20100528 President is ignoring the will of the people

President is ignoring the will of the people

By Lu Shih-hsiang 盧世祥
Friday, May 28, 2010, Page 8

After two years of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, the economy has slumped and democracy and human rights have regressed. Taiwan’s national sovereignty has been undermined, our culture has been demeaned and relations between the ruling and opposition parties are tense. Ma’s approval ratings are low and he has lost the trust of the public. After winning 58 percent of the vote in the presidential election two years ago, Ma’s poor performance can be explained in one word — bias.

A president represents the interests of all citizens and this is what makes a head of state different from legislators or local leaders, who only look after the interests of certain groups. The policies promoted by a president should take the public as a whole into account and benefit everyone. Ma, however, has done the exact opposite. He doubles as chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and constantly puts the interests of the KMT before those of the nation. In other words, Ma is more interested in being re-elected that representing the nation.

The biases inherent in the KMT government’s policies are too numerous to list, but the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) exemplifies them. China constantly stops Taiwan from signing free trade agreements (FTA) with other nations, but it is now suddenly keen to sign an ECFA, even saying it will “concede its own interests” to make a deal possible. The hidden agenda is to subjugate Taiwan by economic means, by ensuring Taiwan’s economy becomes irretrievably dependent on China.

The government is betting the farm on China without a backup plan, a dangerous approach that could spell disaster for Taiwan.

By unilaterally seeking to use China as a springboard to the global economy, the Ma administration is giving many in the international community the impression that Taiwan accepts its status as part of China.

In addition to basing its rule on the ideologically skewed idea of “eventual unification,” the government has also acted against common sense during ECFA negotiations. By establishing a deadline for signing the document, Ma has naively placed Taiwan in a disadvantageous position. At the same time, this approach forces the administration to focus on the agreement’s positive side while trying to play down any negative aspects and labeling anyone who does not agree a closed-minded conservative isolationist.

Only a minority of industries and large corporations stand to gain from an ECFA. It will hurt farmers, workers, salary earners and small and medium enterprises. The resulting economic integration also puts Taiwan at risk of being annexed by China.

Policies such as this deviate so much from the interests of the majority that they have widened the gap between rich and poor over the past two years. An ECFA will accelerate that division and lead to class conflict.

Even more ridiculous, Ma’s fawning over the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gives the impression of fraternal friendship between the CCP and the KMT. In contrast, the ruling and opposition parties in Taiwan are more divided than ever. With Taiwan’s domestic affairs in such a mess and with China holding to its old plans for Taiwan, the future looks extremely precarious.

Only the Taiwanese can correct Ma’s one-sided policies.

Unfortunately, the legislature currently serves as little more than a rubber stamp for the government and most media outlets have become slavish cheerleading teams for Ma and his administration.

In such circumstances, only the people can turn things around, but to do so, those in the know need to work even harder to show the public how bad things really are.

Lu Shih-hsiang is an adviser to the Taipei Times.