Green Cards and Sovereignty

Huang Jei-Hsuan of California

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) surreptitious hedge on the fate of Taiwan's sovereignty has come home to roost.

The uproar surrounding his loyalties stems from the KMT's haphazard handling of Taiwan's sovereignty. This long-standing mindset is itself a manifestation of the party's ultimate goal of uniting Taiwan with China.

The fact that Ma and the KMT are running his presidential campaign by focusing on integrating Taiwan's economy into China's while muddling all underlying sovereignty issues further underscores the urgency of vetting Ma in that particular light.

During his mercurial rise Ma has at times attempted to convince the Taiwanese people that he is a Chinese Taiwanese. Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) once even went so far as to proclaim Ma a "new" Taiwanese. Ma's US green card brouhaha has complicated those claims.

Should it be found that Ma kept his green card in the closet for years, and that the primary reason he tried to become an American in the first place was an instinctive yearning to belong to a nation when the one he was attached to up to that juncture was fast sinking into a "non-nation," the fundamental legitimacy of Ma's candidacy would be called into question. It would indicate the lack an undivided allegiance to Taiwan.

Significantly, Ma applied for his green card in 1974, three years after Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) abandoned the Republic Of China's (ROC) seat at the UN and at the height of public anxiety over the imminent derecognition of Chiang's ROC by the US. Equally noteworthy is the fact that Chiang concurrently turned down an opportunity to remain in the UN by refusing to define Taiwan's sovereignty, marking the beginning of another chapter of the KMT's treachery toward Taiwan.

In other words, Ma was, if not still is, a person with a nation while nearly all Taiwanese weren't, at least not with an internationally recognized one, a reality which Chiang ascertained in 1971. This, combined with the fact that Ma has always vehemently defended the notion that the ROC is a state, speaks volume on Ma's disingenuousness.

Ma's constant aversion to an independent Taiwan compounds that outrage. So does his continuing objection to a referendum for a UN bid using the name "Taiwan" that would expand the nation's international space in the long run.

These sentiments reflect the contradiction of Ma's pursuing an office that symbolizes Taiwan's sovereignty, the very subject Ma and the KMT are trying to compromise at every turn.

The moral of Ma's situation should serve as a reminder to the Taiwanese people of the relevancy of issues pertaining to democratization and sovereignty in this month's poll.