Ma Ying-jeou shouldn't meet Daniel Ortega

Ma is scheduled to leave for Panama City at the end of this month, a little more than three weeks after he came back from a 10-day Central American tour on June 4.

He will attend the inauguration of Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli on July 1. From Panama City he will proceed to Managua to meet Ortega who he had refused to meet at San Salvador.

Why should Ma?

For one thing, Ma canceled the meeting with Ortega, who was also at San Salvador to attend the inauguration of Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes on June 1, after the Nicaraguan head of state tried to change their appointment three times.

Of course, Ma was right in refusing to meet with Ortega. He couldn't and shouldn't demean himself by begging for a meeting.

Even if Ortega, who professed he would cut off diplomatic ties with Taipei when he was elected for a second time, had apologized, Ma shouldn't change his mind and meet him at Managua.

Such a snub as Ortega handed to Ma cannot be tolerated.

As a matter of fact, President Ma should cancel his scheduled visit to Panama as well. Like Nicaragua, Panama is chomping at the bit to switch diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

The only thing that prevents both countries from doing so is a diplomatic truce which President Ma has set in place between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. Taipei and Beijing are tacitly agreed that they won't vie against each other to win diplomatic allies.

Any diplomatic sally President Ma makes will have adverse effect on relations between Taipei and Beijing. China certainly does not want Ma to show the flag around in a very quick succession.

Ma has to remember Beijing's patience will wear thin if he continues to make state visits to several of the 23 states with which Taiwan still maintains diplomatic ties.

Moreover, it's simply an expression of Taiwan's collective thymos to cheer for President Ma's foreign ventures like those of his predecessor Chen Shui-bian.

Thymos drives people to anger when their worth is not recognized by others. President Chen made most of the people thymotic. They wanted their country recognized throughout the world either as the Republic of China or Taiwan.

Chen made a record-shattering number of state visits in his eight-year tenure as president because he loved and enjoyed the presidential trappings. The visits satisfied his ego.

Unlike Chen, Ma is a pragmatist, who wants a modus vivendi to improve relations between Taiwan and China. The modus vivendi requires Ma to stay at home to redouble his effort to get Taiwan out of its economic doldrums.

The global economic and financial crisis isn't over. Taiwan has to strengthen cooperation with China to better cope with what is popularly known as the silent tsunami that is engulfing the whole world.

SHARE CLOSE
Blogger		Google+
Live Journal		Plurk
Stumble Upon

Tweet

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

 Receive our promos
 Respond to this email

Submit