While campaigning in Yilan ahead of this Saturday’s local government elections, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) broke a ban on publicly discussing election-related opinion polls when he mentioned support figures for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidates and those for the opposition.
Since taking control of both the executive and the party, Ma’s behavior has become increasingly irresponsible. If voters do not teach him a lesson in the elections and allow the KMT to emerge unscathed from these blunders, Ma is likely to pay even less attention to public opinion in future.
Since Ma is so fond of referring to opinion polls, let us take a look at another one.
A poll conducted by the Program for Globalization Studies at National Taiwan University tells us that 60 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with the performance of Ma’s administrative team. This included many of his supporters who voted for him in the presidential election last year. Despite his poor performance, the failure to fulfill campaign promises (“Ma will turn things around right away”) and of his 6-3-3 policy, high unemployment and salaries dropping to levels not seen in 13 years, Ma is still stumping for KMT candidates around the country.
Doesn’t he know that many of the party’s candidates are trying to avoid a “box office flop” like his?
In addition, the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission’s (RDEC) list of the top 15 public complaints include rampant telephone and Internet scams, high unemployment, high consumer prices, high housing prices in urban areas and food safety. These complaints are the result of Ma’s neglect of the domestic economy and living standards in favor of an all out effort to connect Taiwan with China.
Despite these complaints, Ma is still going to recognize Chinese degrees and allow Chinese students to study in Taiwan while ignoring the risks that this will create for Taiwanese seeking employment.
Ma is also allowing Chinese to invest in the Taiwan stock market and the real estate sector, further exacerbating already high consumer and housing prices. The signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA), meanwhile, will create dangerous dependence on China.
So what if the RDEC conducted a survey on public complaints? Ma, who always claims to treat the public hardships as his own, does not really respect public opinion, nor is he bothered by some top 15 list of public complaints.
The real problem, what we should really worry about, is at the source of these complaints — Ma belittling Taiwan’s sovereignty, his China slant, as well as economic and trade policies that will compound an already dangerous reliance on China.
In the past year, Ma’s pro-China policies have ignored the needs and fears of Taiwanese while benefiting a few pro-China conglomerates.
The result? The great majority of us are victims.
Ironically, in the long term the Taiwanese firms that for the moment appear to benefit from Ma’s policies will lose out if China assumes control of Taiwan.
The poll by the Program for Globalization Studies underscores the assault on Taiwanese democracy. Ma, who was appointed by the public, is harming the country and its people to serve the selfish agenda of a few greedy individuals.
Still, there is reason for optimism. For more than a year, Ma has been unflagging in his efforts to create the conditions for the “eventual unification” sought by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and his clique. Amid this, the poll shows that 44.78 percent of respondents want a perpetual “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait; 29.97 percent want to maintain the “status quo” and move toward independence at some point in future; and 9.11 percent want to declare independence as soon as possible. In sum, 83.86 percent of respondents are against unification.
During the presidential election campaign, Ma pretended to embrace mainstream opinion by claiming that Taiwan’s future must be decided by the 23 million Taiwanese, without Chinese interference, and that he would continue Taiwan’s efforts to join the UN as this aspiration is shared by the great majority of Taiwanese. As with everything else, however, Ma’s promises were meaningless.
This nation cannot afford to allow a fraudster like Ma, whose credibility is in tatters, continue with his cheating ways. Ma, as well as those in his administration who support his policies, can be taught a lesson on Saturday.
A resounding defeat could provide the kind of jolt that will make him sit up and realize that he’s gone too far, that Taiwanese will not allow him to flush this beautiful country down the drain.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
China badly misread Japan. It sought to intimidate Tokyo into silence on Taiwan. Instead, it has achieved the opposite by hardening Japanese resolve. By trying to bludgeon a major power like Japan into accepting its “red lines” — above all on Taiwan — China laid bare the raw coercive logic of compellence now driving its foreign policy toward Asian states. From the Taiwan Strait and the East and South China Seas to the Himalayan frontier, Beijing has increasingly relied on economic warfare, diplomatic intimidation and military pressure to bend neighbors to its will. Confident in its growing power, China appeared to believe
Taiwan-India relations appear to have been put on the back burner this year, including on Taiwan’s side. Geopolitical pressures have compelled both countries to recalibrate their priorities, even as their core security challenges remain unchanged. However, what is striking is the visible decline in the attention India once received from Taiwan. The absence of the annual Diwali celebrations for the Indian community and the lack of a commemoration marking the 30-year anniversary of the representative offices, the India Taipei Association and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center, speak volumes and raise serious questions about whether Taiwan still has a coherent India
Recent media reports have again warned that traditional Chinese medicine pharmacies are disappearing and might vanish altogether within the next 15 years. Yet viewed through the broader lens of social and economic change, the rise and fall — or transformation — of industries is rarely the result of a single factor, nor is it inherently negative. Taiwan itself offers a clear parallel. Once renowned globally for manufacturing, it is now best known for its high-tech industries. Along the way, some businesses successfully transformed, while others disappeared. These shifts, painful as they might be for those directly affected, have not necessarily harmed society
Legislators of the opposition parties, consisting of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), on Friday moved to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德). They accused Lai of undermining the nation’s constitutional order and democracy. For anyone who has been paying attention to the actions of the KMT and the TPP in the legislature since they gained a combined majority in February last year, pushing through constitutionally dubious legislation, defunding the Control Yuan and ensuring that the Constitutional Court is unable to operate properly, such an accusation borders the absurd. That they are basing this
RSS