Online Perception Versus Official Projection: Mainland Chinese Responses to the Prelude and Early Years of the Ma Ying-jeou Presidency (2007-2009)

Abstract

The inauguration of Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang (KMT) as the president of Taiwan in 2008 is generally seen as signaling a change in Taiwan`s relations with mainland China after the eight-year governance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). During the run-up to the presidential election beginning in January 2007 when Ma stepped down from his post as mayor of Taipei, signals from both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the KMT tended to project Ma as a pragmatic leader whose prime objective would be to further cross-Strait economic integration. How do ordinary mainland Chinese see this change in Taiwan? Does the reaction of ordinary mainland Chinese to this change. especially that expressed by the online community. differ from that of their government. whose re-engagement and rapprochement with Taiwan following the defeat of the DPP has been widely recognized? In a country where full democracy and complete freedom of expression are still excluded from the political agenda, online communication provides a key Habermasian public sphere and nascent national civil society. This paper is the result of systematic qualitative research carried out among the online community in mainland China, focusing on netizens` perceptions of Ma immediately before and after the presidential election of2008, that is, from January 2007 to July 2009. Examining the contrast between the official projection of Ma and the online mainland perception of him is important in understanding not only the mainland public`s view of Ma, but also the internal dynamics of contemporary Chinese nationalism and its impact on cross-Strait relations.