Taiwan gets new President!!
Chen Shui-bian to quit Office in May
By Stanford Conway
Editor-in-Chief-SKNVibes.com
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| Ma Ying-jeou, newly-elected President of the Republic of China on Taiwan. (A Google Search photo) |
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FORMER Taipei’s Mayor and opposition candidate Ma Ying-jeou is the newly-elected President of the Republic of China on Taiwan.
According to an Associated Press article, “Taiwan’s opposition candidate cruised to victory in the presidential election Saturday, promising to expand economic ties with China while protecting the island from being swallowed up politically by its giant communist neighbor”.
In his victory declaration, the article quoted Ma as saying, “People want a clean government instead of a corrupt one. They want a good economy, not a sluggish one. They don’t want political feuding. They want peace across the Taiwan Strait. No war.”
On a turnout of 76 percent, Ma, of the Kuomintang Party, polled 58.45 percent while his opponent, Frank Hsieh of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, tallied 41.55 percent.
In a BBC report, the newly-elected President told reporters that a peace treaty with China would not take priority over economic normalisation. ~~Adz:Right~~
“Certainly we would like to start preliminary contact with the mainland on how a peace treaty could be signed,” he said.
But, he added, “We already said very clearly if we are to negotiate a peace treaty they have to remove the missiles targeted against Taiwan.”
Taiwan has always been accusing China of having some 1,000 missiles aimed at the island.
The BBC stated that Ma indicated he would move away from the stance of arch-nationalist Chen Shui-bian, who would be stepping down sometime in May.
“I will make it crystal clear that Taiwan will be a stakeholder and will not rock the boat in the region. By stakeholder, I mean peacemaker.”
The 57-year-old Harvard graduate pledged to build closer economic ties with China but, as the BBC puts it, “his approach was more cautious than his rival’s”.
Ma now has a commanding mandate, as his party controls two-thirds of the seats in parliament having won a sweeping victory in the January polls.
The BBC also stated that many Taiwanese who were waiting to cast their votes identified the island’s faltering economy as their top priority. “Our economic policy has three points,” Ma said. “One is to love Taiwan, another is infrastructure and industry and a third is to reach out to the whole world.”
The Associated Press noted that Ma had based his campaign on promises to reverse the pro-independence direction of outgoing President Chen Shui-bian and leverage China’s white-hot economic boom to re-energise Taiwan’s ailing high-tech economy.
That media house further stated he proposed a formal peace treaty with Beijing that would demilitarise the Taiwan Strait, 100-mile-wide waterway that separates the two heavily armed sides. But he has drawn the line at unification, promising it would not be discussed during his presidency.
“Economically,” the Associated Press said, “he wants to lower barriers to Taiwanese investment on the mainland - it already amounts to more than $100 billion - and begin direct air and maritime links between the sides.”
In spite of the two having been separately governed since 1949, China still claims Taiwan as part of its territory, and the threat of force has always been hanging over Taiwan should the island strive for formal independence.
It is also globally known that ties between Taiwan and China were restricted under outgoing President Chen Shui-bian’s leadership because of his pro-independence stance.
