As excited as I am about KMT's victory, I will be cautiously
optimistic about TW's relationship with Mainland China in the
immediate future. For one, the victory of the legislature election
do not automatically means victory for the presidential election
and it is the President which will hold the executive power to
improve the relationship with Mainland China. Although with more
than 3/4 seats under KMT, the party can now pass and reject any law
it wishes and even amend the constitution or impeach the
President.
Secondly, even if Ma Yingjiu wins the President election, there may
be little that he can do to reverse what DPP has done. Chen had for
the past two terms, very successfully, instill within the Taiwan
folks a sense of fear for an eventual reunification with Mainland
China. And Ma has little chance of improving relationship without
triggering this fear and hence offering an opportunity to the soon
to be opposition DPP to rally the Taiwanese. This will have
implication for the next election which KMT no doubt has little
interest in losing. The best Ma can hope is that both Mainland and
Taiwan will just leave things aside to cool, but if he wins the
election, it is likely that Mainland will want some sort of
clarification from him.
I suspect that his policy would be to increase economical and
cultural exchanges across the straits with the hope that Taiwanese
will understand Mainland more but downplay the official political
stand.
