Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma – Taiwan’s Game Changer?

                   by David Parmer / Tokyo

Look who’s back. Or so it seems. On May 6, 2018 the South China Morning Post reported that former Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou was making something of a comeback. The SCMP noted Ma’s enthusiastic welcome when visiting various areas of Taiwan with people glad to see him and shake his hand.

This is a stark contrast, as Ma’s popularity at the end of his 8-year term as president was in the low-low area, and the Kuomintang’s loss to the Democratic Progressive Party was seen as his responsibility. President Ma has been keeping a fairly low profile, but now in the middle of current President Tsai Ing-wen’s 4-year term he is be back on the radar. Ma has made 4 overseas trips since leaving the presidency, the most recent to San Francisco’s Bay Area where he visited tech companies, paid his respects to the Sun Yat-sen memorial and gave a lecture at Stanford University.

And then there is the talk that Ma might be considering another run for president in 2020. It would be a precedent-setting move, but possible. It seems the constitution does not specifically forbid it, just prohibits a third term after two consecutive terms.

One factor that might contribute to Ma’s political resurrection is Tsai’s lackluster performance in her first two years in office.

After a rousing inauguration speech filled with promise, Tsai has seemingly been sleepwalking through her first two years in office. It seems she lacks direction and is receiving poor advice from those around her. Her recent embrace of the US Taiwan Travel Act seems ill advised at best. She gets not much for her support of this Trump administration initiative, and it has just annoyed Beijing and strengthened the PRC’s resolve on the “Taiwan question.”

At the end of April 2018 in an interview Tsai said that she was willing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping for “peace and stability.” Really? President Tsai has no real bargaining chips that would be worthwhile to Mr. Xi, or that would encourage him to sit down at the table with Tsai. What could she offer him? Better cross-strait relations? From Mr. Xi’s point of view she and the DPP’s position on the 1992 Consensus are the problem.

Tsai seems to have painted herself into a corner and, just in time, Ma Ying-jeou shows up again. Unlike Tsai, ex-President Ma has a lot to offer Beijing. During his term of office relations were warm, commerce was booming and mainland tourists flocked to Taiwan. During Ma’s presidency there were Taiwan companies and mainland companies in Taiwan to the extent that there was a blending of economies.

From Beijing’s point of view the metamorphosis of the economy could be seen as a gradual integration of Taiwan back into the fold. This, of course, was not acceptable to Taiwan nationalists like the DPP. The gradual melding of the economies over the years and an eventual return of Taiwan to the PRC without war would be something that the PRC would greatly favor.

A peaceful solution to the Taiwan question might start with a return to power of Ma Ying-jeou, or at least the return to power of a pro-Beijing KMT in 2020. Please let us know your thoughts on this.

Photo: Ma Ying-jeou Brookings Institution via flickr