China's state-run papers yesterday all but ignored the DPP's victory in Saturday's elections.
Only the Communist Party's mouthpiece, the People's Daily, carried a short two-paragraph story on the results of Saturday's election, leading with the victory of both the DPP and the KMT in simultaneous mayoral and county magistrate polls.
The report briefly mentioned the DPP's 87 to 68 edge in parliamentary seats over the KMT, but failed to say this brought to an end 52 years of KMT dominance in the legislature.
China's official Xinhua news agency did not report the election at all, effectively barring all other Chinese newspapers from carrying the story. Online news sites carried brief reports on results without commentary, put out by the semi-official China News Service.
Beijing's silence reflects its growing concern that Taiwan is moving ever-closer to independence now it has a DPP-dominated parliament to go with the party's grip on the presidency, won last year by Chen Shui-bian (
China's lack of comment in the election run-up came after saber-rattling rhetoric ahead of previous Taiwan polls, including last year's presidential race, resulted in victories by the DPP.
But a leading mainland policy analyst said Beijing was nonetheless angered by Chen's electioneering, during which he rejected as a "betrayal to Taiwan" a so-called "1992 consensus" brokered between Beijing and the then-ruling KMT which opened the way for cross-strait dialogue.
"Before the election Chen Shui-bian said some very negative things and denied the 1992 consensus, this could have a bad influence if he keeps it up," said Guo Zhenyuan, senior fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, run by China's Foreign Ministry.
Relations could further deteriorate if Chen continued to reject the "one China policy," a doctrine accepting Taiwan as part of Chinese territory which Beijing insists is a precondition for talks, said Guo.
"The mainland will wait and see what he does. If he continues with these kinds of statements on the `one China policy' or adopts specific measures based on his statements, this will not be good for cross strait relations."
Guo said Beijing would remain largely silent on the election results, which was only a "local" affair, despite the growing dangers of an independent Taiwan.
Joseph Cheng, a leading China watcher at the City University of Hong Kong, said that relations could hardly get worse than they were after Chen's presidential win last year, so Beijing would be best served by backing away from strident demands for unification.
"The best thing would be for Beijing not to try to change the mindset of Taiwan and attach less importance to the Taiwan issue while allowing cross-strait economic integration to develop," Cheng said.
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