Why the US is supporting the Xi-Ma meeting

The popular impression that China’s Xi is trying to help Taiwan’s Ma and his ruling Kuomintang to regroup for the Taiwan leadership election in 2016 is problematic.

Most observers actually believe that the Kuomintang is destined to lose. So, since Ma’s leadership cannot bring a certain result, how can Xi base his brave decision to meet with Ma on an uncertainty?

Instead, the opposite consideration is more likely, that the “pro-independence” Tsai Ing-wen is going to win by a landslide at the polls, so there is need to cope with her determination to politically estrange the mainland. This matches Ma’s wish to control the potential danger of Tsai inciting her constituency towards a drastic demand for legalising independence.

Ma wants nothing more than the continuation of the status quo, even if, as seems likely, Tsai comes to power next May.

Ma and Xi’s shared aversion towards Taiwanese independence aside, Ma prefers to stay close to Washington, whose suspicion towards either provocative independence or realignment across the Straits cannot be overestimated.

This brings us to the key question – why has Washington appeared more enthusiastic than expected towards the cross-Straits meeting?

Three days before the announcement of today’s meeting by Ma’s office, Washington had already offered its approval. Retired US officials who once worked on cross-Straits issues have one after another expressed their pleasant surprise at the announcement.

Hasty columnists as well as underdog campaigners speculate a change of mood in the United States, believing it is now ready to choose the Kuomintang over Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party.

But the real rationale for Washington’s support of the meeting coincides with that of Beijing, namely, to balance the growing “pro-independence” atmosphere in Taiwan. This is prerequisite to the realisation that some check on Taiwan independence is wise.

Washington is committed to a neither-nor policy regarding unification and independence. Since pro-independence sentiment is rising and will probably win big in the election, Washington has to rescue the credibility of the other side. This is important for Washington because if the pro-independence mood becomes too fervent the situation could develop to a level that Beijing can no longer tolerate. This would mean the involvement of Washington in an unnecessary confrontation at a point not of its own choosing. In short, the rationale for Washington to support the meeting is to bring stability to the cross-Straits situation after those in favour of independence come to power.

Although Tsai has remained coy about her intentions to honour the status quo, about which she avoids any mention, her intention to shun the one-China principle is more than apparent. This would change the parameters of the cross-Straits relationship premised upon the 1992 Consensus, which indirectly but specifically sticks to the one-China principle.

Therefore, today’s meeting will reinforce the current parameter of the one-China principle so that the status quo is crystal clear, even to Tsai, whose rhetorical commitment will thus no longer be required. Indirectly, therefore, Washington is assisting Tsai in stabilising cross-Straits relationship should she, as expected, win the election. For Washington, the meeting checks Taiwan independence only in an instrumental sense. It mainly serves to pre-empt Beijing from forcing Tsai into a corner and then engulfing Washington.

 

SHIH CHIH-YU is a professor of political science at National Taiwan University.