209 Global News Post 3

This article, written by Oiwan Lam and posted to GlobalVoices, discusses former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s upcoming visit to mainland China. This visit is significant because it is the “first cross-strait visit by a former or current top leader of the island since 1949” (Lam). Many speculations are being made about this visit because it comes just before the 2024 Taiwanese presidential elections in January 2024. The article features several perspectives offered in the form of Twitter posts, with one from Chris Horton, a journalist, noting that the official Ma is meeting with is “reportedly crafting Beijing’s philosophical justification for destroying Taiwanese sovereignty” (Horton). This is obviously quite different than the language pro-China sources would use. There is also a graphic attached to a Tweet that supposedly was released by the KMT, the opposition party to Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which aims to clear up the nature of the visit. It claims it will be focused on students, academic exchanges, and worship of ancestors, and not Beijing, political dialogue, or compromising of dignity, as seen below.

Being produced by the KMT, which is also who Ma Ying-jeou represented as President, the graphic was likely designed with the purpose of calming down the opposition to the visit, mainly the DPP and foreign spectators. Also worth noting is Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s upcoming visit to America, which China opposes (Lam). This all creates an interesting dynamic to play out as the Taiwanese Presidential election nears closer.

Source(s):

Lam, O. (2023, March 22). Taiwanese ex-president Ma Ying-jeou’s visit to China sparks speculation. GlobalVoices. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://globalvoices.org/2023/03/22/taiwanese-ex-president-ma-ying-jeous-visit-to-china-sparks-speculation/