Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is in full electioneering mode, focusing on the issue of national identity and saying in Chinese, “I am Taiwanese.”

One can imagine his soul shrieking as he uttered those words, but when he said it in English he chose not to use the word “Formosan” or the word that came into common usage in the 1960s, “Taiwanese.”

Instead he declared himself to be an “R.O.C.er,” an invented phrase that is neither here nor there, a play on Republic of China (ROC), which could also be pronounced like “rocker.”

A leading US academic is predicting that as Taiwan moves closer to China under the policies of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Taipei’s “freedom of action” will erode.

Robert Sutter of George Washington University told a conference titled “The Future of US-Taiwan Relations” that there is a dark underside to the very positive sentiments that are expressed toward Taiwan by Washington.

“There is a lot of good feeling for Taiwan in Washington, but underneath this positive dynamic, Taiwan’s freedom of action is eroding,” he said.

“It cannot reverse its path. That’s the basic conclusion that I have come to,” he said.