Taiwan Opposition’s Presidential Candidate Pledges to Heed Voters on China
Taiwan's Opposition Leader Tsai Ing-wen
Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images
Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's opposition leader.
Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's opposition leader. Photographer: Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou
Maurice Tsai/Bloomberg
Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan's president.
Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan's president. Photographer: Maurice Tsai/Bloomberg
Taiwan presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen pledged her China policies would reflect the consensus of the island’s voters that the “status quo” should be sustained if she wins in January elections.
“Taiwan’s most precious quality is that of democracy,” Tsai said at a briefing in Taipei today to lay out her approach to China. While her Democratic Progressive Party’s view that Taiwan is independent from China is clear, “the biggest consensus among Taiwanese people is to keep the status quo.”
Under President Ma Ying-jeou, China and Taiwan have sealed historic trade agreements by agreeing on a one-China principle and shelving discussion of reunification. Tsai’s comments seek to reassure voters that her victory wouldn’t cause a rift with China, the island’s biggest trade partner, while portraying Ma’s three-year detente as a risk to the island’s sovereignty.
“Tsai has to convince voters the DPP isn’t a troublemaker and all the things won’t be changed overnight, and that the DPP is ready to talk and deal with China,” said Lo Chih-cheng, a political science professor at Taipei’s Soochow University. “The DPP is linking Ma’s China policies to domestic issues such as jobs that are lost because of” the trade deals.
DPP Chairwoman Tsai, 54, helped pen the “state-to-state relations” doctrine for former President Lee Teng-hui in 1999 that led China to brand him “a rat” and “the sinner of 1,000 years,” and cut off dialogue with the island. China regards Taiwan as an integral part of its territory and has pledged to regain control over the island by force, if necessary.
Defending System
“China wants the Taiwan people to accept we are part of China, and that we accept the one-China principle framed by China,” Tsai said later at a talk to Taiwan’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club. “Our goal is to defend the political system and the way of life that the Taiwanese people have built over the past centuries.”
Ma, also KMT chairman, returned his party to power in 2008 after eight years of DPP rule saw increased tensions with China. The KMT had governed Taiwan for more than 50 years after retreating to the island in 1949 following defeat at the hands of Mao Zedong’s communists.
In the 2008 presidential election, the KMT beat the DPP 58 percent to 42 percent by pledging direct flights to China, lifting of investment restrictions by Taiwanese companies and allowing more Chinese visitors to travel to Taiwan.
Ma, 60, reversed predecessor Chen Shui-bian’s independence stance. Taiwan has since signed 15 economic agreements with the mainland in a policy that Tsai derided as “boxed in a frame set by China.”
President, Not King
Tsai’s rejected the notion that Ma had a democratic mandate for his China policies because he was elected. “We elect a president, we didn’t elect a king,” she told the FCC.
Tsai, who was vice premier and Mainland Affairs Council chairwoman during Chen’s 2000-2008 administration, today said Ma hasn’t done enough to win free trade agreements with other countries. Cross-strait ties should be a part of Taiwan’s global strategy, and the government must also pursue FTAs with the U.S., Europe, Japan, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and other regional groups, she said.
Tsai needs to build on her support base among younger voters and in the south of the island to narrow the gap with Ma before elections on Jan. 14. Ma has support from 46 percent of the electorate, against Tsai’s 39 percent, Taipei-based TVBS Poll Center said last week.
Age Gap
Tsai has more support from voters aged between 20 and 39. Ma leads by between 6 percentage points and 18 percentage points among older groups of voters, who outnumber the under 40s by 10.7 million to 7.3 million, government data show. The poll of 1,234 adults between Aug. 11 and Aug. 15 had a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points. The voting age is 20.
In her first TV campaign, Tsai highlighted a widening wealth gap under Ma. The average income of the 20 percent of households earning the most in Taiwan in 2009 was 6.34 times greater than the income of the lowest-earning 20 percent, the widest difference since 2001. The gap narrowed to 6.19 times last year, the statistics bureau said last week.
Ma’s government plans to boost the minimum wage for the second straight year in 2012, by about 5 percent, to help people cope with higher costs and narrow the income gap. It also imposed property and luxury taxes on June 1.
To contact the reporter on this story: Chinmei Sung in Taipei at csung4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ben Richardson at brichardson8@bloomberg.net
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