Beijing expected to maintain policy towards Taiwan despite KMT loss, analysts say

[NewWorldRecord]

Beijing expected to maintain policy towards Taiwan despite KMT loss, analysts say

Mainland will continue to seek peaceful development of ties, analysts say

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 02 December, 2014, 3:57am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 02 December, 2014, 3:57am

Andrea Chen [email protected]

Next Tuesday, Chen Deming, the mainland's top negotiator with Taiwan, will visit the island. Photo: CNA

Beijing is unlikely to change its overall policy towards Taiwan despite the strong showing by the island's main opposition party in local elections on the weekend, analysts say.

Beijing would continue to foster economic and cultural ties while abiding by the "one-China" principle, some mainland observers said.

"Beijing's bottom line on the one-China principle has always been very clear," said Yang Lixian, a Taiwan affairs expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "If whoever wins the 2016 presidential election chooses to cross the line, there will be no room for further economic and other dialogue."

Under the principle, both sides agree there is only one China but each has its own interpretation of what one China is.

Liu Guoshen, from Xiamen University's Taiwan Research Institute, said Beijing would not abandon its pursuit of peaceful progress in cross-strait ties.

"The mainland has the ability to dominate the direction of cross-strait relations, and it has also become more confident [in Taiwan affairs]," Liu said. "Nowadays some Democratic Progressive Party candidates are also serious about their relations with the mainland."

Douglas Paal, vice-president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former de facto US envoy to Taipei, said any changes to the mainland's policy would depend on the actions of the DPP, Central News Agency (CNA) quoted him as saying.

Taiwan-based experts said the landslide defeat of the mainland-friendly Kuomintang would force Beijing to review its economic sweeteners for the island, which had so far only benefited business elites.

"The defeat has made it very clear that the masses do not buy the idea that the service trade pact will help their well-being, no matter how hard both Beijing and Ma's administration sell it," said Wang Hsing-ching, a Taiwan-based commentator.

Li Fei, a colleague of Liu's at Xiamen University, said the DPP would likely soften its tone if it won in 2016. "It has been opposing the trade pact for the sake of opposing a KMT policy. But once it becomes the ruling party the DPP is likely to adopt a different approach," Li said.

The DPP, which won the top races in 13 of 22 cities and counties in Saturday's poll, sent its secretary general, Joseph Wu Chao-hsieh, to Washington yesterday to discuss Taiwan-US ties and the implications of the results, CNA reported. Wu said there were no plans for DPP chairwoman Dr Tsai Ing-wen, widely seen as the party's presidential candidate for 2016, to visit the United States.

Next Tuesday, Chen Deming, the mainland's top negotiator with Taiwan, will visit the island. Speaking to Taiwanese media in Beijing, Chen said he hoped people across the strait could cherish peace and allow relations to continue moving forward "just like one family", CNA reported.

Additional reporting by Zhuang Pinghui