【Comment】
這篇文章，不斷強調馬與中南海領導人的相似性，以及馬不承認兩岸政策已然失敗的頑抗。
《經濟學人》再評馬英九：兩岸政策失敗○大紀元（2014.03.28）
【大紀元2014年03月28日訊】（大紀元記者黃捷瑄編譯報導）《服貿協議》造成的政治僵局持續，國際期刊《經濟學人》特別至臺北訪問臺灣總統馬英九，並連續二周報導事件。最新的文章批評，在臺北的馬英九“仍然像任何一位不願承認自己在政策上有任何根本缺陷的北京領導人。”分析馬英九6年的兩岸政策相當失敗。
學生佔領立法院的行動剛開始時，《經濟學人》便以〈議會中的學生〉（Students in House）警告此事棘手。一周後的3月29日，《經濟學人》再以一篇描述事件發展的報導〈操縱貿易障礙〉（Manning the trade barriers），及評論〈鹿茸上的困境〉（On the antlers of a dilemma）講述馬英九拉近兩岸關係的努力失敗。
“兩岸拉警報”
《經濟學人》在Youtube公開了馬英九受訪的影片“兩岸拉警報”（Strait of alarm）。影片中說著流利中文的記者問了四個問題，首先是為何有此爭議？馬英九認為是協定在立法院的程式不被認同，馬認為“回到這個框架上”，爭議就有解決的可能。接著記者幾乎難以啟齒地問到政府對此做了什麼努力。馬形容，協議在立法院多次遭到民進黨議員杯葛，馬認為應在“國會內部協議機制下”解決。
記者又問，不簽協議對臺灣的影響。馬一如既往地說，臺灣與中共簽訂兩岸經濟合作架構協定（ECFA）之後擴大了臺灣的外交空間，這是拓展臺灣國際貿易關係的必須，否則，臺灣參與國際的“決心與誠意將受到質疑”。
最後記者切入馬英九是否期待與中共領導人習近平會晤。馬回答，他認為今年11月在北京舉行、不涉敏感主權議題的亞太經濟合作會議（APEC）是個好時機，不過北京當局已經以雙方領導人“不適合在國際場合”會面為由，迄今無具體答覆。但馬表明，仍會爭取機會。
拒絕認錯
至此，曾經評論馬英九“bumbler”（無能）的《經濟學人》直接以馬英九鬧的“鹿茸”（注）笑話為標題，在〈鹿茸上的困境〉開頭便說，總統府的馬英九看起來光鮮依然，只是回答問題時，似乎已說過很多次似得，耐心中帶著疲憊。馬英九的髮型茂密而油亮，宛如“中國中央政治局的委員”。人在“臺北總統府”的馬英九“仍然像任何一位不願承認自己在政策上有任何根本缺陷的北京領導人”。
文章提到，馬或許將完成“兩岸歷史性和解”當作領導人的責任，希望像孫中山一樣得到兩岸的肯定。但現在，臺灣與中國（共）仍然很遙遠。曾經是國民黨最受歡迎政治人物的馬英九，現在支持度只剩下9%。
儘管馬英九可以為任內簽了多少兩岸協議，大陸遊客增加多少、兩岸班機增加多少、兩岸三地貿易額增加多少等快速一體化資料自豪。《經濟學人》寫到，中國（共）從來沒有掩飾重新吸納臺灣的戰略。中國（共）認為，臺灣的經濟與中國越糾纏不清，對統一的抗拒就越少。像香港一樣，臺灣是中國一個“自主的”區域。屆時不費一兵一卒，臺灣將成為中國的一部份。對此，馬認為“和解”是阻止中共侵略的第一步。
〈鹿茸〉一文提醒，許多人誤以為臺灣政治是爭論統一或獨立；但事實上卻是關於如何“保持現狀”。
折衷路線挫敗
文章提到，馬希望與中共領導人習近平以“經濟體領導人”的身份會晤，然而對中共而言，他們只視臺灣為中國的一個省。中共拒絕馬習會提議，而馬卻認為“不是不可能”。這個背景可以解釋抗議運動對馬而言為何不是一個“小小的地方性困難”。雖然學生使用的手段不民主，學生和民進黨反對的理由也有些也似是而非。但重點是，協議“觸碰到了多數民眾不信任馬英九，以及不信任與中國大陸經濟一體化的脈絡”。
在臺灣，有些人持臺灣終將被美國放棄的悲觀主義，也有主張挑戰中共的冒險主義。馬英九試圖走一條“看似合理的折衷路線”。這條路走了6年，馬自己厭倦了；臺灣民眾也厭倦了他。文末總結，2016年臺灣或許可能選出另一個國民黨總統。不過，即便如此，如果馬英九希望在穩定的兩岸關係中卸任，並且被兩岸及世界承認為“歷史性和平使者”的角色，那他恐怕要失望了。
（注）馬英九3月14日在接見外賓，宣傳《服貿協議》與國際經貿的關係時，以臺灣與新西蘭都生產鹿茸（鹿角）為例，卻將鹿茸解釋為“鹿耳朵裡面的毛”，成為這次爭議的場邊笑談之一，引發不小轟動。
On the
antlers of a dilemma○Economist（2014.03.29）
THE fresh-faced good looks have been lined and
drawn by the cares of office. His
immaculate English is forsaken for the dignity of immaculate Mandarin. Patient replies to questions come wearily, as
if said many times before. Yet, six
years into his presidency, Ma Ying-jeou’s hair remains as lush and jet-black as any Chinese
Politburo member’s. And,
speaking in the presidential palace in Taipei, he remains as unwilling as any leader in
Beijing to admit to any fundamental flaws in strategy.
Perhaps Mr Ma draws inspiration from his
portrait of Sun Yat-sen, founder of his ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT),
and, in 1912, of the Republic of China to which Taiwan’s government still owes
its name. Sun is revered as a
nationalist hero not just by the KMT but, across the Taiwan Strait, by the
Chinese Communist Party too. Mr Ma may also hope to be feted on both sides of the
strait—in his case as a leader responsible for a historic rapprochement.
For now, however, reconciliation between
Taiwan and China remains distant. And Mr
Ma, once the KMT’s most popular politician, is
taunted by opponents as the “9% president”, a reference to his approval
ratings in opinion polls last autumn.
Improving relations with China has
been the central theme of his administration, after the tensions of eight years of rule by the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP), which leans towards declaring formal independence from
the mainland. Mr Ma can boast of 21 agreements signed with China. He reels off
the numbers of two fast-integrating economies: a tenfold increase in six years
in mainland tourists to Taiwan, to 2.85m in 2013; cross-strait flights from
none at all to 118 every day; two-way trade, including with Hong Kong, up to
$160 billion a year.
China’s strategy to reabsorb Taiwan is plain. As the island’s
economy becomes more intertwined with that of the vast mainland, China
thinks, resistance to unification will wane.
Then Taiwan becomes an “autonomous” part
of China—like Hong Kong, though allowed its own army. Taiwan will return to the motherland without resort
to the missiles and increasingly powerful armed forces ranged against it.
But as Mr Ma sees it, cross-strait “rapprochement” is a first
line of defence against Chinese aggression, since “a unilateral move
by the mainland to change the status quo by non-peaceful means would come at a dear price”. Politics in Taiwan is framed as a debate about
independence or unification but is really about preserving the status quo.
The
next step in rapprochement with China would be a meeting between political
leaders. In
February in Nanjing, once the capital of a KMT government of all China,
ministers from China and Taiwan held their first formal meeting since 1949. Mr Ma hoped to meet China’s president, Xi
Jinping, in Beijing this November, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation
(APEC) summit. To accommodate Hong Kong
and Taiwan, APEC’s members are not “countries” but “economies”. So Mr Xi and Mr Ma could meet as “economic
leaders”, sidestepping the tricky protocol that usually dogs relations, with China
viewing Taiwan as a mere province. The
Chinese demurred. But Mr Ma thinks a
meeting somewhere is “not outside the realm of possibility”.
This backdrop explains why a protest movement
against a services-trade agreement with the mainland is more than a little
local difficulty for Mr Ma. Students
occupying parliament have resorted to undemocratic means, and many of the arguments they and the DPP make about the
trade agreement are specious. But
they have tapped a vein of popular mistrust of Mr
Ma and of economic integration with the mainland. A split persists between native Taiwanese, on
the island for generations, and mainlanders, like Mr Ma, whose families came
over as the KMT lost the civil war in the 1940s. Protesters portray Mr Ma as either a mainland
stooge or as clueless and out of touch. In the occupied parliament, student
caricatures give him antlers, a reference to a slip he once made when he
appeared to suggest that the deer-antlers used in Chinese medicine were in fact
hair from the animal’s ears.
Mr Ma says public opinion supports a “Ma-Xi”
summit. Joseph Wu of the DPP, however,
claims such a meeting would actually damage the KMT in the next presidential
election, due in 2016; rather, he says, Mr Ma is trying to leave a personal
legacy. The
DPP’s lead in the polls alarms not just the Chinese government but also America,
which could do without another flare-up in a dangerous region. The stronger China grows, the more Taiwan’s
security depends on commitments from America. It switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing
in 1979, but Congress then passed a law obliging it to help Taiwan defend
itself.
All political lives end…
Mr Ma says relations with America are better than they have ever been at least
since 1979 and perhaps before. Others are doubtful. In all the talk of
America’s “pivot” to Asia, its promises to Taiwan are rarely mentioned. Many in Taiwan paid attention when John Mearsheimer, an American academic,
suggested in the National Interest, a policy journal, that there is “a
reasonable chance American policymakers will eventually conclude that it makes
good strategic sense to abandon Taiwan and to allow China to coerce it into
accepting unification.” For some,
abandonment is a fact of life and unification a matter of time. “No one is on our side strategically,
diplomatically, politically; we have to count on China’s goodwill,” an academic
in Taipei argues.
Mr Ma has tried to steer what seems a sensible
middle course between such defeatism and the adventurism of those in the DPP
who would like to confront and challenge China. But he sounds weary with the effort, and Taiwan’s people seem
weary of him. Their
pragmatism and the DPP’s internecine strife may yet see them elect another KMT
president in 2016. But if Mr Ma hoped to
leave office with cross-strait relations stabilised, and with his own role as
an historic peacemaker recognised on both sides and around the world, he seems likely
to be disappointed.
沒有留言:
張貼留言
請網友務必留下一致且可辨識的稱謂
顧及閱讀舒適性，段與段間請空一行