方恩格专栏》惩处马英九基金会 违背赖总统主张

大陆高校师生访问团1日下午赴台中洲际棒球场,被问及中华队在世界12强棒球赛中夺冠,复旦大学经济学院大四生宋思瑶表示,代表师生访问团祝贺中国台北队,希望大陆和台湾同胞像中信兄弟英文队名中的「Brothers」一样,一起为祖国在棒球领域更上一层楼。

过去一周,台湾发生了三件重要的政治事件。

赖清德总统于520就职后首次出访。可以理解的是,赖和他的团队会希望他的访问顺利,而且台湾媒体和大众的注意力能够每天聚焦在他访问夏威夷、马绍尔群岛、吐瓦鲁、关岛和帛琉的相关报导。

然而,赖总统此行并没有什么「突破」。前总统蔡英文曾于2017年和2019年两次过境夏威夷。2016年蔡总统过境美国曾与众院议长莱恩通电话。因此,赖总统此行与现任众院议长强生以及其他政治人物通话,不算是什么突破。而赖总统与美国前众议院议长裴洛西进行通话也就更不算什么了。与裴洛西2022年访问台北相比,就更没有新闻价值了。

赖总统的此行因碰到美国感恩节周末开始而有点「扣分」。11月30日和12月1日的假日,几位夏威夷政界人士和美国在台协会官员不得不因感恩节而终止休假,只为了参加美国智库东西中心的演讲。

上周另一个重大政治新闻是民进党立法院党团在社群媒体上发表的争议性贴文。这篇贴文发布后不久就被删除。在韩国总统尹锡悦宣布戒严后,它似乎将中国国民党和台湾民众党在立法院的行动与韩国在野党的行动比拟。换言之,民进党的贴文似乎是支持尹锡悦的宣布戒严令。

不难理解,国民党和民众党及其支持者对这篇文章非常反感。如果民进党想了结这件事,发文者公开道歉即可,但相反地,民进党没有面对,只是推给小编,让外界猜测到底谁是谁授意小编。

然而,对笔者来说,本周最大的新闻是马英九基金会邀访的大陆学生代表团马龙等人来访,因为成员宋思瑶的言论引发陆委会的反应。马龙陆生团的宋思瑶回应访问时,祝贺「中国台北」队获得世界棒垒球第12强赛冠军,因不是在国际体育比赛以及台湾在多边组织如APEC中称为「中华台北」而引发争议。

陆委会主委邱垂正表示,政府将对马英九基金会采取行政处分,因为宋思瑶使用「中国台湾」的说法「伤害了台湾人的感情,矮化了台湾,是台湾人民不能接受的。」然而陆委会的反应存在许多问题。

首先,马英九基金会无法监管访问团成员对媒体所说的话。期望马英九基金会限制来访者的言论是不合逻辑的;基金会怎么能这么做?陆委会认为马英九基金会的工作人员真能阻止代表团成员说出他们想说的话吗?限制陆客的言论将违反台湾对言论自由的尊重,也不利于向陆客宣扬台湾价值。另一种做法是禁止媒体向来访的大陆代表团提问,但这会侵犯新闻自由,并引发更多争议。

其次,大陆习惯对台湾参加国际运动比赛时用「中国台北」队来描述台湾队。无论是大陆官方机构发言人、大陆官媒,或是大陆社群媒体平台上的个人评论,「中国台北」都是大陆对台湾的称呼。虽然这不是台湾在国际体育比赛中的官方名称,而且台湾人不喜欢大陆人使用「中国台北」,但毫不奇怪,大陆人即使在访问台湾时也是这样描述。

第三,对马英九基金会的惩处,让人觉得陆委会很容易被一个陆客的一句话吓到。虽然马龙陆生团对台湾的描述在台湾受到不少媒体关注,但现实是,台湾2300万民众不太可能关心宋思瑶所说的话。如果陆委会对宋思瑶的回应只是说「我们不同意」,情况可能会更好。而不是把陆生团对台湾队的描述变成重大政治议题。

第四,让陆委会显得小气、党派化。惩罚马英九基金会看似是惩罚对象,因为马英九是国民党出身,他对两岸关系的看法与陆委会和赖政府的看法不同。换个角度看,如果一个大陆代表团去台湾是受一个与政府关系密切的组织邀请的,而代表团成员也说了宋思瑶所说的同样的话,那么这个组织是否也会受到惩罚呢?

最后,它违背了赖总统呼吁与大陆对话的主张。赖总统在就职演说中表示,中国应该「以对话取代对抗,交流取代围堵」;在国庆讲话中,赖总统说「两岸进行健康有序的对话与交流」。对马英九基金会实施惩罚与赖总统与中国对话的呼吁不相符。

最终如果陆委会对马英九基金会邀请的代表团成员的一句话如此担心,也许今后陆委会应该禁止所有来自大陆的代表团。第一个被禁止的将是来自上海的代表团,他们将于本月访问台北参加即将举行的上海-台北双城论坛。毕竟,那个代表团的成员也可能会用台湾人不喜欢的方式来描述台湾!

(作者为美国共和党前亚太区主席)

This Week’s Biggest Story in Taiwan

By Ross Darrell Feingold

@RossFeingold

This past week there were three important political events in Taiwan.

President William Lai Ching-te made his first overseas trip following his inauguration last May 20th. Understandably, Lai and his aides would hope that his trip will go well, and that the attention of Taiwan’s media and public would report daily on his visits to Hawaii, Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Guam, and Palau.

However, nothing about President Lai’s trip was a “breakthrough”. Former President Tsai Ing-wen transited Hawaii two times, in 2017 and 2019. In 2016 when transiting the United States, President Tsai had a teleconference with the then United States Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan, so it’s not a breakthrough that President Lai had a teleconference with current United States Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson or with other American politicians.

It is also not a breakthrough that President Lai had a teleconference with former United States House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A teleconference with former Speaker Pelosi is not newsworthy when compared to Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in 2022.

President Lai’s trip deserves some “points deduction” for commencing on the weekend of the American holiday of Thanksgiving. On Saturday November 30th and Sunday December 1st, several Hawaii politicians and American Institute in Taiwan officials had to interrupt the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to meet with President Lai, as did the scholars and other friends of Taiwan who attended President Lai’s speech at the East-West Center think tank.

Another big political news story last week was the controversial post on social media by the Democratic Progressive Party Legislative Yuan caucus. The post, which was deleted shortly after it was posted, appeared to equate the actions in the Legislative Yuan of the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Taiwan People’s Party to the reasons South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol disliked the actions of opposition parties in South Korea’s National Assembly. In other words, the post by the Democratic Progressive Party appeared to support President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law.

Understandably, the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Taiwan People’s Party, as well as their supporters, were disgusted by this post. If the Democratic Progressive Party wants to bring this matter to a close, the person who wrote the post might consider a public apology. Instead, the public is only left to guess who the author might be.

However, for this author, the biggest story of the week was the Mainland Affairs Council reaction to the comment made by Song Siyao, a member of the Chinese student delegation hosted last week by the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation. Song Siyao’s transgression was to congratulate the “China, Taipei” team on winning the World Baseball and Softball Confederation Premier 12 championship, instead of calling the team “Chinese Taipei”, Taiwan’s official name in international sports competitions as well as in multilateral organizations that Taiwan participates in such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng 邱垂正 said that the government is to pursue administrative action against the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, because Song Siyao’s use of “China Taiwan” “hurt the feelings of Taiwanese and belittled Taiwan [and] are unacceptable to the public”.

There are many problems with the Mainland Affairs Council reaction.

First, the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation cannot police what the members of the visiting delegation said to the media. It is illogical to expect the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation to restrict what the visitors say; how could the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation do so? Does the Mainland Affairs Council think that Ma Ying-jeou Foundation staff can really stop the delegation members from saying what they want to say? Restricting what the visitors from China say would violate Taiwan’s respect for free speech, and would be inconsistent with teaching visitors from China what Taiwan’s values are. An alternative approach would be to ban the media from asking the visiting Chinese delegation any questions, but this would violate freedom of the press, and lead to more controversy.

Second, describing teams from Taiwan that compete in international sports competitions as “China, Taipei” is the description used in the mainland. Whether spokespersons from China’s government agencies, in China’s state-controlled media, or on China’s social media platforms in comments by individuals, “China, Taipei” is the description for Taiwan that is used in China. Although it is not Taiwan’s official name in international sports competitions, and people in Taiwan dislike when people in China use “China, Taipei”, it comes as no surprise that someone from China used this description, even when visiting Taiwan.

Third, issuing a punishment to the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation makes it appear that the Mainland Affairs Council is easily frightened by what one person from China said. Although Ma Long’s description of Taiwan received a lot of media attention in Taiwan, the reality is that it is unlikely that 23,000,000 people in Taiwan care what Ma Long said. The Mainland Affairs Council might be better off if its response to Ma Long was to simply say “We disagree!” rather than to turn Ma Long’s description of Team Taiwan into a major political issue.

Fourth, it makes the Mainland Affairs Council look both petty and partisan. Punishing the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation seems like it is a target for punishment because Ma Ying-jeou is from the Chinese Nationalist Party and his views on cross-straits relations are different from the Mainland Affairs Council and the Lai Administration’s views. To look at this another way, if a delegation from China to Taiwan was invited by an organization close to the government, and a delegation member said the same thing as Ma Long said, would that organization also be punished?

Finally, it goes against President Lai’s call for dialogue with the mainland. President Lai, in his Inaugural Address said China should “choose dialogue over confrontation, exchange over containment,” and in his National Day address, President Lai called for “healthy and orderly dialogue and exchanges between the two sides of the strait”. Imposing a punishment on the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation would be inconsistent with President Lai’s call for dialogue with China.

Ultimately, if the Mainland Affairs Council is so concerned about one statement by a member of the delegation hosted by the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, perhaps going forward the Mainland Affairs Council should simply ban all delegations from China. The first one to ban would be the delegation from Shanghai that will visit Taipei for the upcoming Shanghai-Taipei forum this month. After all, a member of that delegation might also describe Taiwan in a way that people in Taiwan dislike!

(作者为美国共和党前亚太区主席)