Taiwan's economic standstill belies Ma's pledge of growth

Re-elected by a solid margin in January, Taiwan's president, Ma Ying-jeou, began his second term on Sunday with dismal approval ratings that may augur a difficult second term.

Fundamentally, Ma is a modern Confucian politician who has shown that this ancient political and ethical tradition is very much alive in 21st-century East Asia. Unlike 20th-century totalitarian Confucian politicians like Chiang Kai-shek and Kim Jong-il, Ma is not the heroic incarnation of the state, ruling through the force of unquestionable ethical power. Instead, he is admired for his personal integrity and incorruptibility that in Taiwanese politics distinguishes him from his corrupt predecessor Chen Shui-bian.

But Ma's popularity is declining quickly as Taiwanese increasingly believe he is cut off from reality and incompetent. His handling of the island's domestic challenges in his first term was at best ineffectual.

In 2008, Ma came to office promising that opening up to mainland China would create a 'golden decade' for Taiwan's economy. While Beijing was willing to co-operate with him in normalising relations across the strait, the millions of mainland tourists who visited Taiwan and the tiny trickle of investment into Taiwan have done little to offset the ongoing mass emigration of Taiwanese industry to the mainland.

An entire generation of Taiwanese has been educated for a knowledge economy that never materialised due to a lack of investment. Taiwan is now a post-industrial society without a post-industrial economy. Moreover, those Taiwanese who do have jobs have not had pay increases in more than a decade.

Ma is still promising that his golden decade is just around the corner, and voters clearly decided to give him another chance. But, increasingly, the hardworking Taiwanese are becoming resentful and angry that their dreams are being deferred even as construction companies race to build more luxury residential complexes in Taipei.