VZCZCXYZ0025
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHIN #0744/01 0680809
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 090809Z MAR 06
FM AIT TAIPEI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8956
INFO RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 4826
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 6023

UNCLAS AIT TAIPEI 000744 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR INR/R, EAP/TC, EAP/PA, EAP/PD - ERIC 
BARBORIAK 
DEPARTMENT PASS AIT/WASHINGTON 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL TA KPAO TW
 
SUBJECT: KMT CHAIRMAN MA YING-JEOU'S "NEW DISCOURSE" ON 
CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS: THE VIEW OF LOCAL OPINION- 
MAKERS 
 
 
¶1.  Summary:  This cable is the first of two reports 
looking at local media and commentators' take on 
Taiwan's current political environment.  This one looks 
at Ma Ying-jeou's recent public discourse; the second 
will focus on Chen Shui-bian.  This analysis was 
drafted by one of AIT's senior local employees in the 
Press Section based on her view of commentary over the 
last month.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  In the wake of the KMT's landslide victory in the 
December 2005 island-wide elections, KMT Chairman Ma 
Ying-jeou has started to make public statements 
concerning his and the KMT's positions on cross-Strait 
relations, sparking heated discussions in Taiwan. 
Perhaps the most daring and confusing was a KMT 
advertisement published in the "Liberty Times" that for 
the first time included "Taiwan independence" as a 
possible option for the Taiwan people to determine 
their own future.  Observers are now debating whether 
the KMT under Ma's leadership had reversed its cross- 
Strait policy stance and moved toward a "middle-of-the- 
road" direction, and whether Ma was being inconsistent 
or just testing the waters to attract "light-Green" 
voters. 
 
¶3. Ma and almost all political observers believe he has 
a virtual lock on the 2008 KMT presidential nomination. 
Ma has always been extremely cautious in handling 
sensitive topics such as Taiwan's national identity, 
ethnic relations, and the issue of unification and 
independence.  As a native of Hunan Province born in 
Hong Kong, Ma has long realized that the ethnic 
conundrum and his attitude toward 
unification/independence would be his greatest 
vulnerability if he decides to run for the presidency 
in 2008. Ma is clearly aware that he could be labeled 
as "pro-China" or "selling out Taiwan" (as was former 
KMT Chairman Lien Chan) by his pan-Green rivals if he 
fails to handle these issues carefully.  Even before Ma 
was first elected Taipei mayor in 1998, he has been 
preparing for these potential challenges, including 
studying the Taiwanese and Hakka dialects; expressing 
concern and goodwill to the family members of victims 
of the 1947 February 28 Incident; refusing to criticize 
former President Lee Teng-hui; declining to visit 
mainland China; and hanging a huge portrait of an 
aboriginal hero outside the KMT headquarters building. 
 
¶4. Before the December 2005 island-wide local 
elections, Ma rarely elaborated on his views in public 
on cross-Strait issues; rather, he made only brief and 
fractional comments on this topic when he could not 
avoid comment altogether.  Now Ma faces a contrary 
problem: he has said too much. Ma's major statements on 
cross-Strait relations since the election include: his 
last mid-December interview with "Newsweek," in which 
he said unification with China is "the KMT's ultimate 
goal;" his article entitled "Taiwan's Pragmatic Path" 
published in the "Asian Wall Street Journal"; several 
speeches delivered during his recent Europe visit 
elaborating on his vision on the future development of 
cross-Strait relations. Some critics, as a result, are 
criticizing Ma for throwing out a series of 
contradictory statements on cross-Strait relations, 
without any clear consistent approach now, with the 
presidential elections still two years away.  Others, 
however, including some high-ranking KMT officials, 
said these sensitive and controversial issues are like 
rashes, and that it is better for Ma to deal with them 
now in order to gain immunity later than to get hit by 
them in the run up to the 2007 and 2008 legislative and 
presidential elections. 
 
¶5.  When Chen Shui-bian visited London in December 
1999, as he was about to run for the presidency in 
2000, he gave a speech at the London School of 
Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) on "The New 
Middle Road for Taiwan: A New Perspective."  In 
February 2006, Ma delivered a speech at LSE on 
"Bridging the Divide: A vision for Peace in East Asia", 
in which he proposed the "3-C and 2-P" theory (namely, 
both sides across the Taiwan Strait will move from 
"confrontation" to "conciliation," and eventually to 
"cooperation," in order to achieve "peace" and 
"prosperity") as a prescription for breaking the cross- 
 
 
Strait impasse.  It may just be a historical 
coincidence that Ma joined Chen in choosing the same 
venue, LSE, to emphasize his own "middle course" 
approach before the presidential election campaigns 
began.  But Ma enjoys more space to move towards the 
"middle way."  Each time Chen has had tried to do so, 
he has been pulled back to the independence extreme of 
the political spectrum eventually by the deep-green 
elements.  Ma's supporters, on the other hand, show 
more tolerance of Ma's efforts to move towards the 
middle way, as they regard him as the only hope for the 
pan-Blue camp to regain the ruling power. 
 
¶6. Jaw Shao-kang, a well-known TV/radio commentator, 
argued that Ma should not have expressed his pro- 
unification stance but rather should have limited 
himself to re-stating his position against Taiwan 
independence in line with the KMT's official position 
in support of"anti-independence while remaining silent 
about the issue of unification," a position clearly 
aimed at "maintaining the status quo."  "The DPP's plan 
to push for independence while claiming it is 
maintaining the status quo is a move that deceives 
itself and others as well," Jaw said.  "Unification, 
unlike independence, has never been an issue of 
importance for Taiwan now because only very few people 
in Taiwan support immediate unification with China. 
Even proponents of unification think that Taiwan and 
China should not unify until conditions are ripe," Jaw 
added.  Academia Sinica Institute of Social Science 
Assistant Research Fellow Hsu Yung-ming, on the other 
hand, was quoted as saying that Ma's attempt to pull 
himself out of the confusion created by his unification 
comment has actually pushed him and the KMT deeper into 
the confusion and, as a result, helped Chen dampen the 
controversy sparked by Chen's proposal to abolish the 
NUC and NUG.  Other academic commentators argued that 
Ma's emphasis on the "pragmatic path" was intended to 
clarify his position to Washington.  Tsai Wei, a 
professor at National Chengchi University's Institute 
of International Relations, maintained that the U.S. 
prefers Taiwan leaders who support Taiwan independence 
but have the foresight to refrain from publicly 
declaring this support in order to meet the U.S. 
national interests of "no war, no peace, no 
unification, and no independence in the Taiwan Strait." 
Chairman Ma, Tsai observed, "is trying to remove U.S. 
doubts that he might get too close with China." 
 
¶7.  Ma's unilateral decision to acknowledge 
independence as one of the options for Taiwan people, 
however, invited internal criticism and spawned 
division in his own camp.  Former KMT Chairman Lien 
Chan openly criticized Ma's statement, while KMT 
Legislative Yuan (LY) President Wang Jin-pyng, who 
himself promoted independence as one option for Taiwan 
during his own unsuccessful run for the KMT 
chairmanship against Ma last July, also challenged Ma's 
one-man and top-to-down decision-making style.  The pan- 
Green camp, on the other hand, rejoined that Ma's 
recent moves reflect his opportunist efforts to attract 
"light-Green" DPP supporters and enhance his image as a 
moderate presidential candidate who seeks a new "middle 
way" or "pragmatic path." 
 
¶8.  Some analysts, however, praised Ma's new stance on 
cross-Strait relations.  "China Times Weekly" Chief 
Editor Wang Mei-yu said in a TV talk show program that 
Ma is the first KMT chairman to publicly acknowledge 
that Taiwan independence can be one of the possible 
options for the Taiwan people to decide their own 
future and to invite family members of the 1947 
February 28 incident victims to attend a KMT Central 
Standing Committee meeting.  "The DPP's recent moves, 
from Chen's Lunar New Year's Day proposal to scrap the 
National Unification Council (NUC) and National 
Unification Guidelines (NUG) to the government's 
release of a new research report naming Nationalist 
Party's Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek as the chief 
perpetrator responsible for the slaughter of over 
10,000 Taiwan people in the February 28 Incident," Wang 
noted, "target Ma himself."  By putting independence, 
unification and status quo as options for the Taiwan 
people, Ma attempted to build a political firewall 
around himself. 
 
 
 
¶9.  Compared to his processors, Wang continued, Ma has 
demonstrated a completely different style of 
leadership.  "He chose to directly face, rather than 
dodge, the `dark corners' hidden deep in KMT history, 
including the February 28 Incident and White Terror, 
and even acknowledged the need for the Taiwan people to 
include independence as one of its possible options," 
Wang added.  A "China Times" news analyst wrote that Ma 
has remained consistent in his political philosophy 
since serving as a ranking official at the Mainland 
Affairs Council (MAC) 16 years ago, where he helped 
draft guidelines establishing the NUC.  The new KMT 
chairman has "openly talked about something that his 
predecessors Lien Chan and even Lee Teng-hui chose to 
keep unsaid." 
 
¶10.  Ma demonstrated his posture as a probable 
presidential candidate by making some bold statements, 
for a KMT Chairman, in the course of his speech on 
cross-Strait relations at the LSE.  Ma, nevertheless, 
did dodge some critical and sensitive questions in his 
discourse.  He did not, for example, tell the Taiwan 
people whether the KMT will accept the decision if a 
majority of Taiwan people choose that Taiwan should 
declare independence.  In addition, Ma also failed to 
propose concrete means and strategies on how to lead 
both sides of the Taiwan Strait from "confrontation" to 
"conciliation," and eventually to "cooperation." 
 
¶11. However one assesses Ma's statements on 
independence and unification, it is clear that he has 
taken the first steps toward laying out his campaign 
platform for 2008. Many wonder, however, why he started 
so early and why he stepped immediately into the DPP's 
favorite set of issues. 
 
KEEGAN