OCT. 31, 2014
President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan at the presidential palace in Taipei on Friday. Credit Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times
TAIPEI, Taiwan — President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan risked antagonizing Beijing on Friday by voicing support for protesters in Hong Kong and for greater democracy in mainland China even as he sought further free-trade agreements with the mainland.
“If mainland China can practice democracy in Hong Kong, or if mainland China itself can become more democratic, then we can shorten the psychological distance between people from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait,” Mr. Ma said in an interview at the presidential palace here.
The president’s public pronouncements on the Hong Kong protests — he also expressed support for them in a televised speech on Taiwan’s National Day, Oct. 10 — show a greater willingness lately to speak out on a delicate issue for the Chinese leadership. But Mr. Ma was quick to point out that he had issued an annual statement to mourn the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, and that China had not made those statements an obstacle to improving relations.
“I think our support of Hong Kong’s democracy will not be at the expense of cross-strait relations,” he said.
Mr. Ma drew a distinction between his support for the protests in Hong Kong and his condemnation of student protests in Taipei last spring that indefinitely delayed one of his free-trade agreements with the mainland.
He suggested that the protests in Taiwan, involving the temporary seizing of the legislature and the main government office building, had been more violent than the demonstrations in Hong Kong, where the authorities contend that protesters had kicked police officers and poked them with umbrellas.“There is absolutely no contradiction, as I support democracy but oppose violence,” Mr. Ma said.
Mr. Ma repeatedly signaled the delicate balancing act he must strike as the leader of a longtime American ally that has more trade with mainland China than anywhere else, and which has long been viewed by Beijing as a province that must be eventually brought under its control.
In recent weeks, China’s president, Xi Jinping, has taken a somewhat tougher stance toward Taiwan, suggesting it adopt a relationship to China similar to Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” model. Mr. Ma on Friday roundly rejected that idea.
Mr. Ma expressed a desire for Taiwan to play a more visible role in preserving peace in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, even while chafing at the fact that the mainland authorities had not invited him to the coming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting in Beijing.
