The majority of Taiwanese busi-nesspeople based in China seem to have decided to cast their ballots in favor of the pan-blue camp in the March presidential election, despite the government's latest initiatives to change their minds.
Premier Yu Shyi-kun visited a Lunar New Year gathering of around 130 heads of business associations for China-based Tai-wanese in Tainan yesterday. President Chen Shui-bian (
Senior officials from various government agencies also participated in the businessmen's three-day gathering, hosted by the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF).
In Chen's neck-and-neck campaign race against his blue-camp rivals, if Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
The number of China-based businessmen planning to return to Taiwan to vote in the election is expected to be limited by the number of available air tickets. Some of the business leaders said that only a few of them could afford to take leave to cast their ballots.
In the 2000 presidential election, only about 2,000 businessmen returned to Taiwan to cast their votes, officials said.
Many of the businessmen's families and relatives live in Taiwan, and the businessmen's opinions could influence the way their families vote.
The businessmen, their families and relatives could easily represent more than one million votes in this year's election, according to the SEF's estimation.
Hector Yeh (
"At that time, so few of us came home to vote that the DPP did not care much about us. But we must go home to vote this time," Yeh said.
Shanghai is the Chinese city with the most enterprises run by Taiwanese businesspeople.
Yeh said that many Taiwanese businessmen in Shanghai have been suffering over the past four years because the government, "obsessed with a certain ideology," has failed to launch policies that they urgently needed.
The DPP government has not shown much support for China-based Taiwanese businesspeople because of the hostility of some factions within the party, Yeh said.
"These factions have always been against us. We feel it would be easier for the pan-blue camp to carry out policies that can really benefit us. That's why most of us support the blue camp," Yeh said.
The number of businessmen going home for this year's election will certainly be more that of four years ago, because they "don't want to suffer for another four years," Yeh said.
"We want peace and stability. `More economy, less politics' is our suggestion to the government for handling cross-strait relations," Yeh said.
Tony Cheng (
"The government should have carried out the initiatives four years ago," Cheng said.
The pan-blue camp and the DPP have both proposed cross-strait policies, but Cheng said what the businessmen care about most is whether the parties are trustworthy and sincere.
"The DPP government's sincerity has been heavily questioned over the past four years," Cheng said.
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