Washington sources said that both the White House and the US Department of State were taken by surprise at the depth of defeat suffered by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the nine-in-one elections on Saturday last week.
However, US Department of State spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US would continue to encourage Beijing and Taipei to continue their “constructive dialogue.”
The US view on cross-strait relations had not changed, she said.
Former Pentagon official Dan Blumenthal said the elections showed that Taiwan was “drifting away” from China, and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) would have to deal with it.
“Xi is a strongman — it would be unwise to believe he will simply let Taiwan drift,” said Blumenthal, who is now director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
The only way Xi could “reunify the motherland” was by force and coercion since no one in Taiwan would simply give away their democratic freedoms to a repressive Chinese Communist Party (CCP), he said.
Writing in a blog for Foreign Policy magazine’s Web site, he said the 2016 presidential elections in Taiwan would be a major test for Xi.
“Will he risk serious tension in the Asia-Pacific to try and affect who becomes Taiwan’s president?” Blumenthal wrote.
The US would have to reckon with a “structurally unstable” situation in the Taiwan Strait, he said.
“For Washington, this means the Taiwan Strait remains the main flashpoint in the Asia Pacific,” he said. “It will need to deter a China that may increasingly externalize its problems. Washington’s China-Taiwan policy must find a way to keep China focused on solving internal problems, protecting the democratic freedoms of the Taiwanese, while playing for time.”
The Taiwanese feared a political association with China, exacerbated by Xi’s handling of Hong Kong, he said.
He criticized US President Barack Obama’s administration for failing to “push hard” for Taiwan’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and for offering only “tepid” support for Taiwan’s quest for submarines.
Blumenthal said support for unification with China would “continue to wither away” in Taiwan and that the next presidential contest would be about how best to manage de facto independence.
His views were echoed by a reports in other US media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, which predicted that as Taiwan moved toward the January 2016 presidential elections, “expect tensions to rise across the Taiwan Strait.”
The newspaper also warned that the danger of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ascent following the nine-in-one elections was that it could freeze trade liberalization not just with China, but with all other countries, “with disastrous consequences for Taiwan’s export economy.”
US government sources, speaking on the condition that they not be named because they were not authorized to comment on the elections, said there was a real danger of growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait if Taiwan moved toward greater independence as the DPP’s influence increases.
The New York Times said the election results signaled that the KMT “will be hard-pressed to retain the presidency.”
Bloomberg news service quoted New York-based Park Strategies senior vice president Sean King as saying: “If opposition Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) can bring her party’s notoriously bickering factions together just long enough to draft a mainland China policy that doesn’t scare off the middle of the electorate, she may very well find herself elected president 14 months from now.”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
Tropical Storm Fung-Wong would likely strengthen into a typhoon later today as it continues moving westward across the Pacific before heading in Taiwan’s direction next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Fung-Wong was about 2,190km east-southeast of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving westward at 25kph and possibly accelerating to 31kph, CWA data showed. The tropical storm is currently over waters east of the Philippines and still far from Taiwan, CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said, adding that it could likely strengthen into a typhoon later in the day. It is forecast to reach the South China Sea
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
Nearly 5 million people have signed up to receive the government’s NT$10,000 (US$322) universal cash handout since registration opened on Wednesday last week, with deposits expected to begin tomorrow, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. After a staggered sign-up last week — based on the final digit of the applicant’s national ID or Alien Resident Certificate number — online registration is open to all eligible Taiwanese nationals, foreign permanent residents and spouses of Taiwanese nationals. Banks are expected to start issuing deposits from 6pm today, the ministry said. Those who completed registration by yesterday are expected to receive their NT$10,000 tomorrow, National Treasury
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