Whether Beijing can understand democracy in Taiwan and whether Taiwan's political parties can cooperate are the two crucial elements for future cross-strait relations after the DPP won the most seats in Saturday's election, government officials and scholars say.
"I am most encouraged by the election results," said Tsai Ing-wen (
Tsai said "voters seem to favor the DPP by increasing their representation in the Legislature."
Beijing has refused to deal with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) since he was elected last year, saying "they are watching the deeds and listening to the words of Chen," but scholars say that it's time for Beijing to re-evaluate Taiwan's situation after the DPP and the TSU won 100 seats in the Legislative Yuan.
Lin Chong-pin (
"Beijing didn't want to waste its time dealing with President Chen Shui-bian, since he was a minority president, but President Chen's party now holds the most seats in the Legislative Yuan and might be re-elected in the next presidential election," Lin said.
While Lin urged China to reevaluate Taiwan's domestic situation, DPP lawmaker Lin Cho-shui (
"Beijing tried not to become involved in Taiwan's election, which is very different from its performances in the last two presidential elections, but the result reflected that Beijing's strategy didn't work. Beijing needs to learn that practicing this strategy can't change the Taiwanese will to seek democracy," Lin said.
Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉), who specializes in Chinese politics at National Chengchi University's Institute of International Relations, however, doubts whether Beijing can understand Taiwan's democracy.
"The result is the worst option for Beijing. But Beijing looks at Taiwan's affairs in an unsophisticated way, with the result that it has no appropriate measure to understand Taiwan's affairs and, of course, no appropriate way to solve the problems," Hsu said.
Meanwhile, Andy Chang (張五岳), director of the Institute of China Studies at Tamkang University, emphasized that cooperation between parties was more important than Beijing's attitude toward Taiwan.
"Beijing's refusal to deal with President Chen is because of the domestic disputes in Taiwan.
"Since this is so, what Taiwan has to do to improve the cross-strait relationship is cooperate, then Beijing would not have a chance to spread disunity in Taiwan but have to deal with Taiwan seriously," Chang said.
Lin said that from his observation of China's politics there might be a dialogue between two sides in the near future, since President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) would like to make gains in cross-strait relations before he steps down next year.
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