A New Direction for Taiwan? or Not?
March 24th, 2008 -- Posted in World Politics | No Comments »Well by the time I accomplished anything on Saturday, the Taiwanese election was over and the wrong candidate won in my opinion because he advocated closer ties with the mainland. Especially with current events in Tibet, I would have though that the typical Taiwanese voter would have made the logical choice and voted for Frank Hsieh who advocated and independent Taiwan (free from CCP influence). That being said, there was a referendum on the election where the majority of the Taiwanese people that did vote, advocated not joining the U.N also known as not declaring independence.
The China Daily reports that only 35.8% of voters cast their vote in the referendum which really doesn’t tell you much about how many people want independence for Taiwan. Here is an obviously pro-China quote(It did come from the China Daily after all):
Li Weiyi, spokesman of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said on Saturday that the result suggested that Taipei’s secessionist push has gone against the will of the people.
After President Ma’s election, many people expected him to take a trip to Beijing to cement a stronger relationship with the People’s Republic of China however he did not do that. I have also read somewhere (not sure where) that he does not advocate reunification which is some welcome news to myself and many other pro-independence supporters out there. The Taiwanese people will benefit from the election of President Ma because there will be greater economic cooperation between Beijing and Taipei which could only mean good things for the staggering Taiwanese economy (a slice of the pie so to speak).
Immediately after the election, stocks in Taiwan rose the next trading day on the election results as well as stocks in other countries like Canada who is one of Taiwan’s significant trading partners. The GOP is also happy because they did not want a candidate elected who would aggravate the situation with China. I have pointed out the hypocrisy of this position in an earlier entry so I won’t go into too much detail about it here but suffice to say I am disappointed by this response and hope that the next presidency will give greater support to the DPP and the people of Taiwan who want independence.
