AIPEI,
Taiwan, Dec. 11 - Supporters of closer relations with Beijing won a surprise
victory in legislative elections here today, as voters appeared to reject
President Chen Shui-bian𠏋 increasingly forceful calls in the past two weeks for
greater Taiwanese independence from mainland China.
The success of the Nationalist Party and its allies, the People First Party and the New Party, in preserving their slim majority in the legislature could reverse some of the rising hostility lately between Taiwan and the mainland. The Nationalists and their allies have vowed to block President Chen𠏋 plans to write a new constitution for the island and take other actions that Beijing has labeled as provocative and possibly leading to war.
𨧻t will be much more difficult for him?to pursue his agenda, said Wu Chih-chung, a political expert at Dong-Wu University here. 孏he tensions between Taiwan and China will be reduced.?
Washington has been increasingly critical of President Chen𠏋 efforts to pursue more of the trappings of independence. But the success of the Nationalist Party𠏋 coalition could pose new headaches: unlike President Chen, the Nationalists have been very reluctant to approve the purchase of $18 billion in weapons that President Bush had offered the island in 2001 to defend itself against the mainland.
The Nationalists have questioned the size and cost of the purchase, and have suggested that not all the surveillance and anti-missile systems may be needed if relations with the mainland can be improved.
Beijing has regarded Taiwan as a renegade province ever since the Nationalists fled to the island after losing China𠏋 civil war to the Communists in 1949.
The loss by candidates of President Chen's Democratic Progressive Party, usually known as the D.P.P., is especially significant because it comes after nearly two decades of steadily rising support for pro-independence candidates.
President Chen took personal responsibility for the defeat as chairman of the D.P.P. The party's secretary general and two deputy secretaries general each submitted their resignations, to be considered at a meeting of the party leadership on Tuesday.
"The result did not meet our expectations, and we deeply regret this," President Chen said at a news conference late Saturday night. "The D.P.P. will try to examine what went wrong."
Nationalist party supporters spent the evening waving flags and lighting celebratory firecrackers outside the party's headquarters. Lien Chan, the party chairman, said that the outcome represented a vindication of the party's position on issues like the relationship with Beijing.
"We call on Chen Shui-bian to respect public opinion," he said, also warning that the vote would make it difficult to proceed with the purchase of American weapons, which he criticized as overpriced.
D.P.P. officials said that campaign decisions had hurt them. Chang Chun-hsing, the D.P.P.'s secretary general, said that the party had nominated too many candidates in many multi-seat districts, so that the candidates took votes from each other and few received enough to win seats. Lee Ying-yuan, one of the two deputy secretaries general, said that D.P.P. supporters in these districts had voted in such large numbers for their party's weaker candidates that the strong candidates failed to receive enough votes.
The defeat "is more technical than policy," Mr. Lee said in an interview. He added that while he expected President Chen to try to proceed with plans to rewrite the constitution in the next several years, Saturday's election results would make it harder for the president to carry out his agenda.
Voters did seem leery on Saturday of angering Beijing. "We should focus more on the economy," said Kevin Chang, a 30-year-old bank worker, after he voted on Saturday morning at a Taipei school.
Trade with the mainland has propelled a vigorous economic recovery here this year, and the business community broadly favors a more conciliatory Taiwanese stance on cross-straits relations.
Since taking office in May, 2000, President Chen has repeatedly antagonized Beijing by suggesting that two separate countries now exist on either side of the Taiwan Strait and by holding a national referendum here on China𠏋 growing deployments of missiles aimed at the island. But the Nationalist coalition𠏋 two-seat majority in the 225-member legislature has prevented President Chen and his ruling Democratic Progressive Party, better known as the D.P..P., from giving Taiwan the formal, legal trappings of an independent state.
For months, polls had suggested that the D.P.P. and its smaller and more radical ally, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, would claim a majority in the new legislature.
But in the final weeks of the campaign, politics within the pro-independence bloc took an alarming turn for President Chen. Frustrated that President Chen had not moved even faster toward independence after winning a second term last March, many hard-line advocates of independence began switching their support to the Taiwan Solidarity Union.
President Chen𠏋 own senior adviser for international affairs, Lai Shin-yuan, resigned from his administration and ran successfully for the legislature today as a Taiwan Solidarity Union candidate.
President Chen responded by moving away from the political center here, even though polls here have long shown that a substantial majority of voters are reluctant to jeopardize the status quo with the mainland. In the past week, President Chen and the Democratic Progressive Party called daily for dropping China from the name of state-owned enterprises and replacing it with Taiwan, and for using Taiwan in the name of the economic and cultural offices that it maintains in more than 70 countries that do not recognize it diplomatically, including the United States.
President Chen stopped short of embracing the Taiwan Solidarity Union𠏋 position that the island should change its national title from 𣫮epublic of China?to 𣫮epublic of Taiwan.?But his new position nonetheless upset the State Department in Washington, which criticized him for endangering the status quo.
Defying the criticism, President Chen urged voters on Friday to call their country 孏aiwan?and to stand up to foreign pressure.
President Chen𠏋 last-minute tilt was partly successful: while polls just a few days ago showed the Taiwan Solidarity Union expanding its delegation in the legislature to as many as 20, from 13 in the last election, the final vote on Saturday showed that the party wound up with only 12 seats.
But the Democratic Progressive Party itself fared much worse than expected, picking up only two seats to claim 89. The Nationalist Party gained 11 seats, for a total of 79, while the even more pro-Beijing People First Party lost 12 seats, retaining only 34 seats, and the New Party kept its only seat.
Independents kept all 10 seats they previously had.