Her win will introduce new uncertainty in the complicated relationship between Taiwan and mainland China, which claims the self-governed island as its own territory and threatens to use force if it declares formal independence.
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Taiwan’s independence-leaning opposition leader Tsai Ing-wen won a convincing victory in presidential elections on Saturday and pledged to maintain peace with giant neighbour China, which warned it would oppose any move towards independence, Reuters reported.
The Nationalist Party’s Chu has touted to voters the stability in Taiwan-China relations, in light of the first summit talks between Taiwan and China held in November.
Already, Beijing warned following her Saturday night victory that it will not budge on its bottom line that Taiwan’s leader must agree that the communist mainland and self-governing island democracy are part of a single Chinese nation.
The post Taiwan elects first female president appeared first on PBS NewsHour. Even the new president, Tsai Ing-wen, mentioned the incident in her victory speech.
Regardless of its official status, Taiwan is now self-governing, holding democratic elections and supporting religious freedom, including for Roman Catholics and other Christians.
The White House welcomed the result in similar terms.
She now faces the task of balancing the expectations of independence-minded supporters while trying to maintain stable relations with Beijing and reassure Washington, Taiwan’s most important security partner.
“She has a responsibility to keep the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations on track”, it said.
Chu, 54, conceded defeat and congratulated Tsai on her win. But the majority of voters in Taiwan itself were most concerned about the island’s poor economic situation.
The passage of a supervisory bill on cross-Strait exchanges, initiated in 2014 after large protests over a stalled trade pact with China, would be a legislative priority when the new parliamentary session begins in February, Tsai was quoted as saying in an interview with a Taiwanese magazine on Monday.
“I will make the greatest efforts to seek a way for Taiwan and mainland China to interact that is mutually acceptable to both sides”.
“This accords with the interest of Singapore, reflects the common understanding of the global community and will benefit the peace and stability of this region”, he added. This has been attributed to a growing sense of “Taiwanese identity” among the young generation, the perception that China and Taiwan are separate.
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The DPP’s general pro-Taiwan stance and platform that the People’s Republic and Taiwan should operate on a state-to-state basisi is not popular with the CCP in Beijing.
