The BBC's April 5, 2023 [Is Taiwan in danger of being loved to death?](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65160872) includes the following:

>Meanwhile the Communist Party of China has mounted its own charm offensive, **by inviting President Tsai's predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, to tour the mainland.**
>
>Mr Ma went on an unprecedented five-city tour, ostensibly to pay homage to his ancestors. He has indeed visited their graves in central China. But the trip is also political. **In fact, it's the first time a former president of Taiwan has ever been invited to the People's Republic of China since its founding in 1949.**
>
>"Beijing is trying to soften the tone towards Taiwan... winning more hearts and minds, and also avoiding a surge of Taiwanese nationalism during the [2024] presidential campaign," Mr Sung says.
>
>Mr Ma's visit, he adds, provided the necessary "political cover" to do that.
>
>**When he landed in Nanjing last week, Mr Ma made a strikingly political speech: "The people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese. And both are descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors."**
>
>"Beijing is being nice to Ma Ying-jeou because he represents capitulation," Prof (William Stanton<sup>1</sup>, former director of the American Institute in Taiwan<sup>2</sup>) says. **"He says 'we are all Chinese'.** That's something he and the Chinese agree on, but it's not something the Taiwanese agree on."
>
>The risk in Mr Ma's strategy is that more than 60% of Taiwan's residents, according to surveys, describe themselves as Taiwanese, and not Chinese.

The last sentence is an oversimplification of an oversimplification of a false choice; in my experience someone walking up to you in Taiwan and asking for a one word answer to "Are you Taiwanese or Chinese" is pretty much considered laughable either in its naivety, or its nature as a "trick question"<sup>3</sup>.

Nonetheless, 'we are all Chinese' would certainly be a heavily loaded statement for a former president of Taiwan to make (per Prof. Stanton's likely informed paraphrasing) in a speech in Nanjing as an invited guest of Beijing.

**Question:** What exactly did former Taiwan president [Ma Ying-jeou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Ying-jeou) say in his "strikingly political speech" in Nanjing? Is there a source with a reliable Mandarin to English translation that captures the necessary subtleties and nuances to understand what he *really said?*

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 - <sup>1</sup>[William A. Stanton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_A._Stanton) (also [here](https://www.ait.org.tw/former-ait-director-william-a-stanton-tenure-2009-2012/))
 - <sup>2</sup>[American Institute in Taiwan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Institute_in_Taiwan)
 - <sup>3</sup>As a loose analogy<sup>4</sup>, imagine walking up to someone in the [New York City St. Patricks Day Parade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_St._Patrick%27s_Day_Parade) and asking them "Are you American or Irish?"
 - <sup>4</sup>I said "loose analogy". Of course it's different. Analogies have to be by definition *different*, they can't be the same thing.