President-elect faces hard task ahead, in turbulent times: ANALYSIS

Ma Ying-jeou was elected president with a margin of 2.21 million votes. The Kuomintang repeated its rout of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in the legislative elections on last Jan. 12.

First of all, the president-elect has to patch up the frayed relations between Taipei and Washington. The relations plunged to a record low following President Chen Shui-bian’s call for a referendum on Taiwan’s admission to the United Nations in the name of Taiwan.

Now that the Kuomintang has controlled a three-quarter majority in the Legislative Yuan, Ma has no excuse for not carrying out the tremendous task of revitalizing the anemic Taiwan economy and bringing prosperity once again to the people who wish Taiwan could work another economic miracle.

One thing must be made clear. The voters chose Ma to punish the corruption-ridden DPP government rather than in the hope that he would be a much better president than Frank Hsieh.

In the run-up to the election, Ma promised to raise Taiwan’s per capita income to US$30,000 in eight years, boost its economic growth by three percent per year and bring down unemployment to three percent. That is something like a mission impossible. For one thing, it entails the formation of a common market across the Taiwan Strait or a similar arrangement to stimulate the Taiwan economy.

Is the new president up to that really tough job?

Without China’s nod, no common market can be formed. Negotiation can’t be initiated without Taipei accepting Beijing’s new “one China” sine qua non.

This harsh reality made Frank Hsieh label the common market as a move toward unconditional surrender to China.

Before the Tibetans rose up against the Chinese last week, Bejing’s prerequisite for dialogue was what is known as the consensus of 1992. Under the tacit agreement, both Beijing and Taipei acknowledge there is but one China, whose connotation can be orally and individually expressed.

In other words, Taiwan may claim the one China agreed upon is the Republic of China just as Beijing does by claiming Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic of China. Wen Jiabao, Chinese premier, omitted that different interpretation clause in reiterating the sine qua non of one China at a press conference in Beijing where he denounced the “rebellion” in Lhasa instigated by the Dalai Lama.

There is no way of finding out if Wen purposely or unwittingly made the omission. If he signaled a change, Taipei couldn’t even try to get Beijing to the negotiating table.

Even if the dialogue could get under way, there would be no guarantee that it would bring results. Negotiation between a world power like China and a small country such as Taiwan can’t be done on an equal footing. More often than not, such negotiation is simply the former’s “take it or leave it” handout. Will the people of Taiwan stomach it?

Ma now has the people’s mandate. He has to keep his campaign promise in the next four years.

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