The election defeat of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance last night signified that Taiwan had taken the next step in realizing Taiwan's individual identity and conscience, according to political observers.
The pan-blue camp's defeat signifies Taiwanese people's determination to be rid of the KMT, said Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), a political commentator and the editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.
However, after losing to President Chen Shui-bian (
The Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Chen sees Taiwan as independent, while Lien favors a conciliatory approach to China and has advocated setting the sovereignty dispute aside in favor of closer business ties, and leaving the political issue for future generations to decide.
The narrow defeat of the pro-unification KMT demonstrates a growing awareness of localization in Taiwanese society, political observers said last night.
"The pan-blue defeat means its `one-China' stance is not popular among the majority of the people in Taiwan," Chin said.
Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華), executive member of the Taipei Society and a sociology professor at National Chengchi University, said the KMT-PFP alliance's defeat showed that "Taiwan is entering into a new era."
"The election result was a turning point for Taiwan. The fact that the electorate has dealt a second blow to the pan-blue camp suggests that the ideals advocated by the DPP and [former president] Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) have become part of mainstream thought in Taiwanese society," Ku said.
According to Ku, Beijing will now have to assume
a pragmatic and flexible approach in its dealings with Taiwan, as there is no longer any doubt that the DPP administration represents
the nation's people.
Chin said that China will have to rethink its "one China" principle and face reality by engaging in dialogue with the DPP.
Ger Yeong-kuang (
at National Taiwan University, attributed the pan-green camp's victory to "the DPP's superb campaign tactics."
Ger expects cross-strait relations under a DPP administration to be tense, as the pan-blue camp's second defeat in its bid to lay its hands on the keys to the Presidential Office will create a strong sense of crisis within the camp.
Pan-blue supporters' fears that the KMT and PFP might be sidelined after the green camp's victory will put pressure on
the two opposition parties to merge, Ger said.
Another immediate issue facing the KMT is that it is now being forced to engage in "serious reform" and take stock of its own political position, Ku said.
"The Chinese Nationalist Party would have to transform itself into the Taiwanese Nationalist Party to avoid being rejected by the majority of Taiwanese," he said.
Lien and his running mate, PFP Chairman James Soong (
He added that the 68-year-old Lien, having been defeated in two presidential elections, would no longer be able to run his party and will have to retire.
"As for the KMT, it will be faced with infighting on issues such as conflicting approaches of different generations within the party and the question of who would take over the party's leadership," Ku said.
Issues concerning the hand-ling of party assets could also cause problems for the KMT, according to Chin, who also said that another internal split in the party was certainly not out of the question.
"There is the likelihood that some members of the KMT's pro-localization faction could abandon the party and choose to seek a future elsewhere," Chin said.
The KMT will also be forced to reshuffle its leadership in the post-election period, Chin said.
Emile Sheng (盛治仁), a professor of political science at Soochow University, said that the PFP could be faced with a struggle for political survival following its election defeat.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods