Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party, now the largest opposition bloc in Taiwan, scored a landslide victory in the presidential and parliamentary elections on Saturday.
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The people of Taiwan have elected Ms Tsai Ing-wen as their first female President.
Tsai swept aside her China-friendly rival Eric Chu of the Nationalist Party that had ruled Taiwan under president Ma Ying-jeou since 2008.
Former Non-Constituency Member of Parliament, Mr Gerald Giam, has also acknowledged Dr Tsai’s and DPP’s victory in the recently concluded election. “I expect the new president to continue upholding the current state of the peace and prosperity enjoyed across the Taiwan Strait”, he said.
“The results today tell me the people want to see a government that is willing to listen to people, that is more transparent and accountable and a government that is more capable of leading us past our current challenges and taking care of those in need”, she said in a news conference outside her party’s headquarters.
Relations had already been strained by a 16-year-old Taiwan singer with a South Korean girl band who inadvertently shot to the top of the election agenda on polling day after she publicly apologised for holding a Taiwan flag, prompting China and Taiwan to trade accusations.
“Regardless of the changes of Taiwan in the political sphere, China will remain committed to the “one China” principle and oppose Taiwanese independence”, said ministry spokesman Hong Lei.
Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reported Saturday that Tsai Ing-wen had won the presidency with 56.1 percent of the vote.
Tsai will face daunting tasks not only in placating China, which claims Taiwan as its sovereign territory, but battling declining morale in the military ranks and addressing unfulfilled procurement requests for new submarines and fighter aircraft.
In the legislative election, the DPP won 68 seats of the 113 total seats, while the KMT took 35.
Depending on how it interprets Tsai’s actions, Beijing could ratchet up the pressure by luring away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic allies or further shutting it out of global organizations.
If tensions arise over the Taiwan Strait, and an armed conflict between Beijing and Taipei becomes imminent, the situation would have a grave impact on Japan’s security and geopolitics in the Asia-Pacific region.
The size of the win could also put additional pressure on Tsai and the DPP, said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who closely follows Taiwanese politics.
During the past eight years, Taiwan’s Nationalist Party government has negotiated a series of economic deals with China, but Tsai disputes China’s precondition that both sides talk as parts of a single China, just subject to different interpretations.
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Tsai, a soft-spoken U.S.-educated lawyer, is viewed as a pragmatic leader but, should she win, will have her work cut out balancing the interests of China, which is the island’s biggest trading partner, the United States, its key ally, and the diverse demands of the island’s 23 million residents.
