DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen Is Taiwan’s Next President

Pro-independence party candidate Tsai Ing-wen will become Taiwan’s first female president, after beating on Saturday a China-friendly party that has led country for eight years.Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party overwhelmingly beat the Nationalists’ Eric Chu, a late entry to the race after the party’s original candidate was seen as alienating voters.

Earlier in the day, Tsai Ing-wen, the leader of the DPP, was announced as the victor of Taiwan’s presidential polls after receiving about 56 percent of the vote.

KMT candidate Eric Chu conceded defeat in a disastrous rout for the party, addressing tearful crowds at the party’s headquarters in Taipei.

Tsai, who was the DPP’s chairwoman, has pledged to carry out a deep reform of Taiwan’s politics to allow greater popular participation, while also promoting social welfare and more firmly defending the island’s identity vis-a-vis China.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office blamed “political forces in Taiwan” for using Chou’s case to “provoke conflict”, according to a report from state news agency Xinhua, posted on the affairs office website. However, the economic benefits of deeper integration with China did not materialize for most ordinary citizens, and many voters, especially younger ones, have grown resistant to the idea that China is trying to exert too much control over Taiwan.

“On the streets of Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, everyone speaks Chinese”.

“Even at the global level, if the DPP oversteps its boundaries, China will do its utmost to counterattack the DPP, so there’s no need to hold back unlike dealing with the KMT, and when dealing with cross-strait issues, China can afford to be more relaxed”.

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

“I want Taiwan to be independent because I’m Taiwanese, not Chinese”, he said.

China still regards Taiwan as a breakaway province, but Ms Tsai said it was the shared resolve of Taiwan’s 23 million people that theirs was a democratic country. But it was a career-long commitment to shrewdly shaping policy, rather than stoking the passions of her constituents, that helped Dr Tsai win the election, experts said.

Observers say it is unlikely Ms Tsai will do anything to provoke Beijing as president.

Beijing not only has to contend with a new president in Taiwan who is wary of relations with China, but also a fresh batch of activists-turned-lawmakers from the island’s boisterous Sunflower Movement.

Ahead of Taiwan’s election on Saturday, Beijing warned that it would not deal with any leader who does not recognize the “one China” principle. Beijing has hundreds of missiles pointing at the island.

In Taiwan itself there remains a split between those seeking independence, and others calling for reunification with China.