Taiwan Voters Reject China-Centric Policies

[Valin]

Around Asia:

Gordon G. Chang

Dec. 5 2014

 

 

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou bowed for 10 seconds Wednesday as he confirmed his resignation as chairman of the ruling Kuomintang, taking responsibility for the party’s worst drubbing since 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island after defeat in the Chinese civil war. On Saturday, voters thoroughly rejected the KMT, as the organization is known, in elections for 11,130 local posts across the island.

 

(Snip)

 

Ma is only half right. True, his government had been seen as corrupt and, worse, incompetent, and he had not met overly ambitious campaign promises in his two successful runs for the presidency.

 

Yet Ma apparently has not come to terms with the fundamental reason for his party’s failure in Saturday’s election, in which 67.6 percent of the eligible voters participated. His China policies, after six years in office, have become extremely unpopular.

 

During his tenure, 21 trade, transit, and investment pacts have been put in place. They have resulted in economic integration with the “mainland,” as Ma’s allies call it, or “China,” the term used by those who do not see Taiwan as Chinese. Ma has worked for a political accommodation with Beijing, but an overwhelming majority of people on the island want no part of the People’s Republic even in the best of times, and now there is a general perception that China ties have worked to Taiwan’s disadvantage.

 

(Snip)