TAIPEI - The landslide victory by
opposition Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Ma Ying-jeou
in Taiwan's presidential election on Saturday has
boosted optimism that political tensions across
the Strait will be eased and economic ties
improved after he is sworn as the island's 12th
president on May 20.
The Taiwan stock
market reacted positively on Monday. The Taiwan
Capitalization Weighted Index opened more than 524
points around 6% higher and closed 340 points or
nearly 4% higher than Friday's closing.
The 57-year-old Ma won by an unexpectedly
large 17% margin, or more than 2.2 million votes,
in Taiwan's fourth direct presidential election,
giving him and his party a clear mandate to rule
the
island
bringing the era of President Chen Shui-bian a
humiliating end.
Many greeted Ma's victory
with joy. Fireworks and firecrackers were heard in
downtown Taipei for hours after Ma's triumph was
confirmed Saturday evening.
The KMT, which
ruled Taiwan from 1949 to 2000 (of which 1949-1987
was under martial law), now holds greater power in
Taiwan than at any time since the end of its
authoritarian days, with nearly three-fourths of
the seats in the legislature and two-thirds of
county and city administrations under its control.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party
(DPP) candidate Frank Hsieh immediately conceded
defeat and announced his retirement from politics
shortly after the outcome was finalized.
Ma's victory, analysts said, resulted from
eight years of lackluster governance by the DPP
and particularly incumbent Chen, and a spate of
corruption allegations that irreparably tarnished
Chen's administration. Hsieh's failure to distance
himself from Chen and his choosing to run a
largely negative campaign against Ma hurt the
party's popularity that had already taken a
beating after the DPP's lopsided defeat in
January's legislative elections.
The
public's frustration with the island's economy,
which has seen an average of 4-5% annual gross
domestic product (GDP) growth over the past three
years, a 4% unemployment rate and rising
inflation, also played a significant role in the
ruling party's defeat.
Ma's platform
promised to boost Taiwan's annual GDP growth to
6%, lower the employment rate to 3%, and raise per
capita income to US$30,000.
Hsieh had
hoped China's suppression of protests in Tibet on
March 14 would divert attention from the
frustration voters felt over DPP rule and refocus
the campaign on Taiwan's identity and sovereignty,
which favor his pro-independence party. Linking
Taiwan and Tibet, he told voters that the
crackdown was the consequence of leaning toward
China, as advocated by Ma. Some in Hsieh's
campaign thought the Tibet incident would be just
the break it needed to come from behind, but the
Taiwan-identity card that had been so effective in
past elections for the DPP did not shake voters'
support for the KMT this time.
In a subtle
way, Beijing welcomed Ma's election as the new
Taiwanese leader. A spokesman for the Taiwan
Affairs Office said Ma's victory marked the defeat
of Taiwan independence (movement).
Niu
Jun, professor at Peking University, told Chinese
language media that the rationality of Taiwan
voters and the maturity of Taiwan's democracy was
surprisingly impressive.
With the bold
mandate, Ma will shift Taiwan from the DPP's
explicit pro-independence cross-strait policy back
to the ambiguous - some say fictitious - "1992
Consensus", which the KMT insists means both
Taiwan and China agreed there is only one China,
leaving the question which government represents
China - Beijing's People's Republic of China (PRC)
or Taipei's Republic of China (ROC) - to the
interpretation of each side. Soon after his
victory, Ma also publicly welcomed the arrival of
two pandas, which Beijing officially offered as a
gift during former KMT chairman Lien Chan's first
trip to Beijing in May 2005.
Ma's victory,
and his more conciliatory stance toward China, was
also welcomed by many American political analysts.
Alan Romberg, senior associate and
director of the East Asian Program of the Henry
Stimson Center, noted that the new situation after
May 20 when Ma is inaugurated will open
opportunities to reduce cross-Taiwan Strait
tensions and develop a broader range of ties with
Beijing that will also be in the US's interest.
Richard Bush, former chairman of the
American Institute in Taiwan and now director of
the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at
the Brookings Institution, echoed Romberg by
arguing that Ma's victory creates a strategic
opportunity to bring some stability and
predictability to cross-strait relations.
But Ma's plan to visit Washington before
his inauguration, Taiwan's request to purchase F16
fighters, and its desire for a free trade
agreement, might not get the green light in the
short term, according to analysts.
Bonnie
Glaser, senior associate at the Washington-based
Center for Strategic and International Studies,
suggested that even prior to the elections, the
Chinese were warning against a visit to Washington
by Ma, were he to win. "The [George W] Bush
administration will have to weigh the potential
benefits that could accrue from a pre-inauguration
visit by Ma Ying-jeou with the possible negative
impact on US relations with China," she said.
Perhaps more troubling for Ma is that the
relationship with Beijing might not progress as
smoothly as expected, even if the KMT government
poses no threat of declaring de jure
independence.
"Beijing will again adopt an
attitude of 'listening to what he says while
watching what he does' as it did with Chen
Shui-bian back in 2000," suggested a former senior
cross-strait affairs official.
They are
also leery of Ma repeated insistence on democracy
in China and his criticism of Beijing's
human-rights abuses. Ma has regularly attending
memorial services for victims of the 1989
Tiananmen crackdown and his demands that China
face up to the incident have raised doubts in
Chinese minds. He has also attended Falungong
gatherings, criticized China's decision to push
through an "anti-secession" law in 2005, and most
recently denounced China's crackdown in Tibet by
threatening to boycott the Beijing Summer
Olympics.
Some Chinese academics also
consider him weak and without the guts to talk
about "unification with China". Although Ma
reiterated his willingness to ink a peace treaty
with China should Beijing remove the some 1,000
missiles it has targeted at Taiwan, he vowed to
manage cross-strait ties based on the principle of
"no unification, no independence, and no use of
force".
Ma, who was born in Hong Kong but
moved to Taiwan with his family when he was a year
old, was clearly a rising star, and a favorite in
Washington. Born into the family of a senior
ruling Kuomintang official in 1950, Ma was
virtually raised to become a key official in a
party that regarded government positions as a
hereditary right. Shortly after he received his
doctoral degree from Harvard, he was appointed
deputy chief of the Presidential Office's First
Bureau in 1981 and served as the English secretary
to president Chiang Ching-Kuo in 1982. He then
rose through the ranks to senior KMT posts, either
in the government or the party.
But
despite this upbringing, Ma is not a typical
product of the KMT, observers say. He is more
likely to socialize with academics than with other
politicians, and whether he can lead the unwieldy
party with major internal divisions through a
period of smooth governance is a huge question
mark, according to analysts.
Shyu
Jong-Shyoung, a KMT legislator and a close adviser
to Ma, emphasized, however, that "Ma is a decent
man. Taiwan doesn't need a strong and powerful
leader. We should just let the governing mechanism
run itself."
Ting-I Tsai is a
freelance journalist based in Taipei.
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