The highly regarded US magazine Foreign Policy has published an article claiming that Beijing is working to prop up President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and help him to stay in power.
The article — under the headline “Can Beijing Save the Taiwanese President?” — was written by Nicholas Consonery, an Asia analyst with the Eurasia Group, a New York-based political risk research and consulting firm.
Consonery wrote that Beijing and Taipei will “work feverishly” over the next six months to expand economic ties “in the hope” of strengthening Ma’s domestic standing and stopping a rebound by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Consonery, who specializes in Chinese banking and financial policy, said Ma was a “relative darling” in Beijing when he was elected last year because he had vowed to focus on the economics of cross-strait relations while avoiding politics.
“Beijing was happy to accommodate this approach because it coalesced with the leadership’s broader plan to secure sovereignty over the island through gradual economic integration,” Consonery said.
He added that Ma’s recent political troubles, particularly his mishandling of the Typhoon Morakot disaster, have left him vulnerable and that Beijing fears his re-election prospects in 2012 may be imperiled.
“Certainly things seem to be trending downward for Ma and his Kuomintang [Chinese Nationalist Party] (KMT) ... and based on recent experience, Beijing dreads a resurgence of the more confrontational DPP,” Consonery wrote.
As a result, the article says, China will be handing out economic concessions to Taiwan in the next six months “hoping that they will bolster Ma’s prospects.”
Consonery predicts Ma will “happily accept” these concessions to regain political strength by improving commercial ties with China.
On the other hand, Consonery said, Ma recognized that the DPP’s growing strength would make concessions to China more contentious and he will want to accomplish as much as possible this year.
The article concludes that the DPP could secure one-quarter representation in the legislature in the next few months, giving it more leverage in combating the KMT’s majority coalition. This in turn could lead to the sort of infighting that would dominate domestic news and pull Ma away from his strategic and economic goals.
And that, Consonery wrote, would cause “more than a little heartburn in Beijing.”
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