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The Liberty Times
Editorial: Ma’s fabled numbers do not add up
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is often portrayed as only caring about cold hard
numbers and being out of touch with the public’s day-to-day lives. While this
attitude is rightly critical of the government’s failure to perceive ordinary
people’s hardships, it may mislead some into thinking that the overall economy
has improved under Ma’s tenure and that the only problem is one of unequal
distribution.
Indeed, in the televised debates between the three presidential candidates, Ma
repeatedly brought up certain figures in an attempt to prove that he has
performed better than the previous government, and he even blamed his
predecessor, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), for leaving a big mess for him to clear up.
The truth, however, is very different. If we compare the economic figures from
Ma’s time in office with those of his predecessor, or with the other three
“Asian Tiger” economies — Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea — Ma’s
performance is not up to par, and Taiwan has in fact been left in the dust.
A look at Chen’s performance shows that he left Ma not with a mess, but with
good starting capital.
The Ma administration has made a very poor showing during its three-and-a-half
years in office. It has failed to deliver on Ma’s “6-3-3” election promise — 6
percent economic growth, 3 percent or less unemployment and US$30,000 per capita
income — but Ma has not lived up to his pledge to donate half his salary if he
fell short of those targets. Evidently he is not just incompetent, but
insincere, too.
Some people portray Ma as an innocent little bunny in the field of politics, but
he is far from that. Besides refusing to admit to his incompetence, he
fabricates explanations to shift the blame. We have all heard them: Ma never
does anything wrong, and it is only the mess left by the previous administration
and a bad international environment that have bogged the poor man down, and
that’s why his administration has little to show for itself.
Since Ma announced his re-election bid he has conjured up a pile of
impressive-sounding figures, and he has recited them with great fluency and
persuasion in the televised debates to make it seem as if his performance has
outshone Chen’s. He may well have succeeded in deceiving people if they accept
his data for fact without making any further inquiries.
Luckily there is plenty of objective data available, and if you look for the
numbers and compare them it is easy to see the truth. An enthusiastic reader has
been so kind as to collect some statistics and arrange them in tables that
present a clear picture of the situation before and after Chen handed over the
reins of government, as well as Ma’s performance. The facts immediately demolish
any illusion about Ma’s so-called political achievements.
Let us examine some of the key statistics, remembering that Chen started the
first of his two terms in office in May 2000 and handed over to Ma in May 2008.
Taiwan’s average annual economic growth rate measured quarter by quarter between
the third quarter of 2000 and the second quarter of 2008 was 4.49 percent, but
it dropped to 3.24 percent between the third quarter of 2008 and the second
quarter of last year. The average monthly unemployment rate between May 2000 and
April 2008 was 4.3 percent, but it rose to 5.05 percent between May 2008 and
September last year.
The average real regular monthly salary was NT$35,876 (US$1,198) between 2000
and 2007, but slipped to NT$34,373 between 2008 and last year. The number of
employed workers earning less than NT$30,000 a month climbed from 3.281 million
in 2007 to 3.597 million in 2010. In the second quarter of 2008 there were
87,664 low-income households, but by the second quarter of last year this figure
had shot up to 114,437. Outstanding central government debt stood at NT$3.72
trillion in 2007 and is provisionally estimated at NT$4.92 trillion for last
year — an increase of NT$1.2 trillion in four years.
In other words, the Ma administration has run up an average of NT$300 billion in
government debt each year.
Overseas investment in Taiwan was US$15.4 billion in 2007, but fell to just
US$3.8 billion in 2010, putting the lie to Ma’s claim that overseas investment
would pour into Taiwan following the signing of the cross-strait Economic
Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and turn Taiwan into an Asia-Pacific
operations center.
The Ma government often complains about having had to work in an adverse global
environment, pointing out that the 2008 global financial crisis struck just
after Ma took office, followed by last year’s outbreak of the European debt
crisis. However, Chen faced economic conditions that were just as bad, if not
worse. The dot-com bubble burst during Chen’s first year in office and that was
followed by the SARS virus outbreak in 2003. The difference between the two
presidents is that Ma is especially fond of blaming other people and shirking
responsibility to cover up for his own incompetence.
The Ma government fails to make the grade not only by measure of vertical
historical comparisons, but also by horizontal comparison with other countries.
Let us compare Taiwan’s performance with the other three Asian Tiger economies.
In 2010, Taiwan’s GDP stood at US$18,588, compared with US$20,742 for South
Korea, US$31,758 for Hong Kong and US$43,867 for Singapore. Taiwan’s
unemployment rate for September 2010 was 4.28 percent, significantly higher than
South Korea’s 3.2 percent, Hong Kong’s 3 percent and Singapore’s 2.1 percent.
Ma’s government came bottom of the class in both respects. Under his
administration, Taiwan has slipped from head of the four Asian Tigers to the
tail.
All in all, the poor performance of Ma’s government is not just a matter of
perception, it can be proven numerically. It really takes a lot of nerve for
such an incompetent government to ask for four more years in office, telling
people that you can’t change builders when your house is only half finished.
Ma’s government has almost completely squandered Taiwan’s assets. Does he really
expect us to go on messing the country up for another four years?
Translated by Perry Svensson and Julian Clegg
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