Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Diplomacy is an important realization of a nation’s sovereignty. The main goal of diplomats is to uphold the independence, integrity and security of their country. If the steadiness of a nation’s diplomacy is judged by whether another country rejects a request to establish relations, then that country has lost autonomy over its diplomatic affairs. Could it then still be called a country?

This logic is common sense in today’s world, yet President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), vying for re-election, does not have even the most basic understanding of this.

A proud Ma recently said in a public announcement that his “flexible diplomacy” has allowed Taiwan and China to escape vicious competition for diplomatic allies.

A leading US expert on the Chinese military says that by 2020, Beijing could have 2,000 or more missiles, nearly 1,000 modern combat aircraft, 60 modern submarines and a potential invasion force of many hundreds of thousands of troops “pointed at Taiwan.”

Richard Fisher, a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center near Washington, warned in an article in the Wall Street Journal that the US “should be under no illusion about Beijing’s motives.”

He says that while President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has made historic progress in defusing tensions with China, Beijing has signaled that it wants to end Taiwan’s democratic era.