"I love Taiwan"
"China is still a threat to Taiwan"
"China should not bully Taiwan"
All three were in evidence yesterday when KMT President Ma tried his best to reach across the 'ethnic' chasm and beguile Taiwan loyal voters into believing that the KMT also has Taiwan's best interests at heart. To wit:
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday warned China not to “humiliate” Taiwan in international forums and risk “wiping out” the mutual trust and goodwill that has built up during the past two years. (Code: your badly timed national chauvinism might have cost us this election! What the hell are you doing?)
Ma’s warning, made in an interview with Central News Agency, marked the sternest reaction yet to a flare-up between China and Taiwan at the Tokyo International Film Festival last month. Jiang Ping (江平), the head of the Chinese delegation at the festival, set off consternation in Taiwan after saying Taiwan should participate under the name “Taiwan, China” or “Chinese Taipei.”
“It took us a year and half to work out the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement [ECFA], which has received widespread praise,” Ma said. “However, another Jiang Ping incident or two could instantly wipe out the achievement,” he said. (Code to China: Your badly timed national chauvinism will kill the tentative public support for ECFA and might cost us our chance at political talks and unification!)
Ma said that despite the improved ties since he came to power in 2008, differences between Taipei and Beijing remain.
“The Jiang Ping incident is simply the tip of an iceberg,” Ma said, without elaborating. (Code to China: We know what you get up to when you think we're not looking. Code to Taiwanese: We love Taiwan and are also angry that China abuses us so much.)
He called on the two sides to set aside the existing sovereignty disputes and keep building mutual trust. (Code to China: Let's keep on target here guys. Remember the drill?: win-win, mutual trust, building bridges, set aside disputes. Got to stay on-message.)
Ma’s comments were also in reference to former vice president Lien Chan’s (連戰) raising the issue of Taiwan’s international space at a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) on the sidelines of the APEC leaders’ summit in Japan at the weekend.
Ma said he had concerns over China’s continued obstruction of the efforts by Taiwanese civic groups to participate in international events, emphasizing the importance of a “virtuous cycle” on this matter. (Code to China: I'm so concerned that Taiwanese are not believing that China has changed it's attitude to Taiwan that I feel compelled to make up some meaningless phrase containing a permutation of the words 'cycle' and 'virtue'. I'm running out of ways to pretend Taiwan has a mutual and respectful relationship with China and you aren't helping!)
”Our NGOs have recently encountered harassment and obstruction from … China and this has upset many people [in Taiwan],” he said. (Code to China: This recent harassment and obstruction is way too close to the election for comfort. How can we believably say this behaviour is a thing of the past if it's in the news 4 weeks before an election? We worked hard to persuade most Taiwanese to forget that our party was the same one which ran a dictatorship for forty years. We moulded the conditions that engendered an average 24hr recall span in the citizen but even some Taiwanese may still remember your boy Ping's moves on election day. Please don't forget that the local southern uncivilised half-cooked japanese pirates have memories like elephants and will make one Ping go a long long way!)
“It would be difficult to -improve cross-strait relations” if Taiwanese NGOs keep encountering obstruction by China at international events, Ma said, adding that these organizations are usually among the most active in Taiwan. (Code to China: We were forced into the diplomatic wilderness so we've survived in the international community by NGOs. These guys are hard core. If you piss them off, news will get back, and fast. Then we have to mop up the crap in the media that spews out as a result. Quit with the isolation tactic for a while eh? We can't sell 'peace in our time' when it's so easy for the Bentu to prove us wrong!)
On Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, Ma put an emphasis on the virtuous-cycle theory (See Below), which he said would help deepen cross-strait ties.
At his meeting with Lien on Sunday, Hu did not give any guarantees, merely saying that “negotiations should be sought regarding Taiwan’s participation in international affairs … so that disputes can be avoided.” (Code to KMT: You didn't get our permission to engage in international events beforehand so shit happens. Don't you know the rule? Who ok'd your WHA Assembly participation and how much did you milk that for public support? All you have to do is agree that both PRC and ROC Thingy negotiate ROC Thingy's participation for all participation in any form and that PRC's decision is final and everything will fall into place. You forget yours at your peril. As long as you keep trying to participate as a country, 'disputes' will happen. You have been warned.)So I just had to look up this 'virtuous-cycle' thingamajig Turns out it's a virtuous-circle (probably lost in translation, not a biggie.) Here's a definition:
A virtuous circle or a vicious circle is a complex of events that reinforces itself through a feedback loop. A virtuous circle has favorable results, and a vicious circle has detrimental results. A virtuous circle can transform into a vicious circle if eventual negative feedback is ignored.They give us a nice diagram as illustration (top = Virtuous-Circle / bottom = Vicious-Circle):
I made my own so that CCP and KMT staffers can post it on their wall to help them co-ordinate their
PS: Campaign trucks are hard at it outside as I type. Average rate of one every 10-15 minutes. Average quality of accompanying music, dire. Average public annoyance, high (I imagine, or perhaps people just tune it out like the air conditioner). Mostly KMT (2 candidate's offices just around the corner). Boy, don't you just love election season!
