Ma’s obscured unification
In the last 100 days, many Taiwanese have become aware of the gap between President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pre-election rhetoric and his post election performance. The role of the media in facilitating this gap was critical.
It was Taiwan’s politically affiliated media that helped propagate election slogans, argued for and against particular candidates and decided what extent of print, Web and TV coverage would be devoted to what the candidates said and the possible impact of their manifestos.
In spending five times more than the DPP on their election campaign, the KMT achieved a saturation of media that greatly boosted Ma’s chances of victory.
Such was the penetration of their election propaganda that many of the KMT talking points became decontested in voters minds; that is, they entered the realm of “common sense.”
Many light green supporters and young voters took this “common sense” without questioning it.
They thought Ma to be pragmatic, not radical, more of a consensus builder than a conflict instigator. They believed him when he expressed his determination to protect the sovereignty of Taiwan and promised that with Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) as vice president, the economy would improve dramatically.
One of the most notable slogans to aid the insemination of these misconceptions about Ma was a pun meaning “Ma becoming president is a good thing” and “Things will be better immediately.”
Later this was amended to “When Ma is elected, things will start to get better immediately.”
On the day Ma was inaugurated, however, the stock market dropped and has yet to recover. During the election, Ma and the KMT glibly promised a benchmark of more than 15,000, but today the TAIEX stands at 6,300, well below the critical 7,000 line.
It is possible that Ma and Siew may well have even believed their own lie about Chen’s poor economic management and thus overlooked the clear signs of global economic slowdown ahead, but their own act of misleading the Taiwanese public paradoxically left them unready to respond when the stock market crashed.
Their first limp response was “When Ma is elected, things will gradually get better.”
Things haven’t and tens of thousands of politically mobilized Taiwanese recently took to the streets to raise the question that if the party of the economy can’t make the economy better, can they be trusted to defend the country?
After Ma’s recent comments that Taiwan was not a country, perhaps a new slogan is appropriate for these times: “Ma won and Taiwan will soon be finished.”
The real tragedy is that many Taiwanese voted for unification without knowing it because they believed the sophisticated advertising designed to obscure the KMT’s not so hidden agenda.
Those interested in using democracy to rebalance this abuse should prepare themselves to vote DPP for all township, county and mayoral elections next year.
Only this way will the KMT get the message that Taiwan as a country and its democracy are here to stay, and they will not be allowed to trade it for their own pernicious financial gain.
Ben Goren
Meinung,
Kaohsiung County
Two weeks ago, Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) raised hackles in Taiwan by posting to her 2.6 million Instagram followers that she was visiting “Taipei, China.” Yeoh’s post continues a long-standing trend of Chinese propaganda that spreads disinformation about Taiwan’s political status and geography, aimed at deceiving the world into supporting its illegitimate claims to Taiwan, which is not and has never been part of China. Taiwan must respond to this blatant act of cognitive warfare. Failure to respond merely cedes ground to China to continue its efforts to conquer Taiwan in the global consciousness to justify an invasion. Taiwan’s government
This month’s news that Taiwan ranks as Asia’s happiest place according to this year’s World Happiness Report deserves both celebration and reflection. Moving up from 31st to 27th globally and surpassing Singapore as Asia’s happiness leader is gratifying, but the true significance lies deeper than these statistics. As a society at the crossroads of Eastern tradition and Western influence, Taiwan embodies a distinctive approach to happiness worth examining more closely. The report highlights Taiwan’s exceptional habit of sharing meals — 10.1 shared meals out of 14 weekly opportunities, ranking eighth globally. This practice is not merely about food, but represents something more
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
RSS