Today marks the second anniversary of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) inauguration as president. At a time when his plummeting approval ratings have improved ever so slightly, Ma yesterday reiterated his recent pledge to “create the next golden decade” for Taiwan while addressing a roomful of reporters from home and abroad at the Presidential Office.
In this address, Ma said that the well-being of the Taiwanese people always comes before considerations of his own re-election.
Ironic then, that Ma’s so-called “next golden decade” has been roundly criticized as overtly political. It can only be realized if he performs well during the remaining two years of his term, then secures a second four-year term and passes the torch to a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) political heir — two, plus four and four — which turns out to be no less than another campaign pledge.
No seasoned campaign managers would deny that it’s a brilliant and catchy campaign slogan (in Chinese at least) that can be easily understood by the public. Unfortunately, Ma really should have been more focused on running the country, rather than engaging in non-stop campaigning, at least until the end of this year.
In other words, the next two years will be critical for him to make good on his “golden” promise.
However, if we are to sign up to Ma’s “2-4-4 plan,” then surely it is not unreasonable to first expect him to honor his “6-3-3 plan” — a pledge he gave as a presidential candidate — to boost annual economic growth to 6 percent, keep unemployment below 3 percent and boost GDP per capita to US$30,000 (the latest government statistics show that GDP may recover to 4.72 percent this year following negative growth of 1.87 percent last year. Per capita GDP was US$16,997 as of the end of last year and the unemployment rate was 5.67 percent as of March). Little wonder, then, that Ma did not touch upon any of these goals during yesterday’s media briefing.
In the event that the president chooses the occasion of the second anniversary of his inauguration to forget these undertakings, it is our duty to remind him. If these three expectations, none of which has been realized, are not met before Ma completes his first term, the voting public should seriously reconsider whether he deserves another four-year presidential term.
This would also hold our politicians to at least a minimum standard of behavior. A system in which campaign pledges can be made and discarded at a later date is a system that dishonors Taiwan’s democracy.
The International Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) latest world competitiveness report, which boosted Taiwan’s ranking this year to eighth from last year’s 23rd, provided a much-needed shot in the arm for the Ma administration (although it is another question entirely why Taiwan’s competitiveness increased more than at any time since 1994 when annual growth has yet to recover to the level of 2007).
It is beholden upon the Taiwanese government to live up to, maintain and build on this competitiveness in the years to come.
US$18.278 billion is a simple dollar figure; one that’s illustrative of the first Trump administration’s defense commitment to Taiwan. But what does Donald Trump care for money? During President Trump’s first term, the US defense department approved gross sales of “defense articles and services” to Taiwan of over US$18 billion. In September, the US-Taiwan Business Council compared Trump’s figure to the other four presidential administrations since 1993: President Clinton approved a total of US$8.702 billion from 1993 through 2000. President George W. Bush approved US$15.614 billion in eight years. This total would have been significantly greater had Taiwan’s Kuomintang-controlled Legislative Yuan been cooperative. During
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in recent days was the focus of the media due to his role in arranging a Chinese “student” group to visit Taiwan. While his team defends the visit as friendly, civilized and apolitical, the general impression is that it was a political stunt orchestrated as part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, as its members were mainly young communists or university graduates who speak of a future of a unified country. While Ma lived in Taiwan almost his entire life — except during his early childhood in Hong Kong and student years in the US —
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers on Monday unilaterally passed a preliminary review of proposed amendments to the Public Officers Election and Recall Act (公職人員選罷法) in just one minute, while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, government officials and the media were locked out. The hasty and discourteous move — the doors of the Internal Administration Committee chamber were locked and sealed with plastic wrap before the preliminary review meeting began — was a great setback for Taiwan’s democracy. Without any legislative discussion or public witnesses, KMT Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩), the committee’s convener, began the meeting at 9am and announced passage of the
In response to a failure to understand the “good intentions” behind the use of the term “motherland,” a professor from China’s Fudan University recklessly claimed that Taiwan used to be a colony, so all it needs is a “good beating.” Such logic is risible. The Central Plains people in China were once colonized by the Mongolians, the Manchus and other foreign peoples — does that mean they also deserve a “good beating?” According to the professor, having been ruled by the Cheng Dynasty — named after its founder, Ming-loyalist Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功, also known as Koxinga) — as the Kingdom of Tungning,
RSS