A convincing victory by Ma:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/world/asia/22…
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: March 22, 2008
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan elected on Saturday
its first president who had campaigned for closer economic
relations with Beijing, paving the way for a considerable lessening
of tensions in one of Asia’s oldest flashpoints.
Ma Ying-jeou, a Harvard-educated lawyer and former Taipei mayor
from the Nationalist Party, won by a convincing margin. He
prevailed despite a last-minute effort by his opponent, Frank Hsieh
of the Democratic Progressive Party, to warn that the Chinese
crackdown in Tibet represented a warning of what could also happen
to Taiwan if it did not stand up to Beijing.
With all votes counted, Mr. Ma prevailed 58.45 percent to 41.55
percent and Mr. Hsieh quickly conceded defeat. Clear skies and warm
weather until early evening helped produce a heavy voter turnout of
75.7 percent,which tends to help Nationalist candidates, like Mr.
Ma.
Both parties’ polls showed an increasingly close race in the
final days of campaigning, in contrast with the last polls by media
organizations nearly two weeks ago, which showed Mr. Ma ahead by 20
percent. But in election day interviews, voters echoed Mr. Ma’s
stance that closer relations with the mainland and its fast-growing
economy represent the island’s best hope of returning to the rapid
economic growth it enjoyed until the late 1990s.
Jason Lin, a 41-year-old interior designer, said as he left a
polling place in Taipei that he had always voted for the Democratic
Progressive Party until this year and remains a member of the
party. But he crossed party lines to vote for Mr. Ma on Saturday
because he was convinced that Taiwan’s economic survival depended
on closer ties.
“If we don’t get into China’s market, we are locked into our own
country,” he said.
Beijing officials have been wooing the Nationalists for years,
even hosting visits to the mainland over the past three years by
those party leaders who are especially eager for eventual political
reunification with the mainland, like Lien Chan, the party’s
unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2004.
Mr. Ma has taken a more cautious approach to the mainland,
attending annual vigils for those killed during the Tiananmen
Square killings in Beijing in 1989 and denouncing the mainland’s
repression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement over the past
decade. During the campaign, he ruled out any discussion of
political reunification while calling for the introduction of
direct, regularly scheduled flights to Shanghai and Beijing and an
end to Taiwan’s extensive limits on its companies’ ability to
invest on the mainland.
Chinese government officials had no immediate response to the
election results on Saturday evening, but had made little secret of
their hope that he would win.
“China has a love-hate relationship with Ma — when I visited
China last November, they criticized Ma a lot, and then asked me to
vote for Ma,” said Yen Chen-Shen, a political scientist at National
Chengchi University.
American officials have been deeply frustrated with President
Chen Shui-bian, also of the Democratic Progressive Party, and have
sought to lessen tensions between Taiwan and the mainland while
preserving the political status quo. But the Bush administration
has also been irritated by the reluctance of Nationalists in the
legislature to vote for purchases of American weapon systems,
including systems that President Bush offered for sale in 2001 but
which Taiwan still has not purchased.
Many in Taiwan have preferred to spend money on social programs
while relying on the United States military to deter aggression by
the mainland, prompting bitter jokes among American military
personnel that if mainland military forces ever land on Taiwan, the
Taiwanese will fight them to the last American.
Cheng Ta-chen, a Nationalist aide to Mr. Ma on security policy,
said that the Nationalists had not been given enough information by
President Chen to understand and approve military purchases.
Following his inauguration, scheduled for May 20, Mr. Ma will
have almost complete political power to pursue his agenda. His
party and two tiny affiliated parties together took three-quarters
of the legislature in January elections. Nationalists also serve as
the magistrates, a position akin to mayor, in 15 of Taiwan’s 25
largest cities.
The extent of Nationalist control made some voters nervous on
Saturday.
Two controversial referendums, calling for Taiwan to apply for
membership in the United Nations, also fell well short of
passage.
Taiwan’s referendum law requires a majority of eligible voters
to vote on a referendum for it to be valid. Nationalists called for
voters not to cast ballots for either initiative and slightly less
than 36 percent of eligible voters did so.
With China strongly opposed to United Nations membership for
Taiwan, which it regards as a breakaway province, the island’s
recent efforts to win membership have failed completely. The United
States and China had both denounced as provocative the referendum
sponsored by the Democratic Progressive Party, which specifically
called for the island to apply as Taiwan and not using its legal
name, the Republic of China.
The legal name reflects the principle that Taiwan and the
mainland still form one China.
Taiwan’s economy grew 5.7 percent last year, but middle-class
and working-class incomes have stagnated as an affluent elite has
grown prosperous, often from investments on the mainland.
Much of the island’s manufacturing industry has shifted to the
mainland and hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese, have moved to the
mainland to manage these operations. The bulk of these are men aged
25 to 45, leaving a dearth of skills and entrepreneurial energy in
Taiwan itself.
