not publicly supporting Beijing’s position that there is “only one Chinese government in the world” — the one on the mainland. Since 1979, it has maintained positive relations with that government, not Taiwan, while remaining a staunch ally of Taipei, pledging to assist Taiwan in its self-defense.
It is frightening that China now believes that the United States wants to change the status quo that has allowed the Taiwan Strait to remain peaceful for 40 years.
“President Biden told Xi Jinping that he did not use Taiwan as a weapon and that he did not support Taiwan’s secession from China,” Gladys said.
But she said such assurances meant little at a time of controversial official visits and meetings between Taiwan’s leaders.
While Ma Ying-jeou tours mainland China and Tsai Ing-wen drinks tea in California, Taiwan has to hope that Xi Jinping will be willing to answer the phone.
