The unpopular president of Taiwan (approval ratings below 20 percent) has found a populist cause to die for—or, rather, to unleash baseball bat-wielding mobs for. The shooting of a 65-year-old Taiwanese fisherman by the Philippine Coast Guard last May 9, in waters the Philippines claims as its own but which Taiwan describes as within “overlapping” exclusive economic zones, has provided Ma Ying-jeou with an excuse to break his reputation for indecisive leadership, and to rally the Taiwanese under a nationalist cause not involving mainland China.
Make no mistake; the killing of the Taiwanese fisherman is a serious matter, and a thorough investigation into the circumstances of his death must be completed. But under the Ma administration, the non-nation of Taiwan thinks it can bully its way to the truth.
Consider, for example, Taipei’s theatrical taking of offense at Manila’s apology for what a de facto Philippine envoy to Taiwan called “the unfortunate and unintended loss of life.” How can the act be unintended, Taiwan countered? “Although the Philippine government issued a formal apology, they also claimed that it was [an] unintended and unfortunate incident,” the new and even more hard-line prime minister, Jiang Yi-huah, said. “We think they are attempting to mitigate the severity of the incident and divert people’s attention. Furthermore, their ambiguous response to our demands shows that they are insincere in their apology.”
This overcritical reading of diplomatic language is a little rich, coming from a country which has been diplomatically isolated for over a generation. (Even though the Philippines, like many countries, enjoys vigorous trade with Taiwan, many other countries, including the Philippines, follow the so-called One-China policy.)
Following Jiang’s lead, President Ma has also used intemperate rhetoric: “If civil servants used automatic weapons to fire at unarmed and provocative fishing boats, this was not carrying out their job duties. This is cold-blooded murder.” In other words, in Taipei’s view: It is okay for the government to jump to the conclusion that the homicide amounted to murder even before concluding any investigation (even Taiwan’s), but not all right for the Philippines to assert (the not-unreasonable assumption) that the loss of life was unfortunate and unintended.
It is precisely accusations like “cold-blooded murder,” and attitudes like Ma’s, that led to the beating up of a Filipino worker by four Taiwanese youths recently—an incident reported on Taiwanese TV.
The reports vary on whether the Taiwanese used a baseball bat or iron bars. But there have been many other cases of harassment or outright violence. Vice President Jejomar Binay told reporters the other day that the Philippine government was monitoring the situation. “We heard and we read in the papers that they have been hit with bats and four have been hospitalized,” he said.
A government task force has been formed to help protect Filipino workers in Taiwan from any further acts of retaliation, but the reality is, it is the Ma administration that must be held responsible for the safety, the personal well-being, of each Filipino residing or working in Taiwan.
Even Ma knows this. At a conference of international scholars, he struck a different and much more conciliatory tone. “We will continue negotiating the issue with the Philippines and I hope everyone can calmly and peacefully resolve the issue to avoid hurting bilateral ties,” he said. He also ordered his government to protect the 80,000-plus Filipinos working in his country.
But where is his condemnation of the brutal baseball-bat beating? Where are his speeches telling his countrymen, as Taiwanese Foreign Minister David Lin told a press conference, that “the Filipino people [are] our friends”? With international audiences in mind, Lin could say: “We call on our people to treat them well, and our government will continue to provide a friendly environment for them.” Where is Ma’s domestic equivalent of a calming-the-waters speech?
This is not to say that the Coast Guard crew involved in the killing are off the hook. We still need to determine whether the force used, given the risks as assessed at that time, was excessive; we also need to find out why the crew did not help the Taiwanese fishermen after the incident.
Taipei is only right to hold us to accepted standards of the international community. By the same measure, we fully expect Ma to keep Filipino workers helping Taiwan’s economy safe.