In January 2024, Taiwan witnessed one of its most important presidential and parliamentary elections, with many calling it a choice between war and peace. The election results also spoke to the divided nature of political opinion.
Lai Ching-Te, the candidate of the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), won the presidential election, while the majority in the legislative yuan was won by the primary opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT).
From Beijing’s perspective, there were many wins in these results. For example, KMT’s parliamentary victory creates more pressure on Lai to moderate his anti-China rhetoric. At the same time, Lai’s own victory came amidst growing voices in Taiwan against DPP’s ability to address various socio-economic issues in its previous two terms.
And as Lai gears up to assume office next month in May, Beijing is ramping up efforts to discredit his presidency.
Ma and Xi's Second Meeting
As part of these efforts, on 10 April, Chinese President Xi Jinping organised a meeting with former Taiwanese President and Chairman of the KMT Ma Ying-jeou.
This is the second time Xi and Ma have met after they had initially met in Singapore in 2015 when Ma was still the President of Taiwan. This time around, the goals of the Xi-Ma meeting were threefold:
To glorify the 1992 consensus.
Target the youth in Taiwan, and
Relay the message of reunification to them, and emphasise shared identity between both sides of the Strait.
Even though none of these goals are new, the fact that they were reiterated during Ma’s visit indicates two things:
Even though the KMT remains Beijing’s preferred political dispensation in Taiwan, Xi may be wary of the party’s inability to influence popular opinion vis-a-vis the goals of reunification.
The fact that Ma seconded all of Xi’s messages, including to the youth of Taiwan, speaks of the tone-deafness of senior party officials in the KMT to a changing sentiment among the young Taiwanese electorate that opposes the idea of a single, united Chinese culture and nation.
What Does It Achieve for Xi?
From China’s perspective, the Ma-Xi meeting was quite consequential.
To begin with, Ma may not be in a powerful party position in the KMT, but as a party elder, he holds an important advisory position. Moreover, KMT’s informal and yet significant statement, wherein it refers to the Ma-Xi meeting as a "positive development” and a "pragmatic exchange” clarifies to some degree that Ma had the KMT leadership’s sanction for his engagements with Xi.
His visit to China hence speaks to the KMT’s continued emphasis on dialogue with the mainland, and his delegation’s visits to other symbolic sites such as the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Museum and University in Guangdong and the offices of mega Chinese corporations such as DJI and Tencent, respectively pay homage to the cultural and economic ties between the two sides.
At the same time, the arrangements Xi made for the meeting, speak also to the ceremonial importance of Ma’s visit. For starters, at all times during Ma’s Beijing visit, multiple members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s top political body remained present.
Prominent names include Wang Huning and Cai Qi. Moreover, Xi also arranged for students who came as part of Ma’s delegation to look at China’s industrial development projects, so that they may be encouraged to see the "real mainland” and be enticed by the economic opportunities it offers.
They were escorted on trips to the "Century Project” Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, to exhibitions of Chinese UAVs and new energy vehicles, and even to the Chinese film industry. In the end, students apparently remarked, "I believe this era is the era of the Chinese dream.”
Against this backdrop, the domestic messaging created by the meeting was a big win from Xi’s perspective. Especially, the fact that Ma reiterated that the "1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwan’s independence are the two political foundations for the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, acts as assurance that the KMT will continue to put its force behind key pillars of national rejuvenation and toe CCP's line.
Further, it is reported that this meeting was meant to take place right after election results were declared in January, but was postponed to take place between 8 and 10 April, which is the same time when the US, Philippines, and Japan conducted a trilateral meet to discuss, among other things, China’s unruly behaviour in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
Hence, Ma’s cordial visit also sent the message globally to countries that are concerned about the status quo in the Strait, that influential political elites in Taiwan continue to believe in the same things China does. This is also evident from the fact that in his speech during Ma’s visit to the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Xi remarked, “External interference cannot stop the historical trend of national reunification.”
How Does It Impact Cross-Strait Relations?
Regardless of the ceremonial successes of the recently concluded Ma-Xi meeting and the visits of Ma’s delegation to various cities in China, it is important to ask what now? What does the visit achieve with regard to cross-strait relations? Nothing would be the short answer.
Despite Ma’s seniority as a Party elder, his strand of nationalism is retiring, even within the KMT. In fact, in the run-up to the January elections in Taiwan, when Ma made the controversial remark that “Xi Jinping must be trusted regarding cross-strait relations,” even KMT Presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih held the position Ma’s proposals and opinions are not the same as his own.
And so, while the KMT may have termed the visit "pragmatic” and "positive” their objective to balance dialogue, defence, and deterrence domestically, may not align with the messages the Ma-Xi visit sent out.
Moreover, Ma’s diplomacy in itself cannot steer cross-Strait relations towards peace and stability. His iteration of the 1992 Consensus, or condemnation of Taiwan’s "independence” does not change the ground reality that the populace on the island is vehemently opposed to dialogue or the Consensus.
This is clear from the numbers – as reported from an election-time survey of over 1000 Taiwanese citizens aged 20 and above, a majority agree that Lai is right in objecting to the Consensus.
Hence, the socio-political dynamics in Taiwan have changed structurally since Ma met Xi in 2015 and a year later ceded power to the DPP. In this regard, the real sense of KMT’s China policy will come not from what Ma or his delegation said in Beijing, but from what KMT’s parliamentary representatives will do after May.
(Anushka Saxena is a China Studies Research Analyst with the Takshashila Institution. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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