經濟學人：只是時間問題？從服貿抗議看馬英九的中國盤算
摘錄自：天下雜誌電子報 2014/4/1
2014-03-30 Web only 作者：經濟學人
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| 圖片來源：劉國泰 |
上任六年的馬英九總統，清新俊朗的臉，已因公務出現沈重的痕跡。也許他心中想得是同時獲得兩岸尊崇的國民黨之父孫中山，馬英九也希望自己達成兩岸和平的歷史任務。但是，台灣與大陸的和解還有長路要走。
「改善兩岸關係」向來是馬政府的執政主軸。民進黨八年統治後，馬總統常對外誇示今天兩岸已簽署二十一項協議，來台的中國觀光客人數增加十倍，兩岸直航班機從零到每天一一八班次、雙邊貿易額攀升到每年一六〇〇億美元。
中國收攏台灣的策略則昭然若揭。中共認為，當兩岸的經濟命脈密不可分，台灣就可以像香港一樣，變成中國的「自治區」。一顆飛彈都不用發射，台灣對統一的抗拒會自然減弱。
但在馬總統看來，兩岸建立良好互動默契，卻是抵抗中國武力最強大的武器。下一步，就是兩岸領導人會面。
今年初在南京，兩岸涉台事務官員已經碰面，馬英九則希望在年底於北京舉行的亞太經合會上，會晤中共領導人習近平。因為亞太經合會的成員是「經濟體」而不一定是「國家」，台灣、中國才有機會平起平坐。中國對此不置可否，但馬總統不排除可能性。
瞭解這些背景，就可以知道，服貿協議抗議不只是國內問題。佔領國會的學生，挑動了台灣人民對馬總統與中國不信任的敏感神經。
民進黨在民調上的領先，不僅大陸警覺，也讓不想有區域動亂的美國緊張。中國越強，台灣安全就更依賴美國。
常說今天台美關係是「三十年來最好」，但有人質疑。美國談到「轉向亞洲」時，鮮少提及台灣關係法的地位。芝加哥大學教授米爾斯海默（John Mearsheimer）指出，「美國主政者很有可能為了戰略理由放棄台灣，坐視中國強逼統一。」
對有些人來說，斷尾是為求生，統一只是時間問題。「不論就戰略面、外交面、政治面，都沒有人站在我們這邊；台灣只能仰賴中國的善意，」一位台灣學者說。
馬總統努力在失敗主義以及民進黨的激進路線中間取得中道，但他對自己的努力似乎已有些疲倦，台灣民眾似乎也已對他厭煩。考量到台灣民眾的現實，以及民進黨內鬥，一六年仍可能是國民黨勝出。但如果馬總統希望在卸任時留下「促進兩岸和平有功」的成績單，受到兩岸與國際社會的讚揚，他很可能失望。
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014
Banyan
On the antlers of a dilemma
The ambitions of Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s president, collide
with popular suspicion of China
Mar 29th 2014 | From the print edition
THE fresh-faced good looks have been
lined and drawn by the cares of office. His immaculate English is forsaken for
the dignity of immaculate Mandarin. Patient replies to questions come wearily,
as if said many times before. Yet, six years into his presidency, Ma
Ying-jeou’s hair remains as lush and jet-black as any Chinese Politburo
member’s. And, speaking in the presidential palace in Taipei, he remains as
unwilling as any leader in Beijing to admit to any fundamental flaws in
strategy.
Perhaps Mr Ma draws inspiration from
his portrait of Sun Yat-sen, founder of his ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT),
and, in 1912, of the Republic of China to which Taiwan’s government still owes
its name. Sun is revered as a nationalist hero not just by the KMT but, across
the Taiwan Strait, by the Chinese Communist Party too. Mr Ma may also hope to
be feted on both sides of the strait—in his case as a leader responsible for a
historic rapprochement. For now, however, reconciliation between Taiwan and
China remains distant. And Mr Ma, once the KMT’s most popular politician, is
taunted by opponents as the “9% president”, a reference to his approval ratings
in opinion polls last autumn.
Improving relations with China has been
the central theme of his administration, after the tensions of eight years of
rule by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans towards declaring
formal independence from the mainland. Mr Ma can boast of 21 agreements signed
with China. He reels off the numbers of two fast-integrating economies: a
tenfold increase in six years in mainland tourists to Taiwan, to 2.85m in 2013;
cross-strait flights from none at all to 118 every day; two-way trade,
including with Hong Kong, up to $160 billion a year.
China’s strategy to reabsorb Taiwan is
plain. As the island’s economy becomes more intertwined with that of the vast
mainland, China thinks, resistance to unification will wane. Then Taiwan
becomes an “autonomous” part of China—like Hong Kong, though allowed its own
army. Taiwan will return to the motherland without resort to the missiles and
increasingly powerful armed forces ranged against it. But as Mr Ma sees it,
cross-strait “rapprochement” is a first line of defence against Chinese
aggression, since “a unilateral move by the mainland to change the status quo
by non-peaceful means would come at a dear price”. Politics in Taiwan is framed
as a debate about independence or unification but is really about preserving
the status quo.
The next step in rapprochement with
China would be a meeting between political leaders. In February in Nanjing,
once the capital of a KMT government of all China, ministers from China and
Taiwan held their first formal meeting since 1949. Mr Ma hoped to meet China’s
president, Xi Jinping, in Beijing this November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic
Co-operation (APEC) summit. To accommodate Hong Kong and Taiwan, APEC’s members
are not “countries” but “economies”. So Mr Xi and Mr Ma could meet as “economic
leaders”, sidestepping the tricky protocol that usually dogs
relations, with China viewing Taiwan as a mere province. The Chinese demurred.
But Mr Ma thinks a meeting somewhere is “not outside the realm of possibility”.
This backdrop explains why a protest
movement against a services-trade agreement with the mainland is more than a
little local difficulty for Mr Ma. Students occupying parliament have resorted
to undemocratic means, and many of the arguments they and the DPP make about
the trade agreement are specious. But they have tapped a vein of popular
mistrust of Mr Ma and of economic integration with the mainland. A split
persists between native Taiwanese, on the island for generations, and
mainlanders, like Mr Ma, whose families came over as the KMT lost the civil war
in the 1940s. Protesters portray Mr Ma as either a mainland stooge or as
clueless and out of touch. In the occupied parliament, student caricatures give
him antlers, a reference to a slip he once made when he appeared to suggest
that the deer-antlers used in Chinese medicine were in fact hair from the
animal’s ears.
Mr Ma says public opinion supports a
“Ma-Xi” summit. Joseph Wu of the DPP, however, claims such a meeting would
actually damage the KMT in the next presidential election, due in 2016; rather,
he says, Mr Ma is trying to leave a personal legacy. The DPP’s lead in the
polls alarms not just the Chinese government but also America, which could do
without another flare-up in a dangerous region. The stronger China grows, the
more Taiwan’s security depends on commitments from America. It switched
diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979, but Congress then passed a law
obliging it to help Taiwan defend itself.
All political lives end…
Mr Ma says relations with America are
better than they have ever been at least since 1979 and perhaps before. Others
are doubtful. In all the talk of America’s “pivot” to Asia, its promises to
Taiwan are rarely mentioned. Many in Taiwan paid attention when John
Mearsheimer, an American academic, suggested in the National Interest, a policy
journal, that there is “a reasonable chance American policymakers will
eventually conclude that it makes good strategic sense to abandon Taiwan and to
allow China to coerce it into accepting unification.” For some, abandonment is
a fact of life and unification a matter of time. “No one is on our side
strategically, diplomatically, politically; we have to count on China’s
goodwill,” an academic in Taipei argues.
Mr Ma has tried to steer what seems a sensible
middle course between such defeatism and the adventurism of those in the DPP
who would like to confront and challenge China. But he sounds weary with the
effort, and Taiwan’s people seem weary of him. Their pragmatism and the DPP’s
internecine strife may yet see them elect another KMT president in 2016. But if
Mr Ma hoped to leave office with cross-strait relations stabilised, and with
his own role as an historic peacemaker recognised on both sides and around the
world, he seems likely to be disappointed.
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