Like the wayward ship in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Taiwan’s ship of state remains trapped in the doldrums. Here, the fault for the ship’s position is not linked to the death of an albatross; it is clearly that of its captain, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
In Vietnam, Taiwanese businesspeople are suffering because they are mistaken for Chinese. Ma and his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have done little to erase this misconception. To the contrary he has constantly tried to convince others and Taiwanese themselves that they are joined to China under a Zhonghua minzu (Chinese ethnic group, 中華民族) banner. The situation in Vietnam is one of the unforeseen consequences of such efforts.
On the home front, after six years, the economy is still stagnant and again it is Ma’s myopic vision that is the root cause. He thinks that only China, which Taiwanese have already poured more than their fair share of capital into via investments, can rescue Taiwan. As all these difficulties mount the chief problem that Taiwanese now face is how to survive the remaining two years of Ma’s presidency with as little damage as possible.
Soul searching is in order. It is in order for all Taiwanese since they face the crucial elections in November and those for the presidency and Legislative Yuan in 2016. There can be little doubt that Ma, the incompetent, the Bumbler, is a flim-flam man. One need only observe how Ma’s spin-doctors and public relations pundits boast that he has completed more than 94 percent of his campaign promises — contrast that figure then with his approval rating of 9 percent. It provokes some obvious questions.
Does Ma believe Taiwanese are gullible fools? Were 94 percent of Ma’s campaign promises such that he would simply show up for work in the morning and therefore his promises would be fulfilled? Or were the remaining 6 percent of unfulfilled campaign promises so crucial that 91 percent of the public could not give him an approval rating?
Regardless of the spin, the public has to face the fact that Ma was elected twice as mayor and twice as president. Soul searching is therefore in order by the electorate.
The old adage rings true: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Ma has fooled the electorate not just once, but so many times that they must bear some responsibility. Ma’s incompetence is not a sudden occurrence. One might blame the Peter Principle and say that it was only when he finally rose to his highest level of incompetence that his facade crumbled, but that is too easy an answer.
Still, wherever the blame lies, it is water under the bridge; the damage has been done and the more important question now is how Taiwan can salvage Ma’s final two years and face the coming elections.
In this, Ma’s character must be addressed. Where does the heart of this lame duck really lie? Taiwan has just witnessed how Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), a man who has dedicated his life to Taiwan, went on a hunger strike because of his belief that the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) was a threat to the nation.
Lin’s beliefs appear well founded since no one in Ma’s government, despite the KMT majority vote, wants to take responsibility for choosing to continue construction of the plant. However, putting aside the issue of nuclear power for the moment, Lin was prepared to die for Taiwan.
So what of Ma? Can anyone imagine an issue that the flim-flam man, Ma, would actually go on a hunger strike for to preserve Taiwan? Unification with China would seem to be the only issue that would touch Ma’s heart, but not something to do with Taiwan.
In the current situation, Taiwanese problems with mistaken identity in Vietnam are clearly because of the Ma administration’s insistence on the bogus “1992 consensus” — that there is only “one China” with different interpretations. Ma likewise insists on keeping the name of the Republic of China with its outdated 1947 Constitution.
The rest of the world, however, has a totally different policy and view of the situation to Ma. For it, there can only be a single China, just as there can only be one of anything. This does not mean that Taiwan is a part of China, but that if Taiwan wants to join the UN or have any international recognition, this mid-sized nation has to do it under a different name than the Republic of China. Ma will not face that fact.
So what paradigms does Ma operate under and where is his heart? The answers to these questions raise more questions, such as where will Ma go when he retires in two years?
Despite all his Zhonghua minzu claims, he will not be welcome in China unless he brings Taiwan as a Quisling-like gift. Would he stay in Taiwan like former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝)? Such chances are minimal. Disliked by many even in his own party — he did, among other things, try to throw Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) out on his ear — and lacking a strong Taiwanese identity like Lee, Ma could easily become a pariah.
Ma could go to Hong Kong, where one daughter is, or he to the US. In that country, there is a precedent. Chang Hsueh-liang (張學良), the ringleader of the 1936 Xian Incident, surprisingly chose to end up in the US. Chang certainly was someone who wanted to be a hero of unification. Court-martialed after the Xian Incident, he found himself spending 53 years under house arrest, the majority of the time in Taipei, since the KMT government made sure to bring him along when it retreated to Taiwan. Freed in 1990, three years after martial law was lifted, and free to find a place to retire, Chang chose Hawaii instead of a hero’s welcome in China.
Ma will be much younger than Chang when it is decision time and he may have other options, but wherever he goes, the flim-flam man will be running out of people to fool.
In Taiwan certainly, awareness of Ma’s deception is increasing. Ma consistently states that he will not move the nation closer to China unless the people wish it. Yet despite these statements, having only a 9 percent approval rating and the recent Sunflower movement clearly stating that it demands a slowing down and backing off from ties with China, Ma is still moving in the opposite direction.
To paint Ma as an Ah-Q-like figure would almost be an insult to Ah-Q; Ma is far more calculating. This is what Taiwanese must fully realize and assess. They need to constantly question where Ma’s heart is, and what must be done in damage control. The next two years will not be easy.
Jerome Keating is a commentator in Taipei.
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