After former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) troubling performance, a landslide majority bet their future on President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the idea that things would turn around upon his accession to power.
Surprisingly, only a couple of months later, public confidence in Ma has collapsed, and Taiwan’s international friends strongly question whether Taiwan is still their friend. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s remark that as Taiwan improves its relations with China, it must not forget the independent role of US-Taiwan relations, was in fact a response to Ma putting cross-strait relations above other diplomacy.
The low-profile treatment of Ma’s stopover in the US and the freeze on arms sales to Taiwan indicate the US’ decreasing confidence in Ma. John Tkacik, a senior research fellow in Asian studies at the US’ Heritage Foundation, has even said that in the past Taiwan and the US did not talk, but now they have been officially divorced.
In addition, US-Taiwan Business Council chairman Paul Wolfowitz recently wondered why US airlines are not allowed to join the cross-strait chartered flight market.
Although Ma has taken a “Greater China” approach to Japan on the Diaoyutai territorial dispute, leading Japan to doubt his intentions, on his inauguration he managed to gain the support of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, Taiwan’s former representative to Japan Koh Se-kai (�?�) and a Japanese delegation, which brought an unprecedented official congratulatory letter to Ma on May 20.
However, Ma’s pride in gaining Beijing’s support over the Diaoyutai issue, Koh being forced to step down after being accused of treason by the pan-blue camp and the problems with finding a suitable candidate for Taiwan’s new representative to Japan have all led to a mutual lack of confidence.
The US and Japan have lost confidence in Ma, while his administration has been moving closer to China in cross-strait economic policies. Logically speaking, Taiwan’s relations with Beijing should have improved, but there have been problems here, too.
On the issue of cross-strait chartered flights, Beijing took advantage of Ma by tabling the issue of cargo flights, which Taiwanese airlines and industries had been looking forward to. Then Wang Yi (王毅), head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, blocked Ma’s efforts in pursuing international space for Taiwan. In addition, by utilizing the conflict between Ma and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the Chinese government gave Ma a hard time on the issue of Taiwan’s title at the Olympics and then attributed the change from Zhongguo Taibei (中國台北, “Taipei, China”) to Zhonghua Taibei (中華台北, “Chinese Taipei”) to talks between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party in May. The KMT thus turned Ma into a mere figurehead. A Chinese think tank made it even clearer that Beijing does not trust Ma and must use the KMT to “control” him. Ma’s goodwill gestures toward Beijing seem to have been futile.
Not long ago, Ma claimed the public was satisfied with his cross-strait policies. Is this true?
The public opinion wants a balance between Taiwanese independence and cross-strait peace. During the election campaign, Ma called for putting Taiwan first and cross-strait peace second. After assuming office, he appointed independence advocate Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) as Mainland Affairs Council chairwoman, Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) as Straits Exchange Foundation chairman and strongly pro-China Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) as minister of economic affairs, all of which seems to meet public expectations.
Yet this balance is difficult to maintain. Lai is stuck in an awkward position, disliked by both the pan-blue camp and the Taiwan Solidarity Union, and the balance is becoming increasingly precarious.
Ma’s prestige is declining. On the one hand, KMT officials and legislators are visiting China as often as possible in order to counterbalance Ma’s attempt to control pro-unification KMT officials. On the other hand, pro-unification officials are pressuring Ma to restore the National Unification Guidelines (國統綱領) and the National Unification Council (國統會). Worse yet, seeing that the KMT only plays the “China card,” Beijing invited Ma to join it in pushing for unification, an issue that has been on the backburner for the past eight years. How much longer will those who support Taiwanese consciousness trust Ma?
Great political leaders have often been misunderstood in their early days, but they always manage to convince the public to support them in achieving their goals in the end. However, success in doing so requires bold and visionary central thought and sharp policies.
What are Ma’s core ideology and policy? On one hand, he constantly emphasizes the importance of maintaining equal relations with the US, China and Japan; on the other hand, placing cross-strait relations above diplomacy seems unwise in that the nation’s old allies are questioning Taiwan’s position only two months after his inauguration. Therefore, China continues to show distrust and pressure Taiwan while also calling for unification. Not only has Ma lost the trust of other countries, the public has also lost confidence in him.
It seems impossible to find anyone who still believes in Ma. He is not a bad person, so how can he be even worse than Chen? It is time for some soul searching.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
Translated by Ted Yang
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