Why has the former Taiwanese president been cosying up to Beijing?

‘We must peacefully strive to rejuvenate the Chinese nation. This is an unshirkable duty for Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, one that we must work to achieve’. These aren’t the words of a Chinese Communist Party politician – but rather those of the former president of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou, who is on a ten-day trip to the People’s Republic. Ma’s first stop was Nanjing, where he called for friendlier relations between Beijing and Taipei, appealing to their shared Chinese ancestry. 

Ma’s visit just happens to coincide with the incumbent Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen’s own visit to the US later this week, where she’ll meet the new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The meeting is sure to irk Beijing, bringing back memories of 1995, when it carried out a series of missile tests in the Strait in reaction to a similar trip to the US made by a Taiwanese president.

Ma and Tsai’s coinciding trips symbolise Taiwan’s two alternative futures. The first, where Taiwan continues its trajectory of getting close to the US and other western democracies, trying to guarantee its own democratic values but vastly increasing the risk of an invasion by Beijing. Or the second, where relations with Beijing are stabilised but come at the cost of falling into the CCP’s economic and political orbit. Certainly, some on the Chinese side believe that Ma deliberately timed this trip to drive home this point to Taiwanese voters.

The timing is crucial because, in January, Taiwan goes to the polls for its presidential elections. Neither Ma nor Tsai will be running (the 72-year-old Ma has long left frontline politics, while Tsai will have reached her two-term limit by then). But if Ma’s party, the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang, takes back the presidency, Taiwan will be steered closer to that second alternative future.

Currently, the two parties are neck and neck in the polls, with half of voters undecided. They face a difficult choice.

Many Taiwanese voters feel increasingly distanced from China: polls show that a majority of voters identify as Taiwanese only, rather than any sort of Chinese, a proportion that only increases the lower the age group. Younger voters also tend to be more pro-democracy: in 2014, they protested against the Ma government’s increasing closeness to Beijing. In the last few years, what has happened to Hong Kong has resolutely put a stop to any credible talk of ‘one country, two systems’ – the Taiwanese see clearly that there’s only one country, one system, in the eyes of Xi Jinping.

And yet, it’s possible to believe in Taiwanese sovereignty without agreeing with the DPP’s approach, which seems to walk the island ever closer to war. Since Tsai Ing-wen’s initial election in 2016, Beijing has refused to speak to Taipei, and relations are only worsening. This culminated in the tense stand-off last summer, when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island and Beijing set off days of military tests, even launching missiles over Taiwan. Taiwan seems to be on the precipice of war, a feeling consolidated by the recent extension of mandatory conscription from four months to a year. A January poll showed that half of respondents were dissatisfied with Tsai’s handling of cross-strait relations.

Domestic issues, especially Tsai’s botched procurement of vaccines during the pandemic, also continue to taint the party as a whole. In last November’s local elections, the DPP lost so badly that Tsai resigned her position as head of the party.

So democracy at the cost of war, or peace at the cost of liberty? The two presidents embody these different visions through their respective visits this week. It’s true that their successors will need to be more nimble and nuanced in their pitches. The KMT must draw some distance between themselves and Beijing (which may be why Ma is skipping Beijing on this trip). While the DPP must show they’ve heard voters’ concerns about any possible war. But the fundamental dividing line remains the same, which makes January’s election (as is so often the case with Taiwan’s national elections) a referendum on the island’s relations with China. Beijing is watching closely.