Taiwan’s independence-leaning opposition leader Tsai Ing-wen won the island’s presidential election on Saturday (January 16) after the ruling party admitted defeat, a result likely to usher in a new round of uncertainty with giant neighbour China.
Vote counting started immediately after eight hours of polling in the island’s presidential and parliamentary elections on Saturday, with the tally carefully scrutinised by observers.
Real-time vote tallies on screens at the Taiwan Central Election Commission offices showed Tsai with a clear lead.
Tsai Ing-wen, leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), will take on one of Asia’s toughest and most dangerous jobs, with China pointing hundreds of missiles at the island, decades after losing Nationalists (KMT) fled from Mao Zedong’s Communists to Taiwan in the Chinese civil war.
She will have to balance the superpower interests of China, which is also Taiwan’s largest trading partner, and the United States with those of her freewheeling, democratic home.
Tsai risks antagonising China if she attempts to forcefully assert Taiwan’s sovereignty and reverses eight years of warming China ties under incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalists, who retreated to Taiwan in 1949.
In a statement carried by state media earlier in the day, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office repeated it would not get involved in the election, saying only that it was “paying attention to across the Taiwan Strait”.
The election comes at a tricky time for Taiwan’s export-dependent economy, which slipped into recession in the third quarter last year. China is also Taiwan’s top trading partner and Taiwan’s favourite investment destination.
Support for the DPP has swelled since 2014, when hundreds of students occupied Taiwan’s parliament for weeks in the largest display of anti-China sentiment the island had seen in years.
Tsai has the tide of history against her. Ma and his predecessors 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.
Reuters