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
The US Senate’s passage of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which urges Taiwan’s inclusion in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise and allocates US$1 billion in military aid, marks yet another milestone in Washington’s growing support for Taipei. On paper, it reflects the steadiness of US commitment, but beneath this show of solidarity lies contradiction. While the US Congress builds a stable, bipartisan architecture of deterrence, US President Donald Trump repeatedly undercuts it through erratic decisions and transactional diplomacy. This dissonance not only weakens the US’ credibility abroad — it also fractures public trust within Taiwan. For decades,
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
The ceasefire in the Middle East is a rare cause for celebration in that war-torn region. Hamas has released all of the living hostages it captured on Oct. 7, 2023, regular combat operations have ceased, and Israel has drawn closer to its Arab neighbors. Israel, with crucial support from the United States, has achieved all of this despite concerted efforts from the forces of darkness to prevent it. Hamas, of course, is a longtime client of Iran, which in turn is a client of China. Two years ago, when Hamas invaded Israel — killing 1,200, kidnapping 251, and brutalizing countless others
Taiwan’s first case of African swine fever (ASF) was confirmed on Tuesday evening at a hog farm in Taichung’s Wuci District (梧棲), trigging nationwide emergency measures and stripping Taiwan of its status as the only Asian country free of classical swine fever, ASF and foot-and-mouth disease, a certification it received on May 29. The government on Wednesday set up a Central Emergency Operations Center in Taichung and instituted an immediate five-day ban on transporting and slaughtering hogs, and on feeding pigs kitchen waste. The ban was later extended to 15 days, to account for the incubation period of the virus
RSS