China Tells Taiwan to Abandon Independence “Hallucination”

Tsai swept aside her China-friendly rival Eric Chu of the Nationalist Party that had ruled Taiwan under president Ma Ying-jeou since 2008. The official announcement has yet been made, however the surveys that were taken after the voting polls closed told the story. “Tsai Ing-wen should not instil this illusion into Taiwan society”, the editorial said.

Making Tsai’s task easier, her Democratic Progressive Party won 68 seats in the 113-seat national legislature that has been traditionally dominated by the Nationalists, who took home 36 with the remainder going to independents and smaller parties. According to the BBC News, many countries believe that this election proves that there is real democracy in Taiwan (the first triumph was in 2000 when Chen Shui-bien won the presidential election).

Taiwan’s first female president-elect Tsai Ing-wen has warned that repression will destroy stability in cross-strait relations.

Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1885 to 1945 and split again from China amid civil war in 1949.

“China also has many young people who want reunification”. Taiwan eventually separated itself from China and has since seen itself as a sovereign state, but China still feels like they’re the one that got away.

“I congratulate Chairman Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party on her victory”, he said.

The passage of a supervisory bill on cross-Strait exchanges, initiated in 2014 after large protests over a stalled trade pact with China, would be a legislative priority when the new parliamentary session begins in February, Tsai was quoted as saying in an interview with a Taiwanese magazine on Monday.

Nonetheless, the head of the Institute of Taiwan Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Zhou Zhihuai, wrote in the Chinese-language edition of the Global Times that if Ms Tsai “parts ways with the mainland, she will go down a dead end”. She repeatedly reiterated her pledge to maintain the status quo in relations with China – not to seek independence or unification – while suppressing the pro-independence tone of the DPP. The mainland of China and Taiwan are one body.

Tsai, a soft-spoken U.S.-educated lawyer, is viewed as a pragmatic leader but will have her work cut out balancing the interests of China, which is the island’s biggest trading partner, the United States, its key ally, and the diverse demands of the island’s 23 million residents.

He says that how the relationship develops is really up to Beijing.