China warns Taiwan’s president-elect Tsai Ing-wen against independence path

Taiwanese stocks are bucking the weaker trend across Asian markets this morning after Tsai Ing-wen was elected as the first female president of the self governing island over the weekend.

Tsai has refused to endorse the principle that Taiwan and China are parts of a single nation to be unified eventually. In a prgmatic move, Tsai has toned down the party’s traditionally pro-independence message, but her opponents say China ties will inevitably deteriorate if she takes power.

Beijing “will not hold unrealistic delusions” about Tsai, Zhou said, adding that whether cross-strait relations take “the road of peace or antagonism, it’s up to Tsai Ing-wen to make the choice”.

Chen, 64, who is known to be a devout Catholic, ran with Tsai Ing-Wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which secured 56 per cent of the vote, sweeping aside the pro-China Nationalist Party rival Eric Chu.

The result should be deeply unsettling to China, which may respond by further reducing Taipei’s already limited ability to win diplomatic allies and participate in global organizations.

Tsai, Taiwan’s first female president-elect, thanked her people in her victory speech during the press conference on Saturday: Through the democratic elections, “we have yet again shown the world the pride of being a democratic country and how proud we are as Taiwanese”, she said. Although she repeatedly stated that she wanted to maintain the “status quo” in ties with China, she regularly sidestepped the question when asked about the so-called “Consensus of 1992”.

President-elect Tsai favors independence for Taiwan but had struck a conciliatory note during her campaign with the island’s mainland neighbor, though she indicated she would not budge on issues of Taiwan’s sovereignty. Symbolic of the growing discontent of Taiwan’s voters against the policy were the five seats in Parliament gained in Saturday’s election by a new political party which grew out of the student protest movement against Ma’s trade pact with China in 2014.

She succeeds Ma Ying-jeou, who will step down in May after serving two four-year terms.

Fireworks lit up the sky at the headquarters of Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as thousands gathered to celebrate the historic win over the ruling China-friendly Kuomintang (KMT).

The new legislature will be seated next month, and Tsai will be inaugurated later.

“We share with the Taiwan people a profound interest in the continuation of cross-Strait peace and stability”, State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

“Tsai was saying that she plans to promote stability in cross-strait relations but only if Beijing refrains from coercive threats or efforts to tighten the noose on Taiwan diplomatically”, said John Ciorciari, political science professor at the University of MI.