On the eve of the second anniversary of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) inauguration, Taiwan Thinktank released the results of a public opinion poll showing that his approval rating stood at a mere 32.1 percent, while 58.6 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with his performance. The top reason cited for their dissatisfaction was Ma’s “pro-China policies and neglect of national sovereignty.” This was followed by a “poor economy” and “failure to care for the general public.” The results of the opinion poll show a fundamental flaw in Ma’s policymaking.
The government is leaning toward China not only because of Ma’s personal ideology, but also because of his belief in the “one China” paradigm, which has limited his perspective and even distorted his understanding of reality.
The “one China” paradigm has led him to believe that China’s economy can develop independently of the world economy and that, so long as Taiwan’s economy is integrated with China’s, Taiwan will become “a little giant by standing on the shoulders of the great giant.”
As early as 2007 or 2008, there were already special media reports describing how the financial crisis adversely affected Taiwanese businesspeople in China. However, Ma chose to ignore them and continued to praise reliance on China, saying there was nothing to fear from the global financial crisis, and campaigned for office with his famous “6-3-3” policy (annual GDP growth of 6 percent, annual per capita income of US$30,000 and an unemployment rate of less than 3 percent). He also promised that business in Kaohsiung would take off as soon as direct links were established and that China’s policy of encouraging people living in rural areas to purchase household appliances would help Taiwan ride out the economic storm.
However, because of its blind belief in the “one China” paradigm, the government does not seem to care that these election promises have failed one after the other, and that its credibility is shot.
Believing that economics is the only solution, the government has overwhelmingly increased its stake in China. Despite the fact that unemployment has risen as a result of the “active opening up” policy initiated by former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration in 2001 — creating a business model through which Taiwanese companies receive orders in Taiwan but manufacture the products in China, leading to a flood of Taiwanese businesses relocating to China over the past 10 years — the Ma administration has continued to blindly push this policy.
In order to pander to Beijing and increase Taiwan’s economic reliance on China, the government has repeatedly compromised Taiwan’s sovereignty. When Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) visited Taiwan two years ago, clashes erupted as police chased after Taiwanese to stop them from displaying the national flag. The Presidential Office then declared a diplomatic truce, which placed cross-strait relations above diplomacy and promoted the idea that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are two regions of the same country.
When Typhoon Morakot hit in August last year, the government refused to allow US helicopters to take part in rescue efforts because it was afraid of antagonizing China. Through all these events, Ma has never been able to explain to the public whether he is the president of a sovereign country or the leader of a Chinese satellite state.
Improvements in cross-strait relations are a good thing and have met approval in Taiwan, but kowtowing so readily to Beijing has also raised public concern and increasingly strained government credibility.
It seems the three issues causing the most public discontent are all closely related to the “one China” approach. Unless the government can bring about a paradigm shift, it will not be able to resolve the credibility crisis for the remainder of Ma’s presidency.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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