The major defeat suffered by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Saturday’s elections should not be interpreted as a vote for rapprochement with China, a French expert on Taipei-Beijing relations said on Tuesday.
The elections were primarily local and involved mainly local issues, Stephane Corcuff, a French academic specializing in Taiwan studies at Sciences Po Lyon, said in an interview with the newspaper Le Monde.
“The Taiwanese did not vote for rapprochement with China,” he said. “They were not asked to comment on [President] Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) Chinese policy.”
Corcuff made the comment when asked whether he thought the DPP’s losses in the local elections meant that Taiwanese wanted closer links with China.
It is important to know that a vote for candidates of the pro-China Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which won 15 of the 22 city mayor and county commissioner seats, is not a vote for unification or rapprochement with China, he said.
Like the DPP, the KMT also has a policy to defend the sovereignty of the Republic of China, but the difference is that the KMT recognizes the “1992 consensus,” a tacit understanding between Taipei and Beijing that there is only “one China,” with both sides free to interpret what “China” means, Corcuff said.
However, for the DPP, Taiwan is not part of China and it rejects that interpretation, he said.
The China factor, however, did play a role in the elections, with some KMT candidates alleging that due to the DPP’s refusal to recognize the “1992 consensus,” the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan has declined since the party came to power in May 2016, Corcuff said.
Those KMT candidates tried to manipulate public opinion in Taiwan by fueling fears that losing access to the Chinese market could add to the nation’s economic troubles, he said, adding that the Taiwanese economy was not that bad.
Last year, Taiwan’s economic growth was 2.89 percent, higher than in 2016 when Tsai took over as president, he said.
This year, the growth forecast is 2.48 percent, while the average unemployment rate for the first 10 months of the year was 3.71 percent, he added.
Corcuff said the DPP’s defeat was linked to voters’ discontent with the performance of the administration over the past two years.
The two premiers who served during that period were hesitant about reforms, and the changes that they did carry out, such as pension and work-hour reforms, failed to take into consideration the negative impact on certain groups, he said.
Meanwhile, Stephane Lagarde, a journalist at Radio France International who came to Taipei to observe the elections, said in an article that the DPP’s loss of control of its traditional stronghold of Kaohsiung for the first time in 20 years was a major debacle for the party.
The emergence of a “blue wave,” a term used to describe the KMT’s resurgence driven by its mayor-elect in Kaohsiung, Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), could be a prelude to the 2020 presidential election and has attracted great attention in China, Lagarde said.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai