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.
馬總統顯露疲態, 耐心回應(本文)記者的任何提問. 執政進入第六年, 他跟北京任一個官員一樣都不願承認自己策略上有何遐疵.
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.
或許馬總統的政治理念來自國父孫中山, 1912年國民黨的創始者. 同樣也被對岸中國所尊崇. 也許他很希望被兩岸人民所稱頌, 在他的理念中, 做為一位領導者, 負有歷史和解的任務. 但台灣與中國的講和調解仍有些距離. 馬先生一度是國民黨最亮眼的明星, 被反對黨嘲笑是9%總統.
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.
在民進黨執政, 傾向獨立自主的八年後, 改善與中國關係成為馬先生執政後, 念茲在茲的中心思想. 馬先生很高興能與中國簽定21項協議. 他舉了很多例, 像六年內中國來台觀光人數十倍數增加, 到2013年已達285萬人次. 兩岸飛航往來從無到現在每天118班. 兩岸貿易, 包括與香港, 每年高達1600億.
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.
中國對台策略很淡定, 當台灣經濟越來越與中國纏繞在一起, 中國想, 抗拒統一的想法就會變淡. 台灣自然會成為中國的一部份, 就像香港, 但可擁有其武力. 台灣回到祖國又不需訴諸武力. 馬先生看到的是, 與對岸談和, 是避開對岸的武力進逼的第一線. 中國單方面硬要扭轉現有局勢要付出高昂的代價.
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”.
下一步兩岸的講和在與中國領導人的會面. 二月份, 兩岸部長首度在南京見面. 十月份可望在APEC會議與習近平見面. APEC成員是經濟體, 不是國家體, 所以屆時馬先生就可以以經濟體的領導者做這樣的會面, 避開台灣只是中國一省的一些尷尬話題.
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.
這背景可解釋, 對服貿協議不滿的抗議舉動, 已經不只是家務事而已, 學生以違法方式攻占立法院. 兩黨在談服貿, 爭議很多. 過程中民進黨對馬先生意欲在經濟上與中國整合, 投以不信任的眼光. 台灣在地與38年來台的中國第二代, 形成意見分歧.
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.
馬先生說與美國關係比以前更好. 整個訪談中, 美國在亞洲布局, 台灣居戰略地位的角色甚少被題. 美國對台灣的承諾甚少被提. 很多在台灣的人, 注意到一篇文章, 美國學者John提到, "有種可能性, 美國當政者終究會做成一個決定, 放棄台灣, 讓中國接手, 回歸統一". 對於某些人而言, 放棄是很實際的, 真實人生, 統一是時間的問題. 所以"沒有人在策略上, 外交上, 政治上站在我們這一邊; 我們必需仰賴中國的好意." 一位台北的學者這麼說.
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.
文章定位：
