Taiwan's Ma Ying-jeou is learning a very valuable lesson the hard way: If you want to cozy up to China, it's best not to be too Chinese about it.
The point is being driven home by hundreds of thousands of student protesters, enraged by the Taiwanese president's attempt to enact a trade pact with China in the dark of night. The deal to open up the island's service industries is controversial enough. But when Ma reneged on a promise to allow a clause-by-clause review before implementing it, he infuriated the island's youth. Ma seems to have forgotten he's running a democracy, not a Communist Party precinct.
This nascent battle between students and Ma's ruling Kuomintang Party is about more than bank branches and beauty parlors. It's about where Taiwan intends to position itself in the tug of war between Xi Jinping's China and Barack Obama's United States for influence in Asia.