The recent signing of a cross-strait service trade agreement, following closed-door negotiations has caused an uproar in Taiwan. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) says that if the agreement falls through, it will have a big negative impact on Taiwan’s credibility in the international community.
In making such a threat, Ma is either taking the public for fools, or he is fooling himself. Ma is in the habit of saying that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to the same country. If that is so, any cross-strait agreement must be a domestic “Chinese” affair, and in that case, what does it have to do with “credibility in the international community?”