Assessing the Presidency of Ma Ying-jiu in Taiwan

Hopeful Beginning, Hopeless End?

André Beckershoff, Gunter Schubert

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351045094
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The years of the Ma Ying-jiu presidency in Taiwan were controversial from the beginning. When he came to power in 2008, Ma was considered the strongest and most popular KMT presidential candidate since Lee Teng-hui. However, his rapprochement towards China met with increasing resistance and by the time he stepped down in 2016, he enjoyed the lowest support rates of any incumbent president. What happened in between?

This book undertakes a balanced empirical assessment of the achievements and failures of the Ma Ying-jiu era. Renowned Taiwan scholars analyse the changing political environment that shaped the Ma presidency, covering important topics such as Taiwan's evolving nationalism and rising civil societal activism, cross-strait economic integration and migration, and the factors determining its 'international space'.

As the first comprehensive scholarly work on the Ma Ying-jiu presidency, this books is a must read for students and scholars of Taiwanese politics and society, cross-strait relations and East Asian politics in general.

Part I

Domestic Politics

1 The KMT’s China policy

Gains and failures

Jonathan Sullivan and James Smyth

Introduction

The KMT’s China policy under President Ma Ying-jiu was based on four overarching aims. First, to stabilize cross-Strait relations, which effectively came to a halt at the semi-official level during the tenure of his predecessor, Chen Shui-bian. Second, to revive Taiwan’s economic fortunes through closer integration with the Chinese economy.¹ Third, to balance the imperative of economic development with the maintenance of ‘national dignity’. Fourth, to roll back the de-Sinicization elements of Chen’s Taiwanization program by emphasizing elements of Taiwan’s Chinese cultural heritage and situating Taiwan within the framework of the greater Chinese nation. The underlying device used to pursue these aims was the 1992 Consensus, a rhetorical position regarding Taiwan’s status vis-à-vis China that has been characterized by Taipei as ‘One China, separate interpretations’. The 1992 Consensus is controversial in Taiwan,² but its ambiguities created space for the two sides to develop a workable platform and a new level of momentum. During Ma’s tenure, this platform yielded a number of practical agreements across several socioeconomic sectors, including a limited free trade agreement and the cross-Straits Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA). When Ma Ying-jiu stood down at the end of his second term on 20 May 2016, he left cross-Strait relations in significantly better shape than when he had begun his presidency in 2008. In this sense, his China policy can be considered a success. However, such is the complicated and multifaceted nature of Taiwan’s engagement with China that Ma’s China policy cannot be measured by the tone of cross-Strait relations alone, by the tenor of particular leaders’ personal interactions, or by KMT-CCP relations. Taiwan’s China policy has implications for its economy, society, foreign relations, and many other policy sectors, and remains one of the most contested arenas for domestic political competition, often but not exclusively refracted through the prism of national identity. Adjusting the angle of our analytical lens to include these other arenas reveals that the KMT’s China policy under Ma produced mixed results that can be interpreted as successes or failures depending on one’s point of view. The landslide losses for the KMT in the legislative elections in January 2016, and the comfortable victory of the DPP candidate, Tsai Ing-wen, in the presidential election, suggest a ‘change election’ where voters rejected the policies pursued by Ma and/or the outcomes of his policies. While accepting this judgement, this chapter aims to provide a balanced assessment of Ma’s China policy, incorporating multiple perspectives and covering multiple policy sectors.

Gains

Judged against the overarching goals noted above, the KMT’s China policy under Ma made gains in a number of ways. First, the tenor of cross-Strait relations reached an all-time high, manifested in the absence of the periodic tensions and diplomatic gridlock that characterised the tenures of Chen Shui-bian and Lee Teng-hui. The reinvigoration of the SEF-ARATS and TAO-MAC frameworks³ and the institutionalization of party-to-party talks culminated in the first ever meeting of sitting PRC and ROC presidents in Singapore toward the end of Ma’s second term. Observing Taiwan from the outside, from the perspective of the US government, for example, the KMT’s China policy was a resounding success, decreasing the likelihood of conflict at a time when tensions were rising in the region due to emergent territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas. The stability of cross-Strait relations during this period of increasing friction between China and Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other territorial claimants, was a development warmly welcomed by global leaders, particularly in Washington. The foreign policy behaviour of Taiwan, as a claimant of disputed territories itself, was conciliatory and responsible, with gains made not only in cross-Strait relations but also in resolving points of contention with Tokyo and Manila, including a landmark fishing agreement covering territories that were disputed with Japan. Despite the negative public opinion and low approval ratings of President Ma, his efforts to maintain stable and peaceful cross-Strait relations enjoyed widespread support in Taiwan. And while there were heated debates in Taiwan about the level of the ‘concessions’ needed to achieve it, the Ma administration demonstrated that it was possible to cooperate with China in a productive way, reversing the trajectory of his presidential predecessors.

Second, the incremental opening up of the Taiwanese economy to the mainland and the expansion and deepening of economic integration led to positive results for parts of the Taiwanese economy, particularly large corporations and individuals with the capital and skills required to exploit new opportunities. However, the promised results of opening Taiwan’s economy up to China were hampered by the global financial crisis and subsequent recession that negatively affected Taiwan’s export markets, especially in the US and Eurozone. Most economic indicators rebounded impressively in 2010, although the effects of this recovery were felt less in the population at large than in specific sectors. Taiwan’s exports grew robustly during President Ma’s first term despite the global financial crisis. Total annual exports grew by 20 per cent from 2008 to 2011, with one third of that rise coming from exports to Mainland China, which totalled US$557 billion in the first seven and a half years of Ma’s tenure. This was more than double the US$257 billion of China-bound exports in the equivalent period of the Chen Shui-bian administration (Bureau of Foreign Trade 2015). While there were numerically more Taiwanese investments in China during the Chen administration, the value per investment rose significantly under Ma. As a result, according to the Mainland Affairs Council statistics, the top five years in terms of the monetary amounts invested in China by Taiwanese businesses all occurred during Ma’s tenure (Mainland Affairs Council 2015a). Remittances to and from China also increased (Mainland Affairs Council 2015b). It should be pointed out, in defence of the economic consequences of Ma’s China policy, that many of the serious issues faced by ordinary Taiwanese people (wage stagnation, rising cost of living, an increasing sense of relative deprivation) were a consequence of more general globalization processes faced by other economies, which Taiwan will have to confront in the course of the needed economic reforms.

Third, although still circumscribed and subject to various obstacles, mainly emanating from Beijing’s direct pressure and global influence, Taiwan’s participation in international society increased during Ma’s tenure. The extent of this participation remains incommensurate with an economy of Taiwan’s size and a liberal democracy that is a global trading power, but Taiwan’s group of diplomatic allies remained stable and Ma could point to a number of successes. For instance, the number of countries and territories that granted ROC citizens visa-free entry, landing-visa privileges, and other entry facilitation programs increased to 153, including the US and EU (Bureau of Consular Affairs 2009).⁴ The number of intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) or their subsidiary bodies in which Taiwan enjoys full membership increased to 37 during Ma’s presidency (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2015). Taiwan gained membership in (in chronological order) the International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators, Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, International Council for Information Technology in Government Administration, Standards and Trade Development Facility, South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation, Association of World Election Bodies, Asset Recovery Inter-Agency Network of Asia/Pacific, and North Pacific Fisheries Commission. Taipei now has observership or other status in 22 other IGOs or their subsidiary bodies, a modest increase on the situation in 2008. Notably, in 2009, Taiwan became a signatory to the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement and the World Health Organization’s health alert system, the International Health Regulations. President Ma was keen to emphasise these successes as indicators that he had acted with great resolve to uphold Taiwan’s ‘dignity’ and ‘respect’ (zunyan). Within Taiwan, there is longstanding controversy over what constitutes ‘dignity’ and the means to achieve it, but the scope of Taiwan’s international participation and the way in which Taiwan was perceived by outsiders⁵ improved under Ma compared with the situation during the Chen Shui-bian and Lee Teng-hui administrations.

Fourth, the policies pursued by President Ma established a proven platform for engaging with China, including the institutionalization of Track II, party-to-party, city-to-city and other sub-national fora, in addition to practical arrangements for handling increasingly diverse, intense and complex socio-economic interactions between the two sides. Ma’s embrace of the ‘1992 Consensus’, while emphasizing the ‘different interpretations’ qualifier to ‘One China’, and the consistent discursive positioning of Taiwan within a one China (the Republic of China) framework, provided the demonstration of ‘sincerity’ demanded by Beijing as a condition for cooperation. Informal interactions, particularly Taiwanese business people (Taishang) operating in China, burgeoned in the decade prior to Ma’s ascension to the presidency in 2008, coinciding with the progressive moves of Presidents Lee and Chen toward a ‘two state’ position that effectively halted semi-official cooperation between the two sides, creating numerous difficulties for individuals and inefficiencies for businesses. While Beijing periodically voiced frustration over Ma’s inability to push formal interactions forward on the Taiwanese side, his ‘sincerity’ removed a major obstacle to cooperation across a number of sectors including transportation, crime, education, tourism, investment and the protection of Taishang interests. The re-invigoration of the relationship between the Taiwan Affairs Office and the Mainland Affairs Council allowed the two sides to cooperate on the management of intensifying people-to-people and commercial relations.⁶ The institution of Track II dialogues provided a framework, and the much-needed momentum, for both dialogue and practical measures. Although many problems remain, for example, in the implementation of practical economic agreements, the lack of consular services, and unilateral decisions, such as Beijing’s plan to require Taiwanese visitors to use IC cards,⁷ the management of Taiwan-China interactions became significantly more effective under Ma (Chin 2015; Chung 2015).

Failures

There are a number of areas where the KMT’s China policies under Ma failed to achieve the desired outcome. First, while the temperature of cross-Strait relations had in many ways never been better, the underlying militarization of the Strait, manifest most obviously in the approximately 1,800 Chinese missiles stationed in Fujian, remained unchanged. Despite Ma’s China-friendly orientation, which was as friendly as Taiwanese domestic politics would allow any president to be, China’s military posture and rhetoric signalled an undiminished threat to Taiwan’s national security. In January 2015, Beijing rattled Taipei by declaring new air routes just off the centreline of the Taiwan Strait and ROC Air Force training areas (Cole 2015). ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• List of contributors
• Introduction: mapping the Ma Ying-jiu Era
• Part I Domestic Politics
• Part II Cross-Strait Political Economy
• Part III International Relations
• Index