Beijing’s ‘One China’ helps out the DPP

“Anything can be discussed at the talks, including issues as significant as ending cross-strait hostilities,” Wen said.

In response, Ma Ying-jeou, the presidential candidate of the Kuomintang (KMT), stressed in a statement that since the Republic of China (ROC) is an independent sovereign democracy, the future of Taiwan must be determined by 23 million Taiwanese people without interference from the Chinese Communists.

The presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Frank Hsieh pointed out that Wen’s remarks comply with the stand taken by Ma, and therefore he urged Ma at this critical moment to abandon — in unequivocal terms — his position on the ultimate unification of China and the “one China market.”

To minimize its political damage to Ma and the KMT, Wen’s statement at least should have mentioned the “principle of one China with different interpretations.” Without doing so, Wen intentionally or unintentionally hurt Ma deeply at a time when the KMT candidate is doing all he can to dispel public doubts about his advocacy of the “cross-strait common market” as actually meaning a “one China market.” In the political climate in Taiwan today, any mention of “one China” is tantamount to offering a poisonous weed because it implies subjugating the island to Beijing.

The PRC may have its reasons to believe that a DPP administration is not as undesirable to its national interests as conventional wisdom used to assert. But Wen’s utterance on Taiwan at the news conference, combined with the arrival of Theresa Shaheen, former chairperson of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) in Taipei, who is considered a good friend of the DPP government and recent violent and bloody protests staged by Tibetan secessionists, looked ominous to the Ma camp. Indeed, during this countdown to the March 22 presidential election the DPP will take advantage of every opportunity and enact any maneuver that will help the party win. At this moment, the general consensus is that Ma can triumph with a comfortable margin.

But there is absolutely no reason for the Ma camp to let down its guard. The most important thing for Ma supporters to do is to think of all possible “aubos” (tricks) the DPP may devise and get well-prepared for them in advance. Remember the Kaohsiung mayoral election before the last one, which the KMT lost by a slim margin due to a last-minute appearance of a tape recording that exposed an alleged extramarital affair involving the KMT candidate? When the recording later proved to be doctored, the election was over with a DPP victory. Now all indications are that this kind of old and dirty techniques of fabrication and rumor-mongering may be repeated this year.

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