Cambodia’s Opposition Sees Lessons in DPP’s Win in Taiwan

Tsai’s stance on sovereignty and cross-strait relationships played a factor in the last presidential election in 2012 where she narrowly lost to Kuomintang candidate, Ma Ying-jeou.

A trickle of critical comments began after her victory speech on Saturday and escalated into a wave beginning Wednesday night.

The fact is, while her supporters have valid concerns about the “hollowing out” of Taiwan’s economy as entrepreneurs and businesses shift to the mainland, the island would probably benefit from opening up further to Chinese investment and services, as South Korea and other Asian countries have.

China has been watching the elections carefully; Beijing does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state. Another wrote: “For so many years, the Taiwanese people have slandered the mainland, and its celebrities have made every effort to make the Mainland look bad in their dirty ways”, a reference to celebrities such as singer A-Mei, who was banned from China for several years after performing the Taiwanese national anthem in 2000.

A Chinese military unit based in a city that lies opposite self-ruled Taiwan has carried out live fire exercises and landing drills, state television reported just days after an independence-leaning opposition party won elections in Taiwan. We have our own democracy systems.

Ms Tsai says she wants peaceful relations with China. However, President Xi Jinping is believed to be deeply unsatisfied with the office’s failure to obtain results in Beijing’s quest to win over Taiwanese to China’s goal of political unification. In response, the Sunflower Movement was formed in 2014, inciting protests and a legislative sit-in, demanding more transparency on policy from the government.

Important Western social networking websites and accessibility to Facebook are formally blocked in mainland China – although the limitations are frequently circumvented by knowledgeable users.

For its part, China, which in 1996 threatened Taiwan’s first democratic election of its president with missile exercises, should take the outcome of the election as a cue that either political and military pressures or economic interests alone would not sway popular sentiments in Taiwan.

Simultaneously, her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won an outright majority in the Legislative Yuan. Exhibiting the technological skills for electronics and low-priced quality production of commodity products, that are obvious in other Asiatic nations with large Chinese populations (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia), Taiwan generates a three quarter billion dollar annual gross domestic product which lists it among the world’s ten most productive. That interpretation fits with Tsai’s repeated assertions that she will maintain the “status quo” of cross-strait relations, rather than seeking to overturn Ma’s policies. In her victory speech Saturday, she said: “The results today tell me that the people want to see a government more willing to listen to the people, a government that is more transparent and accountable, and a government that is more capable of leading us past our current challenges and taking care of those in need”. “Taiwanese should be very proud”.