{"id":16049,"date":"2012-01-14T00:40:19","date_gmt":"2012-01-14T04:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/?p=16049"},"modified":"2012-01-14T00:40:19","modified_gmt":"2012-01-14T04:40:19","slug":"taiwanese-vote-in-election-that-will-shape-ties-with-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/?p=16049","title":{"rendered":"Taiwanese Vote in Election That Will Shape Ties With China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source from BusinessWeek<\/a><\/p>\n

Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) — Taiwan\u2019s 18 million voters are deciding today whether President Ma Ying-jeou\u2019s work to improve relations with China merit him a second four-year term.<\/p>\n

Ma, 61, and his main opponent, Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen, made final appeals to voters yesterday. Tsai, 55, worked to damp concern that her victory would harm relations with China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory and has said Tsai\u2019s position will set back cross- strait relations. Ma touted Taiwan\u2019s economic growth and renewed ties with the mainland, which will also undergo a leadership change this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will form a cross-strait dialogue team with members including reputable social leaders, and build a mutually trusted communication channel between the new government and China,\u201d Tsai said in Keelung, a port city in northern Taiwan. \u201cThe government will accept all existing agreements and hope to build new cross-strait consensus and reach new agreements with China that will benefit both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Ma win may offer a mandate to forge ahead with agreements expanding cross-strait trade and investment. A win by Tsai would suggest voters are more concerned about a widening income gap and an economy where growth slowed to 3.4 percent in the quarter ended Sept. 30, from 6.6 percent in the first three months of last year.<\/p>\n

Ma, who heads the Kuomintang Party, says that a surge in two-way trade, investment and tourism across the Taiwan Strait helped Taiwan\u2019s export-dependent economy.<\/p>\n

Raise \u2018Competitiveness\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo support Ma Ying-jeou\u2019s cross-strait policy,\u201d Ma said at a rally yesterday in Taiwan\u2019s Miaoli County. \u201cThat will raise Taiwan\u2019s competitiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tsai counters that the links Ma engineered with the mainland risk eroding Taiwan\u2019s autonomy. Ma is backed by business leaders including Terry Gou, chairman of Foxconn Technology Group, which has more than 1 million employees in China.<\/p>\n

The U.S. stance on the election became a focal point of attention yesterday after Douglas Paal, a former head of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. embassy, was cited in the local media as saying he supports the so-called 1992 consensus that Ma\u2019s Kuomintang and the government in Beijing use as a basis for their negotiations.<\/p>\n

Tsai doesn\u2019t recognize the consensus, in which both sides agree that there is only one China, with each party differing on the meaning. Paal also criticized Tsai\u2019s plan to forge a \u201cTaiwan Consensus\u201d on relations with the mainland, according to the English-language Taipei Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cIrresponsible\u201d Comments<\/p>\n

Former Senator Frank Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who is an election observer, told reporters in Taipei that Paal\u2019s comments were \u201cirresponsible\u201d because they gave voters the impression that the U.S. was backing Ma in the election. The U.S. says it isn\u2019t taking sides in the contest. Paal, in an e- mail, said he spoke \u201conly for myself\u201d in making comments on the consequences of policy choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine bilateral relations without the 92 consensus,\u201d Cher Wang, Taiwan\u2019s richest person and chairwoman of HTC Corp., told reporters yesterday in Taipei. \u201cIt\u2019s impossible to understand there are people who don\u2019t believe in the 92 consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Voting Starts<\/p>\n

Voting stations opened at 8 a.m. local time and close at 4 p.m., with tallies posted on the Central Election Commission website after they shut. Voters must be at least 20 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was expecting the candidates to lay out plans on how to develop Taiwan in the next four years, but I don\u2019t see that in any of the candidates,\u201d Murphy Lin, 37, manager at a recycling technology company, said today as voters gathered in Xinyi, the business district of the capital, Taipei. \u201cMa\u2019s performance in the past four years was mediocre. He didn\u2019t really do anything. Tsai has some visions, but she has failed to turn them into concrete actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ma is an \u201chonest person,\u201d said David Feng, 63, a retired engineer. \u201cI vote for a candidate who is not corrupt. It\u2019s important for Taiwan to continue to develop relations, not just with China, but to open itself to the rest of the world. That\u2019s the only way for our economy to develop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Narrow Lead<\/p>\n

Ma was widening his narrow lead over Tsai in public opinion polls taken prior to a blackout period for voter surveys that began Jan. 4. Taiwanese law bars publication or release of polls 10 days prior to presidential elections.<\/p>\n

Ma\u2019s camp is showing \u201ca little bit of self confidence,\u201d while the Tsai campaign is showing \u201ca little bit of nervousness,\u201d Paal said in an interview on Bloomberg Television yesterday.<\/p>\n

Under Ma\u2019s administration, a six-decade ban on direct air, sea and postal links with the mainland came to an end. Two-way trade reached $160 billion last year, a 10 percent increase from 2010, according to Chinese customs statistics.<\/p>\n

As China\u2019s economy slows, Taiwan\u2019s growth also is moderating. Nomura Holdings Inc. forecasts GDP will drop 0.3 percent in the current quarter from a year earlier.<\/p>\n

Taiwan\u2019s voters also choose a new parliament today, the first time the two elections have been held on the same day. The ruling KMT kept control of Taiwan\u2019s Legislative Yuan when the opposition DPP held the presidency from 2000-2008. The division of power resulted in delays in implementing government policies, from financial-sector consolidation to defense purchases.<\/p>\n

Also seeking the presidency is James Soong, the 69-year-old head of the People First Party, a member of the Kuomintang-led coalition in parliament. Soong, who also supports closer ties with China and could take votes away from Ma, was trailing in public opinion polls taken prior to the blackout period.<\/p>\n

The candidate with the plurality of votes wins, and there is no run-off election. The inauguration takes place in May. Taiwan\u2019s presidents can serve a maximum of two four-year terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source from BusinessWeek Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) — Taiwan\u2019s 18 million voters are deciding today whether President Ma Ying-jeou\u2019s work to improve relations with China merit him a second four-year term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-up-to-date-news-on-everything-asian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16049"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16051,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16049\/revisions\/16051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}