Why is former Taiwan president Ma's trip to China alarming news?

Hitler claimed Austria was politically so unstable Vienna's authority had become unsustainable. He asserted that a civil war was going to break out in Austria and its sovereignty was doomed to be annihilated unless Nazi Germany intervened. In other words, Hitler established a narrative that Austria's sovereignty was sustainable only when both Austria and Germany were unified as the Greater Germanic Reich.

Decades on from Hitler, Vladimir Putin applied the same rhetoric in an even more articulate way.

Lessons from Putin's "Special Military Operation"

Railing against Ukraine as a failed state, Putin has repeatedly said that "Ukraine is not a real country" for years. In July 2021, Putin openly stated that "Ukraine's true sovereignty is possible only in partnership with Russia." Seven months later, Russia launched the "special military operation" invading Ukraine. The rest is history.

Putin has shown the world a textbook example of how an invader justifies an attempted annexation by claiming that it was for the sake of making the neighboring country's sovereignty meaningful.

Ma's China narrative puts Taiwan at risk

When Ma was in China congratulating himself on his China narrative, Taiwan's current president Tsai Ing-wen was in the United States meeting the US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and a bipartisan group of US lawmakers. This meeting between Tsai and the US leading politicians highlights that the ties between two counties are strong and Taiwan's sovereignty is recognised by the international community. "The friendship between the people of Taiwan and America is a matter of profound importance to the Free World," said McCarthy. Tsai emphasized that Taiwan was "not isolated."

Tsai was criticized by Beijing as the enemy of China. On 6th April, the PRC's Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced that Tsai "supported and encouraged" the "separatist rhetoric and activities in Taiwan for 'Taiwan independence'". The statement emphasized that "'Taiwan independence' and cross-Strait peace and stability are as irreconcilable as fire and water." In other words, Tsai was warned not to touch the red line or there would be war.

The PRC accuses Tsai of being behind the Taiwan independent movement. By the PRC's logic, Tsai is destroying the ROC because Taiwan's independence would inevitably imply a change of its official name, potentially "Republic of Taiwan" instead of the "ROC". Therefore, whatever Tsai was doing to expand Taiwan's international space for Taiwan could be interpreted as imposing existential threats to the ROC. That was an opening for the CCP's rhetoric for annexing Taiwan to evolve into the narrative: The ROC's sovereignty could avoid annihilation only if the PRC intervened and helped to crack down on the Taiwan independence movement.

To annex a country is to ensure its sovereignty to avoid annihilation ­– Hitler's rhetoric, Putin's rhetoric. For sure, it's tempting for the CCP to duplicate the rhetoric in its propaganda aimed at taking possession of Taiwan. That Ma's ROC comments met with no backfire from the PRC indicates that the CCP is stepping up the political (and potentially military) warfare for the annexation of Taiwan. That's an alarming development for all actors in the Indo-Pacific region, including Australia.