Greater Kaohsiung, Chiayi — cities little known outside Taiwan, but in Saturday’s presidential election, they could hand victory to an opposition candidate expected to cool relations with China.
The cities are in the south, where Taiwanese are traditionally wary of China’s embrace and where many are pinning their hopes on Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who is aiming to become Taiwan’s first female head of state.
“Little Ing elected,” hundreds of people chanted on Sunday in Greater Tainan, affectionately using Tsai’s nickname as they caught a glimpse of her passing by in an open-top jeep.
Photo: PATRICK LIN, AFP
Morale is high among Tsai’s followers, who believe she has a real chance of regaining power for the DPP, which lost to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) four years ago.
Relations between China and Taiwan have improved since Ma took office on a Beijing-friendly platform, allowing in more Chinese tourists and signing an important trade pact.
Ma is running for a second and final term, arguing that he can maintain prosperity in Taiwan through stable cross-strait ties, although some voters appear unconvinced.
“I don’t like China as it often bullies Taiwan and looks down on us,” 22-year-old student Liu Chia-wen said as she took part in a major rally for Tsai in Greater Kaohsiung. “I think Ma is leaning too much toward China and he hasn’t done enough to uphold Taiwan’s sovereignty.”
Tsai has given few details about where she would take Taiwan’s China policy if elected and Beijing has been careful not to explicitly warn against her, fearing it could boost her support.
However, there is little doubt China would prefer four more years of Ma rather than a return of the DPP.
In a veiled reference to the DPP’s track record, a spokesman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office said last month that insisting on Taiwanese independence will “harm the peaceful development of relations.”
Southern voters are concerned Taiwan has become too reliant on Beijing during Ma’s term and dubious over the supposed benefits of closer ties.
“We southerners are rooting for a Tsai victory,” said Wu Jia-chi, a mother of two who runs a restaurant in Chiayi County.
“I don’t think we should open too much to China, which will want to have more control of Taiwan and eventually turn us into a second Hong Kong,” she said, referring to the territory where British rule ended in 1997.
Interviews with voters in the south lay bare the unease that remains to this day.
Huang Li-chin, a rice distributor from a farming family in Tainan, criticized Beijing for “trying to buy its way into Taiwan people’s hearts” while refusing to remove missiles targeting Taiwan.
“Taiwan may be small and weak and China may be rich and powerful, but we want to be our own masters and we don’t want to become a province of China,” she said.
Huang is among those dismayed by a 2008 incident when police prevented demonstrators from displaying Taiwan’s national flag during a visit by a top Chinese official.
“If we don’t have any dignity, it won’t matter how much more money we can make from trade deals with China,” she said.
Tsai has sought to ease fears that her victory would stir up tensions, vowing to seek peace and dialogue with Beijing.
Taiwan’s young democracy has traditionally been defined by China policy, but it is a less prominent factor in these elections because of voter apathy. National polls show Ma leading Tsai by as little as 3 percentage points.
However, a recent China Times survey showed Tsai’s support in the south was running at 48 percent in Tainan, Yunlin and Chiayi, against 32 percent for Ma, reflecting the strong feelings in the region.
Shen Feng-piao, a retired businessman, said he believes China is using trade as a foil to push for its ultimate political goal of taking over Taiwan, and that it will pile pressure on Ma if he is re-elected.
“I think Tsai won’t move so fast like Ma, but she won’t be too radical. She can uphold Taiwan’s sovereignty and maintain the ‘status quo,’” he said. “No matter how big and strong China is, I want to live in a democracy and I want to elect my president.”
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS