How Many Chinas Are There?

When is an international flight not just an international flight? That’s what the Taiwanese are wondering, as President Ma Ying-jeou finds himself in hot water for characterizing flights between Taiwan (officially, the Republic of China, or ROC) and mainland China as domestic routes. It appears to have been an offhand remark; at a meeting of the Central Standing Committee of his Chinese Nationalist party (better known as the Kuomintang, or KMT) last month, President Ma, while discussing the aviation industry, tossed off a line likening cross-strait flights to domestic flights in the United States. But it fits a long-established pattern. Indeed, his comments came on the heels of a speech Ma gave a few days earlier in which he said that relations between China and Taiwan are “not international relations.”