Opinion | Taiwanese leaders’ duelling trips offer lessons in an age of great power struggle
- The timing seemed like a choreographed play to reach out to two competing powers whose interaction has a huge impact on the island’s fortunes
- Former leader Ma Ying-jeou’s historic mainland visit could temper Beijing’s response to Tsai Ing-wen’s crucial US stopovers
Tsai and Ma come from the two dominant parties in Taiwanese politics, which represent diverging views on how to chart the self-ruled island’s future. Their duelling visits are likely to sharpen the political divide in the run-up to elections early next year, and be parsed for signals given rising cross-strait tensions and the role Taiwan plays in global technology supply chains.
The timing seemed like a choreographed play to reach out to two competing powers whose interaction has a huge impact on the island’s fortunes. Taiwan’s first female president crossed the Pacific on Wednesday for a 10-day trip to four cities in the Americas, while veteran leader Ma began a 12-day tour of five mainland Chinese cities on Tuesday.
Many consider Tsai’s trips to Guatemala and Belize mere sideshows to her US layovers. But Washington was not on Tsai’s itinerary, nor was Beijing on Ma’s. Taipei played down Tsai’s US transits as routine, while Ma’s camp tried to depoliticise his visit, stressing its private nature.
