TAIWAN’S LEADER WARNS CHINA
Tsai Ing-wen has won the election, but she will be taking the job at a crucial period, with the island facing a challenging economic climate while managing cross-strait relations with China
TAIPEI: Taiwan’s new pro-independence president Tsai Ing-wen yesterday promised to maintain cross-strait ties that are “consistent, predictable and sustainable.”
Her Democratic Progressive Party won in a landslide over the ruling Beijing-friendly Kuomintang. Ms emphasised that both sides of the Taiwan Strait have a responsibility to ensure that “there will be no provocations or accidents”.
However, she said that t he island’s international space must be respected and “any forms of suppression will harm the stability of crossstrait relations”.
On relations with Japan, Ms Tsai said her future administration attaches great importance to Taiwan-Japan relations and does not want to see sovereignty issues undermine the development of bilateral ties.
TAIPEI: Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan’s main opposition party will become the island’s first female president after a landslide victory over the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) Saturday, as voters turned their backs on closer China ties.
KMT candidate Eric Chu conceded defeat in a disastrous rout for the party, addressing tearful crowds at the party’s headquarters in Taipei.
The vote count is continuing but live television figures from polling stations show Ms Tsai of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has secured a historic landslide victory, with around 60% against 30% for Mr Chu.
That would be the biggest ever win for any president in Taiwan — the previous record was 58.45% for current KMT president Ma Ying-jeou in 2008.
“I’m sorry. We’ve lost. The KMT has suffered an election defeat. We haven’t worked hard enough and we failed voters’ expectations,” said KMT candidate Eric Chu addressing tearful crowds at the party’s headquarters.
Mr Chu also said the KMT had lost its parliamentary majority, the first time it has ever lost control of the island’s legislature.
“This is an unprecedented drastic change for the KMT,” he said.
Support for Ms Tsai surged as voters became increasingly uneasy about a recent rapprochement with China under Mr Ma, who must step down after serving a maximum two terms.
As the economy stagnates, many are frustrated that trade pacts signed with the mainland have failed to benefit ordinary Taiwanese.
The DPP has a much warier approach to China, although Ms Tsai has repeatedly said she wants to maintain the “status quo”.
“We want to congratulate the DPP’s victory. This is the Taiwan people’s mandate,” Mr Chu said.
He bowed deeply in a sign of apology and declared his resignation as chairman of the party.
Jubilant crowds gathered at the DPP headquarters in Taipei, where Ms Tsai was due to speak. Vendors were selling everything from cups to key chains bearing her image.
One small group held a banner saying: “Taiwan is not part of China. Support Taiwan independence.”
“China has no right to claim Taiwan and we want to say that to the world,” said Angela Shi, a member of the group.
Ms Tsai has walked a careful path on her China strategy, but the DPP is traditionally a pro-independence party and opponents say Ms Tsai will destabilise relations.
Mr Ma has overseen a dramatic rapprochement with China since coming to power in 2008.
Although Taiwan is self-ruling after it split with China following a civil war in 1949, it has never declared independence and Beijing still sees it as part of its territory awaiting reunification.
The thaw culminated in a summit between Mr Ma and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November.
Yet despite more than 20 deals and a tourist boom, closer ties have exacerbated fears that China is eroding Taiwan’s sovereignty by making it economically dependent.
Low salaries and high housing prices are also riling voters.
Beijing has warned it will not deal with any leader who does not recognise the “one China” principle, part of a tacit agreement between Beijing and the KMT known as the “1992 consensus”.
The DPP has never recognised the consensus.
Observers say it is unlikely Ms Tsai will do anything to provoke Beijing if she wins.
Analysts also agree there will not be any immediate backlash from China, as alienating Taiwan would play against Beijing’s ultimate aim of reunification.
In the latest cross-strait drama, the plight of a teenage Taiwanese K-pop star dominated local news coverage, with presidential candidates drawn into the row.
Chou Tzu-yu, 16, a Taiwanese member of South Korean girl-band TWICE, was forced to apologise after sparking online criticism in China for waving Taiwan’s official flag in a recent internet broadcast.
Her remorseful video went viral within hours, with Ms Tsai, Mr Chu, and president Ma all leaping to her defence yesterday and demanding answers from China and South Korea over her treatment.
China talks about resolving the tensions, but they are still pointing some 700 missiles at us
Bespectacled and gently spoken, more don than politician, Tsai Ingwen, who is Taiwan’s first woman president-elect, will be thrust into one of Asia’s toughest and most dangerous jobs. She will lead an island which China claims as its sacred territory and will have to balance the superpower interests of China and the United States with those of her free-wheeling, democratic home.
As the head of the opposition, independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Ms Tsai risks antagonising China if she attempts to forcefully assert Taiwan’s sovereignty and reverses eight years of warming China ties under China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou, who last night conceded defeat.
Ms Tsai has the tide of history against her. Mr Ma and predecessors, including firebrand Lee Teng-hui and convicted opposition DPP president Chen Shuibian, all failed to bring about a lasting reconciliation with China, which considers Taiwan a rogue province to be taken by force if necessary. Shots were traded between the two sides as recently as the mid-1970s.
At stake are relations with an ascendant and increasingly assertive China under President Xi Jinping.
“If [you] don’t vote for the Nationalists, the future is really uncertain,” said Mr Ma in a final push for votes for his Nationalist Party in Taipei, a leafy, vibrant city splashed with billboards of Ms Tsai and Nationalist rival Eric Chu, along with candidates contesting 113 parliamentary seats island-wide.
“Our policy is aiming for peace and stability. We can ensure everyone that there won’t be a war across the strait,” Mr Ma said.
Ms Tsai, a trained lawyer, was fasttracked to senior posts from a young age — first as Taiwan’s chief trade negotiator in her thirties, then as Taiwan’s main China affairs minister in her forties. Those in her inner circle speak of a strategically-minded and cautious individual with a firm grasp of details and a pragmatic long view.
“I walked out of a Taiwan that was under the Nationalists’ martial law and I was washed in America’s democracy. That is how I established my identification of what is a nation,” said Ms Tsai in her 2011 autobiography.
She travelled to China in the late 1990s for the first time as a translator for Taiwan’s top cross-strait negotiator, who met former president Jiang Zemin.
Ever smiling, though sometimes barely audible when chatting with ebullient supporters on the campaign trail, Ms Tsai has rebounded from defeat in the 2012 election to Mr Ma to what opinion polls have predicted could be the biggest margin of victory for a Taiwan leader. ‘SMARTEST IN THE ROOM’ While the Nationalists have attacked Ms Tsai and the DPP as a grave threat given the party’s independence-leaning stand, some say she could confound her critics.
“There is no question she has a tremendous amount of capability,” said a Taipei-based foreign official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It really depends on what else happens on the mainland. It will be things that will be outside of her control.”
Last week, China’s influential state-run tabloid the Global Times said that while Ms Tsai was more moderate that Mr Chen, uncertainty lay ahead. Beijing would take a watch-and-see approach.
“Taiwanese society will suffer the most if peace across the Taiwan Strait is overturned,” it said.
In biographies, two written by her and one semi-authorised, a picture emerges of Ms Tsai as a patient negotiator unwilling to score quick points or concede too much.
“My experience has shown me that with enough patience and intelligence, I will wait for the right timing that benefits me before making a decision,” said Ms Tsai in her 2011 book.
Despite this, the United States has expressed concerns about the danger of worsening China-Taiwan ties, at a time when China’s navy is increasingly flexing its muscles in the South China and East China Seas and expanding territorial claims.
US President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes called on Taiwan and China to avoid an escalation of tensions. But he stressed Washington did not take sides in the poll and wanted Taiwan-China issues dealt with peacefully, whoever won.
Poised as one of the most prominent female leaders of the Chinese-speaking world since the Qing dynasty Empress Dowager Cixi, however, has not convinced a wide swathe of domestic constituents and foreign allies that she’ll steer a stable course in ties with Beijing. She has been ambiguous on her China policy, merely pledging, in public anyway, to maintain the status quo.
“She won’t box herself in to a particular formula or phrase,” said a former senior Western diplomat who has known her for 20 years. “As an actual leader, certainly having someone who is thoughtful and reflective is not necessarily a bad thing,” he added. “This leaves room for negotiation where otherwise [being too passionate] it may be seen as inflexible or problematic.”
In the traditionally independent-minded and nationalistic south, long a stronghold of the DPP, are an older generation of Taiwanese, who see themselves as true natives, unlike the defeated Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek fleeing China to the island in 1949.
How Chang-cheng, 60, a former engineer, fishing on a bridge, spoke of his sadness, with both sides having sacrificed so much over the decades.
“China talks about resolving the tensions, but they are still pointing some 700 missiles towards us. One could come flying over any time,” said Mr How, sweeping his arm towards the horizon beyond which lay the coastline of China’s Fujian province.
“We must try to protect our democracy. China will try to take it away from us. But if we step over the red line, there could be war. Maybe that’s why we need someone who’s calmer like Tsai. Maybe she can make a difference.”
HOW CHANG-CHENG VOTER