One of the most important DPP foreign policy successes was broadening and deepening Taiwan's relationship with Japan. Jason Miks has a nifty article over at World Politics Review on Taiwan's excellent relations with Japan:Indeed, while the relationship between China and Taiwan has only very recently begun to warm up, relations between Japan and Taiwan have been growing steadily stronger for years -- especially over the past decade.
Sun points to the policies of former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui, who has close personal ties with Japan and who has been a sharp critic of China, as laying much of the groundwork on which Chen worked to press for closer Taiwan-Japan ties. "There's been a deepening and consolidating of Lee's policies," he said.
Prof. Phil Deans of Temple University's Japan Campus in Tokyo agrees that there has been a shift in recent years. "From the late 1990s onwards there was a real ramping up of the relationship," he said.
The closer ties have included increased trade -- in 2006 Japan became Taiwan's second biggest trade partner, while Taiwan was Japan's fourth largest -- as well as a tourist visa waiver program and the signing in May of a new aviation agreement under which the two countries will promote exchanges on aviation safety and cooperate on investigations into airline accidents.
Japan has also offered Taiwan political support, including, despite Chinese opposition, backing Taiwan's so far unsuccessful bids for observer status at the World Health Assembly.
The article is long and good. What will Ma do with this relationship? Ma's increasing deference to China suggests that Taiwan-Japan relations will molder under the new Administration.
[Taiwan] [Japan]
Why would they be mutually exclusive?
ReplyDeleteI think Ma will try to simultaneously foster better relations with China and Japan. There will be situations where pleasing both Japan and China will be impossible, but Ma will have to deal with them as they arise.
Taiwan relations with Japan is deep and organic. My grandparents speak Japanese, my mother and I both speak Japanese. I have half-Japanese cousins. Two of my Japanese friends have Taiwanese ancestry. Taiwan relations with China is equally so.
Ma's strategy appears to be two-fold. One, increase the leverage of Taiwan, through weapons acquisitions and diplomacy with Western powers and Japan. Two, reduce cross-strait tensions under the three-no framework.
Half of Taiwan's relations is "organic." Keep in mind that for the most part, KMT do not have Japanese influences as they came AFTER the Japanese left.
ReplyDeleteNot to be a naysayer, anon, but I think we need to see the strategy you talk about in action before we say what his strategy appears to be. Remember that Ma has also said that sovereignty is non-negotiable and that the future of Taiwan is up to the Taiwanese to decide. Meanwhile, his inaugural speach said that sovereignty is not important and he has not mentioned anywhere the right of the Taiwanese to decide their own future since the end of the campaign. He has also said he would nurture local identity, yet has embraced a "we are all Chinese" focus with amazing rapidity. So we see that his strategy, at least in that case, is not what he said it was from the start.
ReplyDeleteMa could still surprise me, but I for one will need to see more evidence that he can live up to his grand words.
Thomas said: "[Ma, in his]inaugural speech said that sovereignty is not important"
ReplyDeleteSince Michael takes the media to task for its mistaken memes about Taiwan, we, too, need to stop quoting was isn't exactly correct.
It is my understanding that what Ma said is more accurately translated as “the keystone for a final solution to the cross-strait problem is not in a conflict over
sovereignty, but in ways of life and core values.”