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Updated Tuesday, September 8, 2009 9:15 am TWN, The China Post news staff

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Ma Ying-jeou faces 'confidence crisis'

In politics, fortunes come and go. Ma is down but not out, yet. He is still the same Mr. Clean and Mr. Nice Guy, but with new monikers like Mr. Dithering or, worse, Mr. Incompetence. Suddenly, his leadership and control within the ruling KMT is no longer absolute. If he does not change himself and refuses to listen to the voices of the public, he could be a one-term president at best, and even a half-term president at worst. Many of his comrades are already champing at the bit.

A straw in the winds was the humiliating defeat of former health minister Yeh Chin-chuan, Ma's protege and hand-picked candidate for the mayoral race in Hualien. Yeh lost in the KMT primaries by 9 percent in a race that many thought would have been piece of cake for Yeh because of Ma's anointment.

More worrisome and controversial is Ma Ying-jeou's decision making. When the entire island was mourning the death of more than 600 killed by Morakot, and the nation was engaged in post-typhoon relief and reconstruction, Ma flummoxed the world by his bombshell decision to allow the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan “to comfort victims” of Typhoon Morakot. The fact is, Taiwan is not short of priests, Buddhist, Taoist, Islamic, Christian and Catholic to “comfort victims.” Besides, Taiwan's religious communities, Fo Guang Shan and Tzu Chi, just to mention a few, have been busy with relief work by donating money and services. What's the wisdom of allowing a political monk, who Beijing has branded as a “splittist” to visit Taiwan at this critical moment?

No wonder Beijing, which has offered generous aid for typhoon relief, feels betrayed and angry. “We resolutely oppose Dalai's visit to Taiwan in any capacity or under any name,” Beijing bellowed angrily. Ma knows full well that the Dalai issue is “untouchable,” yet he turned a blind eye to it.

Will Beijing bite the bullet? Just wait and see. If it will, for the sake of saving the tenuous cross-strait ties, it will not forget. Ma, since his election, has pledged repeatedly to Beijing that a key element in his mainland policy is to “build mutual confidence.”

Now, that cornerstone is damaged. His defenders would argue that the alternative would have been worse — the DPP would have attacked him for denying the entry of a world-class religious leader for humanitarian purposes, and vilified Ma as pro-China.

To restore his bruised confidence, Ma will need to make hard choices, as FDR did 70 years ago for the interest of his country. It behooves Ma to remember FDR's words: Majority rule does not require the opponents' permission.

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