Ma Ying-jeou returned to his old stomping grounds at Harvard Law School, where he had picked up his doctorate nearly two decades earlier, last week. But Ma, the second popularly elected mayor of Taipei since 1967, came back to Cambridge a figure of global importance, whose career is pivotal to stability in Sino-Taiwanese relations.
Ma, darling of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) Party, ousted populist Chen Shiu-Bian of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in elections last December, as Taipei's voters showed they were in no mood to keep pushing for total independence from the mainland's communist government.
The DPP and Chen, a tough administrator who shut down Taipei's arcades and implemented a curfew on the city's youth, have been unwavering in their opposition to the mainland government of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The DPP had seen Chen as their man to succeed current Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui, of the KMT, but Ma has all but dissolved that dream.
Speaking with The Crimson in his suite at the Charles Hotel late last week, Ma suggested even Lee's position on the PRC was too forceful.
Lee recently mandated "state to state" relations between the PRC and what the communist regime sees as its "renegade province." Although Lee is considered more of a talker on the independence front--who would consider unification after certain democratic reforms--his stance nonetheless added KMT weight to the drive for independence.
As sheets of rain pelted the picture windows of his hotel room, Ma reflected on relations between his adopted homeland and the mainland, where he grew up, sketching out what he called "a special relationship."
As Ma put it simply: "We don't consider China a foreign country...We have to be realistic about this."
For Ma, the relationship between the People's Republic of China (the mainland) and the Republic of China (Taiwan) is one of "creative ambiguity," as the names suggest. For example, an airplane flight between Taipei and Beijing is neither domestic nor international, Ma said.
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