Ma Ying-jeou: The Harvard Doctor of Law Who Entered Chiang Ching-kuo's Office as an English Interpreter, Served Eight Years as a President Grounded in a "Clean" Image, and Left Behind Cross-Strait Policy, the Sunflower Movement, and 22K

30-second overview: Ma Ying-jeou (born in British Hong Kong in 1950) was the twelfth and thirteenth president of the Republic of China (2008-2016). During his presidency he brought about ECFA, direct cross-strait flights, and the 80-second handshake at the Ma-Xi meeting on November 7, 2015; he also left behind 22K, the low-wage starting point an entire generation of young people still remembers, the Sunflower Movement, and the record-low 9.2% Era News poll. After leaving office, he visited China twice, in 2023 and 2024. At the second Ma-Xi meeting in Beijing on April 10, 2024, he misspoke, saying "Republic of China" when he meant "Chinese nation," then immediately corrected himself. In May 2026, after family members petitioned for a declaration of assistance, Ma himself filmed a response: "Counselor, can this prove that I do not have dementia?" Ten years after leaving office, he was still in the headlines. His "clean" image, international outlook, controversial decisions, and post-presidency controversies continue to exist in different proportions in different Taiwanese minds. Under the news of his passing on May 22, two camps of comments also followed: one emphasizing his integrity, self-discipline, and cross-strait icebreaking; the other questioning whether records such as the special allowance case, the Ma-Wang political struggle, the suppression of the Sunflower Movement, and his retreat into a non-stick posture should be covered over by the word "clean."

At 3 p.m. on November 7, 2015, in front of a yellow backdrop on the lobby level of the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, yellow symbolizing the descendants of Yan and Huang, Ma Ying-jeou shook hands with Xi Jinping. The two addressed each other as "Mister." Camera flashes went on for 1 minute and 20 seconds¹. This was the first meeting between the top leaders of the two sides since the political division across the Taiwan Strait began in 1949, 66 years earlier.

The same photograph produced two completely different reactions in Taiwan the next day. Kuomintang supporters saw it as a historic achievement that broke the ice across the Taiwan Strait. The Democratic Progressive Party and many young people saw it as a Hong Kongization experiment that conceded subjectivity². Looking back another decade later, the 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition movement added another layer of meaning to the second interpretation; after Lai Ching-te took office in 2024 and tensions in the Taiwan Strait rose, supporters of the first interpretation found their voice again.

To understand why this person can be remembered in both ways at once, we have to begin with an earlier scene. In 1981, a 31-year-old graduate of National Taiwan University's Department of Law had just returned to Taipei from Harvard with an SJD dissertation titled "Trouble Over Oily Waters: Legal Problems of Seabed Boundaries and Foreign Investments in the East China Sea." Chiang Ching-kuo appointed him as the president's English interpreter³⁴.

On the afternoon of November 7, 2015, at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping held a closed-door meeting. Their public handshake lasted 1 minute and 20 seconds, and they addressed each other as "Mister." It was the first meeting between the top leaders of the two sides since the political division across the Taiwan Strait began in 1949, 66 years earlier. Photo: Presidential Office. License via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

The English Interpreter in Chiang Ching-kuo's Office: The Dust-Free Path, 1981-1996

Ma Ying-jeou's official portrait after taking office as the twelfth president on May 29, 2008. Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Presidential Office, Republic of China. License via Wikimedia Commons (Government Website Open Information Announcement)

Ma Ying-jeou was born on July 13, 1950, at Kwong Wah Hospital in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon, British Hong Kong. His father, Ma Ho-ling, was a Kuomintang party worker who rose to become a division director at the Executive Yuan's National Youth Commission and deputy director of the Kuomintang Central Evaluation and Discipline Committee. The urn holding Ma Ho-ling's ashes bore eight characters: "Transform independence toward gradual unification; comprehensively revitalize China"⁵. These eight characters have often been used by outsiders to explain Ma Ying-jeou's cross-strait political choices, though he himself rarely responded to them directly.

His educational path was the standard version for the second generation of Mainlander political elites in that era: Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, National Taiwan University Department of Law, a Kuomintang Sun Yat-sen Scholarship to study in the United States in 1974, an LL.M. from New York University in 1977, and an SJD from Harvard University in 1981⁴. His dissertation dealt with seabed boundaries in the East China Sea and foreign investment disputes around the Diaoyutai Islands. This was both an extension of his participation in the Baodiao movement while studying overseas and the foundation of his later hardline position on Diaoyutai.

After returning to Taiwan in 1981, Ma entered the Presidential Office on the recommendation of Fredrick Chien to serve as Chiang Ching-kuo's English interpreter³. In 1980s Taiwan, this job was a ticket into the political elite. After Chiang died in 1988 and Lee Teng-hui succeeded him, Ma became minister of the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission of the Executive Yuan. He was ordered to establish the Executive Yuan's Mainland Affairs Task Force and served as its executive secretary, later promoting the drafting of the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area and the establishment of the Mainland Affairs Council and Straits Exchange Foundation⁶. The conceptual basis of his later cross-strait line began to take shape at this time.

On February 27, 1993, Ma Ying-jeou became minister of justice⁷. During his tenure, he vigorously promoted anti-gang operations, striking at organized crime and black-gold politics under the banner of "declaring war on organized crime." The media cast him as a "clean and courageous" reformer. The nickname "non-stick pan" began to emerge during this period⁸. In the context of the 1990s, the term was praise, meaning he did not let the dust of political patronage stick to him. By the late 2000s, the context had changed, and it began to carry a negative meaning: that he avoided responsibility and was unwilling to make political judgments. The same term, two periods, two meanings.

📝 Curator's Note
The common account says "non-stick pan" was a personality issue. But if one looks closely at Ma's path from 1993 to 2007 - Chiang Ching-kuo's interpreter, executive secretary for mainland affairs, RDEC minister, justice minister, Taipei mayor - every position was high-exposure, high-prestige, and low in actual responsibility. "Non-stick pan" may have been an actively chosen career strategy rather than a passive personality trait. When he had to be president in 2008 and had to make real political judgments, the dust-free path instead became a burden.

5.22 Percentage Points and a Special Allowance Case: Political Takeoff, 1998-2007

On December 5, 1998, Taipei held its mayoral election. Ma Ying-jeou won 51.13% of the vote (766,377 votes), defeating incumbent mayor Chen Shui-bian's 45.91%. He won by only 78,305 votes, or 5.22 percentage points⁹. This narrow victory rewrote the late-1990s power balance between the Kuomintang's non-mainstream faction (the Taiwanese faction) and mainstream faction (the Mainlander faction), and made Ma Ying-jeou the Kuomintang's next ready candidate after it parted ways with the Lee Teng-hui line.

In 2002, he was reelected Taipei mayor with 64.11% of the vote¹⁰, still the highest vote-share record in Taipei mayoral elections. During his tenure he promoted expansions such as the MRT Muzha Line and Xinzhuang Line, carried out the Keelung River straightening project, and strongly implemented a per-bag garbage fee system. In mid-2000s Taipei, these achievements were things the middle class could discuss with a measure of consensus.

In July 2005, Ma Ying-jeou defeated Wang Jin-pyng with 72.36% of the vote to become Kuomintang chairman¹¹. The Lien Chan era formally ended. But the unresolved resentment left by this intra-party contest between Ma and Wang would, eight years later, turn that September into one of the most dramatic political showdowns in Taiwan's political history.

February 13, 2007, was a scene that can only be described with the words "the same day": in the morning, the Taipei District Prosecutors Office indicted Ma Ying-jeou in the special allowance case under the Anti-Corruption Act; in the afternoon, Ma held a press conference announcing that he was resigning as Kuomintang chairman and running for president in 2008¹². Indicted in the morning, announcing a campaign for the highest political office in the afternoon: this is a certain archetype of the legal professional in politics. Ma's defense strategy was the "large reservoir theory": public and private accounts had been mixed, money is fungible, and as long as total inflows and outflows balanced, no crime had been committed. On August 14, the Taipei District Court acquitted him in the first instance. On December 28, the High Court upheld the acquittal in the second instance.

💡 Did you know? Ma Ying-jeou was indicted three times in his life: the 2007 special allowance case, the 2014 Huang Shih-ming leak case, and the 2017 Three Media case. All three ultimately ended in acquittal. On December 31, 2025, the High Court's second-instance ruling in the Three Media case acquitted Ma Ying-jeou, Chang Che-chen, and Wang Hai-ching; Tsai Cheng-yuan was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months for breach of trust¹³. A legal professional's win rate on the judicial battlefield is completely different from his win rate on the political battlefield.

That July, Ma launched his "Love the Countryside, Move Forward - Long Stay" campaign strategy. The first stop was 18 days in central Taiwan, crossing fishing villages in Yunlin, Chiayi, and Tainan¹⁴. Analysts later often saw this strategy as one of the keys to his 2-million-vote margin in the 2008 election: it made a second-generation Mainlander from Taipei, who had never lived in central or southern Taiwan, stay with local families around the country. But before this strategy would leave him with the harshest criticism eight years later, it first carried him to the presidency.

The Room After the Financial Tsunami: How 22K Became a Ceiling

On March 22, 2008, Ma Ying-jeou and Vincent Siew won 7,659,014 votes (58.45%), defeating Frank Hsieh and Su Tseng-chang, who received 5,444,949 votes (41.55%)¹⁵. This was the highest vote share in a presidential victory since Taiwan's democratization, with a margin of more than 2 million votes. Voters' expectations were clear: set aside political disputes, focus on the economy, and improve cross-strait relations.

In his inaugural address on May 20, 2008, Ma proposed the cross-strait framework of "no unification, no independence, and no use of force," and promised to resume cross-strait negotiations on the basis of the "1992 Consensus." The sentence most often quoted from the original text is: "Ying-jeou firmly believes that the key to the ultimate resolution of cross-strait issues lies not in the dispute over sovereignty, but in way of life and core values"¹⁶.

But what he took on was not just a promise. In September 2008, Lehman Brothers collapsed, and the global financial tsunami arrived. In a September interview with Mexican media, Ma conceded that the "633 platform" he had shouted during the 2008 campaign - average annual economic growth of 6%, unemployment below 3%, and per capita income of US$30,000 by 2016 - could not be fulfilled in the short term because of the financial tsunami¹⁷. By the end of his term, average economic growth was about 2.81% to 3.0%, unemployment was about 4%, and per capita income had not reached US$30,000.

In April 2009, under the impact of the financial tsunami, the Executive Yuan launched the "College Graduates Workplace Internship Program," commonly known as 22K. The government subsidized companies to hire new university graduates, providing a monthly base salary of NT$22,000 per person plus NT$4,190 for labor and health insurance¹⁸. The original intention was to ease unemployment pressure. The actual result was that monthly income for employed workers aged 20-24 fell from NT$23,351 in 2008 to NT$21,685 in 2009, a 7% drop. The program ran in two phases for 2 years and 5 months, from April 2009 to September 2011, and the regulations were not formally abolished until June 3, 2013.

How deeply 22K was related to Ma Ying-jeou's personal decision-making remains a subject of dispute in Taiwan's economics circles.

⚠️ Contested Viewpoints

The "caused" camp (DPP, labor movement, some scholars): The government subsidy amount directly became a "pricing anchor." Companies paid NT$22,000 and did not add more. Wages for workers aged 20-24 fell 7% in 2008-2009, corresponding to the rollout of the program. Real wages in Taiwan were almost stagnant throughout the 2010s. That number does not require interpretation.

The "symptom" camp (KMT, some financial scholars, National Policy Foundation): 22K was temporary relief after the 2008 financial tsunami. Average unemployment fell from 5.85% in 2009 to 4.18% in 2013. The structural decline in wages was the combined result of globalization, China's magnetic pull, and industrial relocation. It is unfair to attribute it directly to a single policy¹⁹.

But even under the symptom camp's acknowledgment of structural factors, it is indisputable that 22K became a generational symbol. University graduates at the time wrote online: "The youth of our generation was used to subsidize that 22K." This sentence was widely reposted on social media and became a shared phrase of generational discontent. This impression lasted far longer than the 22K policy's actual duration, and later became one of the keys to the formation of political consciousness among Taiwan's young generation from 2014 to 2020.

That August, Typhoon Morakot arrived. The August 8 flood disaster caused 681 deaths and 18 missing persons²⁰. Xiaolin Village was buried, with 474 people entombed. The Ma administration's disaster response was criticized as sluggish, and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan's cabinet resigned en masse in early September that year. This was the first major crisis of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency, and the beginning of the shift in his "non-stick pan" nickname from praise to criticism.

ECFA, One Agreement and Two Ledgers: 2010-2013

On June 29, 2010, Straits Exchange Foundation chairman Chiang Pin-kung and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits president Chen Yunlin signed the Cross-Straits Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) in Chongqing²¹. This was the central achievement of Ma Ying-jeou's cross-strait line. Under the early harvest list, China prioritized tariff cuts for 539 Taiwanese goods, while Taiwan gave preferential tariffs to 18 agricultural products from China. On January 1, 2013, tariffs on all listed products were reduced to zero.

Before ECFA was signed, on the afternoon of April 25, 2010, Ma Ying-jeou and Democratic Progressive Party chair Tsai Ing-wen held a televised ECFA debate²². This was the first policy debate between a president of the Republic of China and an opposition party chair. Ma's argument was that ECFA would keep Taiwanese products from being marginalized in the Chinese market when competing with ASEAN Plus One. Tsai's argument was that ECFA would make Taiwan's economic structure overly dependent on China and would sacrifice workers in certain industries, especially traditional manufacturing and agriculture. Looking back ten years later, both sides of that debate were partly right.

ECFA's actual economic effects are still read through two ledgers. The first ledger is the official estimate from the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research's GTAP model: tariff reduction benefits of about NT$30 billion, with GDP projected to increase by 1.65% to 1.72%. The second ledger is the distribution of benefits: the early harvest list mainly benefited large companies in traditional manufacturing, while small and medium enterprises and the service sector felt no dividend. During the same period, Taiwan's trade dependence on China rose from 28.0% in 2010 to 30.5% in 2014, continuing to rise until just before the Sunflower Movement erupted.

📝 Curator's Note
ECFA is a classic "aggregate vs. distribution" example. From a macroeconomist's perspective, the agreement added 1.65% to Taiwan's GDP; from the perspective of factory technicians and farmers, that number had nothing to do with their wages. The cross-strait economic policy of the Ma Ying-jeou era was statistically successful. But the things statistics do not tell you erupted at 9:20 p.m. on March 18, 2014. That night, hundreds of students rushed into the Legislative Yuan chamber.

A Typhoon Night at the Residence and Era News's 9.2% Poll: The 2013 Wang Jin-pyng Case

On January 14, 2012, Ma Ying-jeou won reelection as the thirteenth president with 6,891,139 votes (51.60%), defeating Tsai Ing-wen and Su Jia-chyuan, who received 6,093,578 votes (45.6%)²³.

His second term collapsed from the start. In April 2012, oil prices rose 10.7%, from NT$32.4 to NT$35.5 per liter; in May, electricity prices rose 29.5%. Police estimated 55,000 people took part in the "519 Scold Ma" march²⁴. On April 27, a Taiwan Brain Trust poll found that 44.1% of respondents felt "Taiwan chose the wrong president." Ma had been in office only a little over one year into his second term, and public opinion had already reversed.

On the night of Typhoon Kong-Rey, August 31, 2013, Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming entered the presidential residence to report to Ma Ying-jeou. The subject of the report was that Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng was suspected of lobbying in a judicial case involving DPP legislator Ker Chien-ming; the Special Investigation Division had wiretapped the phone calls. From 11 p.m. to midnight that night, Ma called Huang Shih-ming to question him. On September 1, Huang entered the residence again for a second report. On September 4, Ma suggested that Huang report to Premier Jiang Yi-huah. On September 6, the Special Investigation Division held a press conference and released transcripts of the wiretaps.

On September 8, Ma Ying-jeou held a press conference, with Vice President Wu Den-yih and Premier Jiang Yi-huah beside him. Reporters wrote this passage into history[^25]:

"If powerful people can all lobby and influence the judiciary, can ordinary people still expect the judiciary to safeguard fairness and justice?" "This is the most shameful day in the history of the development of democracy and the rule of law."

On September 11, the Kuomintang's Evaluation and Discipline Committee revoked Wang Jin-pyng's party membership. On September 13, the Taipei District Court granted Wang's NT$9.38 million provisional injunction, preserving his party membership. Ma won the moral high ground and lost his political approval and intra-party unity.

On September 15, 2013, an Era News poll announced that satisfaction with Ma Ying-jeou's governance stood at 9.2%, with dissatisfaction at 80.5%²⁵. This was one of the lowest records for any president since Taiwan's democratization. A TVBS poll in the same period showed 11%. Over the past decade, many media outlets have mistakenly attributed the 9.2% figure to TVBS; the correct source is Era News's survey on September 15 that year.

📝 Curator's Note
The common explanation is that the September political struggle proved Ma Ying-jeou's political judgment was inadequate. A more precise description may be: Ma Ying-jeou fought a political battle with a thoroughly legalistic logic. From a lawyer's point of view, Wang Jin-pyng was suspected of lobbying, there were wiretap recordings as evidence, and revoking his party membership under the party charter was procedurally correct. From a politician's point of view, the cost of this battle was losing the cooperation of the legislative speaker, losing party unity, and losing public support. The limitation of a legal professional entering politics is not that he is insufficiently intelligent; it is that procedural justice and political reality are two different dimensions.

Outside the Sunflower Chamber, 150 Injured in Front of the Executive Yuan: The 2014 Explosion of Civil Society

On March 18, 2014, during the Sunflower Movement, crowds gathered outside the Legislative Yuan. The 318 Sunflower Movement began when students rushed into the chamber at 9:20 p.m. on March 18 and ended when they withdrew on April 10, after occupying the Legislative Yuan for 24 days. Photo: Voice of America. License via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain, U.S. government work by VOA)

On the afternoon of March 17, 2014, Kuomintang legislator Chang Ching-chung, convening member of the Legislative Yuan's Internal Administration Committee, announced in 30 seconds that committee review of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement had been completed²⁶. At 9:20 p.m. on March 18, about 300 students rushed into the Legislative Yuan chamber. On March 30, organizers of the Ketagalan Boulevard anti-service trade march estimated 500,000 participants; police estimated 116,000. Students withdrew on April 10. The service trade agreement has still not completed the legislative process.

The night in the middle was March 23. At 7:35 p.m. that evening, several hundred students attempted to occupy the Executive Yuan. In the early hours of March 24, National Police Agency director-general Wang Cho-chiun reported to Premier Jiang Yi-huah that efforts to persuade the protesters to leave had failed, and Jiang ordered that the dispersal be carried out according to law. Starting at midnight, police launched six waves of forced dispersal, using water cannons and batons. The site was fully cleared by 5 a.m., leaving more than 150 protesters and police injured and bleeding²⁷. After a nine-year investigation, the Control Yuan released a report in 2023 finding that "police agencies carried out the dispersal with violent means exceeding the principle of proportionality," and censured the Executive Yuan, Ministry of the Interior, National Police Agency, Taipei City police, and Taipei District Prosecutors Office.

Jiang Yi-huah later insisted[^29]: "Not only do I not regret it, I feel that I have never made a decision more correct than this one." Regarding accusations of attempted murder, he described them as "malicious distortions of fact, groundless slander, and abusive litigation." Ma Ying-jeou and Jiang Yi-huah were later sued for attempted murder, and were acquitted in the first instance on September 15, 2020.

One of the movement's leaders, Lin Fei-fan, looked back ten years later in 2024 and said[^30]: "The Sunflower Movement told everyone: Taiwan's fate is decided by ourselves. Because we blocked the service trade agreement, the Ma administration could not sign a goods trade agreement, could not sign a military confidence-building mechanism, and could not enter political negotiations with the other side. These are our achievements, the outcomes we created."

Four years later, on December 17, 2018, Ma Ying-jeou himself commented on Sunflower during a speech at Soochow University[^31]: "Some [Sunflower participants] think they love Taiwan, but they are killing Taiwan... They are sinners of Taiwan." "Indulging the failure of the service trade agreement to pass has kept Taiwan stagnant."

The same movement, two completely opposite historical positions. Ten years later, neither side has yielded.

📝 Curator's Note
The story of Sunflower would be too thin if it stopped at "students occupied the chamber, the Ma administration used water cannons to disperse them, and party turnover followed." What truly made this movement a watershed for Taiwan's civil society was what came after: the Sunflower generation supported Tsai Ing-wen's 6.89 million votes in 2016, her 8.17 million votes in 2020, and Lai Ching-te's 5.58 million votes in 2024. When Ma Ying-jeou said in 2018 that "they are sinners of Taiwan," that cohort of 21-year-old students had already become 25-year-olds voting to decide the next president. All the contradictions of an eight-year presidency ultimately became the voter structure for the next three presidential elections.

On March 14, 2014, while receiving Lions Clubs officials, Ma Ying-jeou described velvet antler as "hair inside a deer's ears"²⁸. This gaffe, together with contemporaneous memes such as "Is agei a person's name?" and the "death grip," caused Ma's image among the young generation to collapse completely. Nine months later, on November 29, 2014, the Kuomintang suffered a crushing defeat in the nine-in-one local elections, with the pan-green camp winning 14 cities and counties and the pan-blue camp 8. In Taipei, Ko Wen-je won 853,983 votes (57.16%), defeating Sean Lien's 609,932 votes (40.82%)²⁹. On December 3, Ma Ying-jeou resigned as Kuomintang chairman.

There was still a year and a half left before he would leave the presidency.

From 80 Seconds to 16 Seconds: Two Ma-Xi Meetings and Two Post-Presidency Narratives

On November 7, 2015, Ma Ying-jeou was already a lame-duck president. After the Kuomintang's defeat in the previous year's nine-in-one elections, the party had been reduced to its core support base; after Eric Chu, the party's 2016 presidential candidate, became party chairman, his line had grown distant from Ma's. At this moment, Ma flew to the Shangri-La in Singapore and shook hands with Xi Jinping.

Both sides deliberately addressed each other as "Mister" to avoid formal titles. Ma Ying-jeou's opening remarks laid out five proposals[^34]: "Consolidate the '1992 Consensus' and maintain the peaceful status quo... In November 1992, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait reached a consensus on the 'one China' principle, abbreviated as the '1992 Consensus.' The 1992 Consensus is the shared political foundation for the two sides to promote peaceful development... People on both sides of the Strait belong to the Chinese nation and are all descendants of Yan and Huang; they should help and cooperate with one another and work to revitalize China."

Supporters saw this as the first meeting between the highest leaders on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait since 1949, a historic breakthrough that reduced cross-strait hostility. Britannica writes in its entry on the Ma Ying-jeou presidency[^35]: "The U.S. government was pleased with Ma as president because he reduced tensions in the Taiwan Strait by pursuing cordial relations with Beijing rather than provoking its leaders, and the Taiwan Strait was downgraded from its former status as the foremost flash point in the world."

Opponents saw it as a concession of subjectivity: addressing each other as "Mister" avoided the title "president of the Republic of China," amounting to an implicit acceptance of downgrading; "People on both sides of the Strait belong to the Chinese nation and are all descendants of Yan and Huang" echoed Xi Jinping's "one China" framing. After Hong Kong's anti-extradition movement in 2019, the perspective that "cross-strait economic integration may have been a Hong Kongization experiment" led more people to reinterpret the photograph from November 7, 2015.

On May 20, 2016, Ma Ying-jeou left office and handed power to Tsai Ing-wen. After leaving office, he lost criminal immunity, and the Taipei District Prosecutors Office immediately reopened investigations into 24 criminal cases, including the Huang Shih-ming leak case³⁰.

On July 27, 2018, the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation was established at the Ambassador Hotel in Taipei. Former Kuomintang chairmen including Vincent Siew and Lien Chan attended. The foundation promoted the "Dajiu Academy" youth camp and cross-strait youth exchanges.

From March 27 to April 7, 2023, Ma made his first 12-day visit to China, becoming the first former president to visit China since 1949. On March 28, at Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum in Nanjing, he wrote eight characters: "Strive for peace; revitalize China"³¹. The wreath prepared by the Chinese side referred to him as "former chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang"; Ma referred to himself as "former president." Throughout the trip, he repeatedly mentioned that "the two sides of the Strait both belong to the Chinese nation."

From April 1 to 11, 2024, Ma visited China for the second time. On April 4, he personally paid respects at the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor in Huangling County, Shaanxi - his first in-person ceremony there, after six remote ceremonies in Taipei. He offered flowers on the same stage as the other side's representative Song Tao, ranked fourth in the order. He choked up twice while reading the ritual text³².

At 4 p.m. on April 10, in the East Hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the second Ma-Xi meeting took place. The meeting lasted about one hour. In his remarks, Ma Ying-jeou misspoke, saying "Republic of China" when he meant "Chinese nation," then immediately corrected himself. He quoted Lu Xun's famous line: "After all the trials and tribulations, brothers remain; meeting with a smile, enmity fades." After the meeting, Wang Huning hosted a farewell banquet at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, and Xi Jinping told Ma: "You are welcome to come often in the future"³³.

The handshake at the Shangri-La in Singapore lasted 1 minute and 20 seconds. This one at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing lasted 16 seconds³⁴.

Taiwan society's divisions over this visit to China and Ma's overall post-presidency line continue:

⚠️ Contested Viewpoints

The communication-channel camp: Official cross-strait communication has been suspended since Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016. The Ma Ying-jeou Foundation's "Dajiu Academy" and youth exchanges are one of the few remaining civil-society bridges. The second Ma-Xi meeting in 2024 was scheduled around Lai Ching-te's inauguration (April 10 meeting; Lai took office on May 20) in order to give Beijing a "window"³⁵.

The "selling out Taiwan" camp: The DPP accused Ma Ying-jeou of "openly advocating unification with China." During his 2024 visit to China, he mentioned terms related to unification eight times, betraying the people of Taiwan. Chen Chun-han, chair of the Taiwan Nation Association, criticized him this way: "Ma Ying-jeou's visit to China has sinister intentions... Democratic countries around the world that support Taiwan feel very worried"³⁶.

On May 21, 2026, Ma Ying-jeou's wife, Chow Mei-ching, and elder sister, Ma Yi-nan, issued a joint statement saying they hoped Ma could truly retire and hand foundation affairs over to the board of directors. Ma Yi-nan, through a lawyer, filed a petition with the court for a declaration of assistance, not a declaration of guardianship; the two have different legal effects³⁷.

The next day, May 22, Ma Ying-jeou personally filmed a response, with a handwritten signature on the manuscript. Holding the manuscript toward the camera, he said: "Counselor, can this prove that I do not have dementia?" Of his elder sister, he said: "I live even farther from my eldest sister. We live in Wenshan District, she lives in Neihu District. We probably see each other at most once a month, and are not that close." Of the foundation, he said: "These corrupt criminals must not attempt to use this reason, saying I have dementia, and then do things they should not do."

The context behind the incident was that a three-person investigation team for the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation's "financial discipline case" - with Lee De-wei as spokesperson - was investigating Hsiao Hsu-tsen (the executive director) and Wang Kuang-tzu (the former executive director). Lee's response to the family statement was: "The three-person team's investigation of this case will not stop; it will continue... Ma Ying-jeou's family members coming forward to issue a statement means there are indeed doubts about Ma Ying-jeou's health."

This news story has not yet run its course, and Taiwan society has not yet formed a consensus.

Those 80 Seconds and 16 Seconds, and the Young Man Who Returned to Taipei in 1981

On April 10, 2024, in the East Hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, he misspoke, saying "Republic of China" when he meant "Chinese nation," then immediately corrected himself. Sixteen years earlier, in his inaugural address as the twelfth president, he had written: "Ying-jeou firmly believes that the key to the ultimate resolution of cross-strait issues lies not in the dispute over sovereignty, but in way of life and core values."

On May 22, 2026, in a video, he raised his hand toward the camera and said: "Counselor, can this prove that I do not have dementia?" The 31-year-old young man who returned to Taipei from Harvard in 1981 with an SJD in maritime law and was appointed by Chiang Ching-kuo as his English interpreter was already forty-five years away from that camera.

The 80-second handshake at the Shangri-La in Singapore was 1 minute and 20 seconds. The meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was 16 seconds. The same person, two historical moments, and Taiwan society still remembers him in different ways.

🧬

Further Reading:

• Sunflower Movement — How the chamber occupation from March 18 to April 10, 2014, turned from an anti-service trade movement into Taiwan civil society's coming-of-age ceremony
• Tsai Ing-wen — The successor in power, the opponent in the 2010 ECFA debate, and the integrator of the opposition camp after Sunflower
• Chen Shui-bian — The opponent in the 1998 Taipei mayoral race and the leader of the 2000 party turnover
• Ma Ying-jeou Memes — Velvet antler, lunch boxes, Provence permanent housing, and the death grip: how 19 internet memes became another face of his public image
• Taiwan Strait Crises and the Development of Cross-Strait Relations — The place of the Ma-Xi meeting and ECFA in the long arc of Taiwan Strait relations

Image Sources

This article uses 3 publicly licensed images, all cached under public/article-images/people/ to avoid hotlinking source servers:

• Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping, closed-door meeting at the Shangri-La in Singapore, 2015/11/7 (Flickr Presidential Office photo 22472046408) — Photo: Presidential Office, 2015-11-07, CC BY 2.0
• Ma Ying-jeou's 2008 official portrait as the twelfth president (Wikimedia Commons File:Ma_Ying-jeou_MOFA_Presidential_Portrait_2008.png) — Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Presidential Office, Republic of China, 2008-05-29, Government Website Open Information Announcement (Attribution Only), original source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Yearbook
• Scene outside the Legislative Yuan during the 318 Sunflower Movement (Wikimedia Commons File:Sunflower_movement_legislative_yuan.jpg) — Photo: Voice of America, 2014-03, Public domain (U.S. federal government work)

References