TAICHUNG (Taiwan News) — Former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China, aside from appealing to the deep blue base, was a disaster for Kuomintang (KMT) Chair Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) campaign strategy for the upcoming national elections. It was also likely disappointing for Ma as well.
As explored in yesterday’s column, Ma's trip was supposed to be a major historic event, as the first-ever visit to China by a former Taiwan president since 1949. President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) trip to the Americas stole his thunder, sucking up all of the press's attention.
Chu certainly did not want Ma to make this trip, but there was nothing he could do to stop him. He might have been able to extract some concessions from Ma on the trip's content, but mostly all Chu could do was hope and pray Ma’s words and actions did not deepen the impression in the public’s mind of the KMT being close to China.
If he did pray, his prayers were not answered. Ma’s trip was full of propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and election ammunition for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
In contrast to Tsai’s trip, Ma’s trip was unpopular with the public. In a recent poll, only 39.2% approved of his trip while 43.7% opposed it.
Ma's ROC in China tour
Representing the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, Ma led a delegation of 30 students to visit various historical sites and memorials related to the period when the KMT still ruled much of China, as well as to engage with Chinese universities. In another previous column, I explained the symbolic purpose of the students, which is to underscore that student exchanges have been cut under the current DPP administration but were plentiful when Ma's KMT was in power.
The journey had four purposes: To advance the eventual unification of Taiwan and China, to glorify the Republic of China, to (in his mind if not in Chu’s) assist the KMT in an election year by highlighting the difference in the relationship with China between his administration and Tsai’s, and to honor his ancestors.
China’s reception of Ma was relatively restrained compared to past visits by KMT luminaries. No red carpet or major officials were waiting for him on arrival.
The CCP would have liked to give him the red carpet treatment and have him meet with Xi Jinping (習近平), but considering how unpopular that would have been with Taiwanese voters, either the CCP or, more likely, the KMT decided to tone it down. The KMT made sure to emphasize the trip was not political by sending out a bold graphic to the foreign media featuring the following:
Yes universities, No Beijing
Yes students, No Xi Jinping
Yes academic exchanges, No political dialogue
Yes understanding, No demonization
Yes worship ancestors, No compromising dignity
Compromised dignity
No doubt, much to Eric Chu’s chagrin, as we will see, Ma broke the “no compromising dignity” rule. Chu was probably happy that Tsai’s trip was getting so much press, but it was still damaging to the KMT.
Ma also promptly broke the “no political dialogue” rule by meeting with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤). He did not meet with Wang Huning (王滬寧), who holds several powerful positions, including Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, at least not publicly.
It has been widely reported that Xi has tasked Wang with coming up with a new formulation on Taiwan to replace “one country, two systems” and possibly the “1992 consensus,” since both have become widely discredited and are ballot box poison in Taiwan. A Ma-Wang meeting would have set off alarm bells and a lot of speculation about Ma assisting Wang with that new formulation.
One highlight of the journey was Ma visiting his ancestors' graves in Hunan Province to engage in Tomb Sweeping Day rituals. Many think it was purely a political move to bolster his one-China ideology by underscoring the cultural similarities on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and he did indeed explicitly use it for that purpose.
However, it was also deeply personal for Ma. He had both a political agenda and a personal one, as both factors are not mutually exclusive.
He was moved to tears. You can judge for yourself by watching the video, but considering that respecting traditional Chinese ancestor worship is entirely in character, I think it was genuine.
Praising the CCP's pandemic response in Wuhan
One incident that definitely broke the “no compromising dignity” rule was his trip to a museum in Wuhan extolling the CCP's handling of the COVID outbreak. Yes, you read that correctly: a museum commemorating one of the most disastrous examples of government mismanagement in history that left millions dead.
Ma apparently originally planned a different stop but acquiesced to go at the request of his hosts. He said at the museum, "We admire this very much. This was not just for Mainland China, but rather was a contribution to humanity as a whole."
Another embarrassing incident was a picture of a professor in Ma’s entourage pretending to kick a Chinese police car, which made rounds on social media. He captioned it with: "A counterattack on the mainland" (反攻大陸).
Ma said many things that were music to the ears of the CCP, but a few things that were not. A typical example was when he visited the Sun Yat-sen (孫中山) Mausoleum in Nanjing and urged Taiwan and China to pursue peace and avoid war as they fight to “reinvigorate China." He called it “the undeniable responsibility of Chinese across the strait,” using wording that means China in a cultural rather than in a national sense.
At a university in Hunan, he also stated: "Our country is divided into two parts, one is the Taiwan area, the other is the China area, both are the Republic of China, and both are China." Curiously, he also cited the constitution of the People’s Republic of China’s reference to Taiwan being a part of China.
No doubt Ma, in his mind, thought repeated references to the ROC and himself as a former president would come across as a courageous thing in the eyes of the PRC. His statements are problematic on many levels, however.
Relic of history
Obviously, claiming that China belongs to the ROC comes across as delusional to the vast majority of Taiwanese. President Tsai wryly commented: "It is already 2023, and his statement would be something said in the 1970s."
All of Ma's references to Taiwan and China as one country and the 1992 Consensus are also unpopular. His quoting the PRC constitution does not help the KMT with voters, either.
The CCP censored his references to the ROC and himself as former president but found plenty of material to use in propaganda. They ran headlines like “Ma Ying-jeou's mainland trip embodies kinship, shared culture” in state media.
They even managed to use a clip of Ma bowing and presenting a floral wreath in front of the statue of Sun Yat-sen in a video entitled “We Cannot Lose Even One Inch of It” (中國,一點都不能少) about the defeat of the Japanese in World War Two. Wittingly or not, Ma was used as a pawn for the United Front for CCP propaganda, which did not sit well with Taiwanese voters.
Adding insult to injury, as his trip was wrapping up, the PRC was conducting live-fire war drills surrounding Taiwan and threatening trade sanctions on more Taiwanese products. This was in response to Tsai’s trip, but the timing meant that the CCP could not give any rewards to Ma or the KMT to help them in the election as a result — unlike with recent KMT delegations, like KMT Vice Chair Andrew Hsia’s (夏立言) delegation in February.
In short, Ma seriously undermined the KMT’s image with the mainstream voting public with nothing to show for it. Eric Chu must be fuming.