Taiwan President-Elect Tsai’s Facebook Flooded With Posts Demanding Island’s Return To China

Tsai, who will become Taiwan’s first woman president, is slated to be inaugurated on May 20.

The Facebook page of Taiwan’s newly elected president Tsai Ing-wen has been flooded with tens of thousands of hostile comments, many of them demanding reunification with mainland China.

“Our democratic way of life is forever the resolve of Taiwan’s 23 million people”, she said. She disputes Beijing’s precondition that both sides can talk only as parts of a single China. China could easily block any bid by Taiwan to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, for instance – a pact that could otherwise provide a major boost to the island’s economy. The government also blocks Taiwan-related comments on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media site.

That should not lead Tsai and the DPP to return to the hardline stance toward China taken by the previous DPP government under Chen Shui-bian from 2000 to 2008.

Denny Roy, an Asia security specialist at the East-West Center in Hawaii, says Beijing’s reaction suggests that a DPP victory, in itself, is not unacceptable to China’s leaders.

Beijing has missiles pointed at the island. “Without the vote, people are treated like grandsons”. “And through our actions, we want to tell the world, once again, that Taiwan equals democracy and democracy equals Taiwan”. “We will not be influenced by China”, said Tsai Cheng-an, a 55-year-old Taipei professor.

Xi already made a gesture of good will in meeting with Taiwan’s incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou in November – the first such summit since 1945 – even if his goal was to bolster the electoral strength of Ma’s Kuomintang Party.

America needs to bear in mind, however, that the fate of Taiwan remains a long-term goal for the People’s Republic of China.

“As long as their comments are not overly extreme, we have full respect for them”, Mr Ruan said.

Joseph Wu is secretary-general of the Democratic Progressive Party. The fact that a South Korea-based Taiwanese pop singer was forced by Chinese pressure to apologize just before the election for waving a Taiwanese flag did not help.

However, the president-elect said throughout her campaign she would avoid upsetting China and not try to break away legally to back up the island’s de facto autonomy.

“I will build a consistent, predictable, and sustainable cross-strait relationship”, said Tsai in her victory speech on Saturday.

The Taiwan dollar firmed T$0.214 to T$33.588 per US dollar, after the local dollar closed at its weakest level in almost seven years. Some of the Facebook warrior-commenters are young Chinese students studying in foreign countries, including but not limited to the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Japan. “Taiwanese should be very proud”.

A senior official of the independence-leaning party that swept Taiwan’s elections says the new government will carefully manage relations with mainland China and wants Washington to keep encouraging reconciliation.

Now, with the DPP controlling both the presidency and the legislature, any push for Taiwanese independence could drastically impact Chinese-Taiwanese, and Chinese-US relations.