The days of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) control of indoctrination, propaganda and the media are long gone, but that does not mean that the KMT does not keep influencing Taiwanese voters. Witness Taiwan’s last presidential election, where many sheep-like voters were led to believe that Taiwan’s main problem was its economy and that former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was solely responsible for holding it back.
Some call this response a case of Stockholm Syndrome exhibited through a misguided loyalty resulting from Taiwanese being held hostage for 50 years by KMT one-party rule and indoctrination. Another and simpler explanation is that voters simply failed to do their homework.
At election time, the constant refrain and mantra in Taiwan was: “Our economy is so bad, we need a change.” In reality, with a growth rate of more than 5 percent, Taiwan’s economy was doing much better compared with many other places — and this is where voters first failed at doing their homework. So it was easy for them to be set up by the KMT’s ace flimflam man, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who convinced them to vote for him. Ma promised he would lead Taiwan to catch up with or come closer to the inflated numbers of the People’s Republic of China.
Ma was elected and the corner was supposedly turned. Taiwan was well on its way to the Promised Land. Unfortunately, the TAIEX and economy are immune to flimflam and the economy nosedived. Some began to see the light, but others still listened to the flimflam man. The argument now changed. Before the election, even though the world economy was bad and Taiwan’s economy was fair, it was not a global problem; it was Chen’s fault. When, after the election, Taiwan suddenly discovered that the world economy had been bad all along and when Taiwan’s economy became worse, this was not Ma’s fault, it was a global problem. Logic? No, but that also is not a strong point of many Taiwanese voters.
There were some who sought to defend their choice to vote for Ma; they countered that the real election issue was corruption in Chen’s family, corruption that seemed to be a problem that only afflicted the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma, after all, had been acquitted of corruption. But wait; let’s go back to logic again. After appeals, Ma’s secretary was thrown into jail for misuse of state funds, but it was Ma’s bank account that had increased by more than half a million US dollars.
Wouldn’t one think that the Harvard-educated Ma would ask where that extra half a million in his account came from? Is that not logical?
Further, why would Ma’s secretary go out of his way to cheat people out of half a million dollars and put it in Ma’s bank account? Is that logical? Is it devotion? Or is it simply taking the fall? Still, for Ma’s staunch supporters, the flimflam man was pure as snow.
Let us return to Taiwan’s tanking economy. The ball remains in Ma’s court, so what is he doing? Desperate times call for desperate measures. However, it is not Taiwan’s economy that is really most desperate right now.
What is desperate is Ma’s reputation. His 6-3-3 campaign promise has for all practical purposes been jettisoned barely a month after election. Politicians are generally not expected to be held totally accountable for everything they promise before elections, but bailing out after one month is a bit too soon. This has left Ma with only one card left in his hand: to stake everything on direct links and tourists from China — and do it fast. So with little forethought and hardly a glance at the big picture, Ma has plunged ahead and ignored the risks to the people, the nation and the economy.
The first group of tourists has come with not too much trouble, but there is one hitch: Beijing has demanded that it do the screening and only allowed 1,000 people to visit a day, rather than 3,000. Even 3,000 tourists had raised questions as to whether it would help the economy, but 1,000? It will take a lot of flimflam to make that plausible.
In the meantime, what risks are involved? Health is a big one. The first wave of Chinese tourists was made of wealthy and healthy individuals, but has anyone done their homework on what can happen when the creme de la creme of China have come and gone, only to be replaced by the average Chinese tourist? Does anyone recall when Hong Kong opened up its Disneyland to average Chinese tourists? Not a pretty picture, but homework is a bit too hard, let’s trust the flimflam man.
What other things have been sacrificed with all this focus on getting some people from China here? First, the Taiwanese president who before the election said he would staunchly defend Taiwan’s sovereignty now says he does not mind being called “Mr Ma” rather than “President Ma” by the Chinese — which doesn’t have much of a sovereign ring to it. Could tourism be used as a cover to bring in spies and military personnel from China? Don’t even ask.
And the other matters of state? They seem to be sliding. When he was elected, his Cabinet members were sometimes referred to as the “Boy Scouts” because of their lack of previous experience. On paper, Ma’s team had better credentials, but in the first month or so, their performance has been more like “Cub Scouts” than Boy Scouts. Ma’s main focus seems to be only on not offending China.
The Diaoyutai (釣魚台) islands fiasco led to posturing about threatening war with Japan, a long-time ally and one of the best sources of tourism to Taiwan. That certainly will not help the economy. The Suao freeway and the environment? The Cabinet missed the mark on that one too.
Ma’s nominees to the Control Yuan and other positions? Shot down by his own party. So who’s in charge?
Then there was the cry that Taiwan’s airports were not up to snuff for the Chinese tourists and that the infrastructure has been let to stagnate. Taipei’s Songshan Airport in particular was singled out as not being ready. Did anyone do his homework on who the mayors of Taipei have been for the past 10 years? Who was in charge and let this slip? Flimflammed again.
Taiwan is not done; in addition to flimflam, the voters are being set up for the fluff that will follow. Now that we have a new administration, we are going to get pandas. It’s homework time again. Pandas may be cute, but they are fluff; not only are they fluff, but they are expensive fluff. They come with an expensive rental price tag that no one talks about. China rents them out at millions of dollars a year, plus they need an expensive environment and care. Whose tax dollars will be put into that economy?
The argument will come and had been used by several zoos around the world, that the zoo attendance will shoot up and people will spend money on T-shirts, stuffed pandas made in China and so on. Yes, it is true attendance usually goes up for the first year or two. But then what? Continue with your homework and see how many zoos buckle under the long-term costs. And the rental fee? China might waive that if Taiwan admits it is a province of China. Yet in preparation, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), a KMT member, has already made a trip to Shanghai on taxpayers’ money to work out an exchange between Taiwan’s orangutans and gibbons and China’s golden monkeys.
Hopefully their monkeys will spend more dollars here than our gibbons will in China.
Flimflam and fluff, you get what you vote for. If Taiwan loses its sovereignty, health and dignity in the process, well at least Ma did keep one campaign promise.
Jerome Keating is a Taiwan-based writer.
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