On election eve, Taiwan frontrunner says she seeks peace with China

BBC reports that the new leader has vowed to maintain the status quo with the Chinese mainland.

Tsai’s Nationalist opponent, Eric Chu, was a late entry in the race after the party ditched its original candidate, Hung Hsiu-chu, whose abrasive style was seen as alienating voters.

Tsai said one of her top priorities would be to unite Taiwan in order to gain strength and respect from worldwide society.

“We hope that President Ma’s administration and the incoming administration will work constructively to ensure a smooth transition and continue to promote peace and stability in the region”, he said. “Any boost to the turnout likely helps Tsai and the DPP, particularly since this has gone viral among young people”, said Clayton Dube of the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute.

China has largely declined to comment on the polls, although its chief official for Taiwan affairs this month warned of potential major challenges in the relationship in the year ahead.

The AFP reported that searches for “Tsai Ing-wen” and “Taiwan elections” on the Twitter-like Weibo network turned up a message that read, “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the results for this search can not be shown”, a signal for words blocked by China’s army of Internet gatekeepers.

In a statement carried by state media earlier in the day, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office repeated it would not get involved in the election, saying only that it was “paying attention to across the Taiwan Strait”.

Tsai also risks antagonising China if she attempts to forcefully assert Taiwan’s sovereignty and reverses eight years of warming China ties under incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou of the Nationalists.

Not only does a more balanced approach represent prudence, but it also reflects the will of the Taiwanese people: Centrist voters, who constitute a far bigger portion of the electorate than strident advocates of independence, have no desire to undo the current modus operandi with China.

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

In the last election, the KMT won seven out of eight seats in Taipei, 10 of 12 seats in neighboring New Taipei and the only seat in Keelung.

“We are willing to strengthen contact with any political party or social group that agrees that the two sides of the Strait belong to one China”, the office said.

China has held out the “one country, two systems” formula, under which the British colony of Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, as a solution for Taiwan.

China regards Taiwan, an island of 23 million, as a “breakaway” province, although China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when the KMT, losing to the Communist Party of China, fled to Taiwan.

At stake are relations with an ascendant and increasingly assertive China under President Xi Jinping.

The United States, Taiwan’s most important ally and source of defensive arms, congratulated Tsai on her victory. She also emphasiaes expanding Taiwan’s trade ties globally.