It is unfortunate that we must admit that "we told you so!"
In an editorial on March 16, 2008, we warned that the sudden conversion to "Taiwan self-determination" by President Ma Ying-jeou, then the candidate of the right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), was a "counterfeit."
We warned voters that Ma's sudden publication of half-page advertisements in local media declaring that "We Resolutely Advocate That the Future of Taiwan Must be Decided by the Taiwan People Themselves" was "little more than an attempt at piracy" of the core value of the right of democratic self-determination for the 23 million Taiwan people cherished for decades by the Taiwan democratic movement and by the Democratic Progressive Party.
During the "Marching Toward a Golden Decade" news conference held Wednesday to mark his second anniversary in office, Ma publicly returned to the traditional China-centric racial nationalism of the KMT, which he now chairs.
Under the rubric of "using peace to protect the nation," Ma told Taiwan citizens that "my objective is to strive for enough time and enough historical phases to allow the people on the two sides, who are both descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors, to find a method to resolve the cross-strait problem through the guidance of the wisdom of the Chinese nation-race."
The president's statement marked a public return to his advocation expressed and quickly downplayed in 2006 that "the Taiwan question should be decided together by the people of both sides of the Taiwan Strait."
Race over citizenship
What made Ma's statement uniquely notable was his combination of the KMT's consistent antipathy toward the right of the Taiwan people for democratic self-determination with an explicitly racialist argument that the ultimate decision on "resolving the cross-strait problem" should be decided by people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait who are "descendants of the Yen and Yellow Emperors."
Ma's citation in a public news conference of the wholly ideological and mythical construction of a "Chinese race" descended in "blood" from the legendary and probably non-existent "Xia Dynasty," parallels the hoary legitimacy claims of German Nazi leaders for that the "Aryan race" originated in the fantasy land of "Thule."
Moreover, Ma's "Yellow Emperor" discourse substitutes "race" instead of legally - grounded citizenship as the criteria to decide whom deserves to "be guided by the wisdom of the Chinese race-nation" to determine what happens to Taiwan and our 23 million people.
The implications are indeed profoundly troubling to anyone who cherishes the survival of Taiwan's democracy and the values of basic human rights and should be extremely disturbing to Taiwan citizens who are not pure "blood descendants" of the Han race, which is indeed what is meant by "descendants of the Yen and Yellow Emperors."
The ranks of the people who are liable to be judged to lack this racial qualification include the majority of the Taiwan people, most of whom have considerable genetic heritage from Taiwan's indigenous Austronesian people and previous colonial settler regimes as well as naturalized citizens from many countries who can by no stretch of the imagination be considered to be part of the "Chinese race" but are cherished members of our democratic society.
In addition, Ma's description of the process, which clearly presupposes the result of "eventual unification," excludes the possibility of the exercise by the 23 million Taiwan people of their right to decide their own national definition through referendum but instead implicitly relegates the decision-making process to persons or parties "guided by the wisdom of the Chinese race nation," presumably the KMT and the CCP.
This elitist assumption underlies Ma's "consistent from beginning to end" rejection of the possibility that our citizens could decide through a national citizen referendum whether to join a "common market" with the PRC or ratify the proposed "Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement" which can be expected to be signed in June and then rubber stamped by the KMT - controlled Legislature without any substantive discussion.
About the only promise made by Ma on his handling of cross-strait relations that we may take seriously is his promise that there will be no "unification" talks as such a formal exercise will be unnecessary.
All that is needed is for the KMT regime to accept in substance the suzerainty of the CCP and for the Beijing regime to reciprocate by mercifully allowing a vassal KMT regime to continue to use the "Republic of China" name within Taiwan only, just as Beijing did with the traditional Tibetan government in the early 1950s.
This is indeed the "status quo" now being imposed on Taiwan by the KMT and the CCP.
In the coming presidential and legislative elections in early 2012, the 23 million Taiwan people may have their only chance to prevent this arrangement from becoming a permanent "status quo" of "eventual unification" and instead reaffirm Taiwan's status as a democratic independent and citizen based state.
It is time for the Taiwan people to cast off pyrite illusions and remember that "nothing is more precious than independence and freedom."
Source: Taiwan News Online - Editorial 2010/05/21
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