Independence Party Victory In Taiwan Worries Mainland Democratic Progressives Win Slight Majority In Local Voting

The surprise victory of Taiwan’s main opposition party in local elections is a nightmare come true for China.

Until recently, Beijing shunned any contact with the Democratic Progressive Party, which advocates declaring Taiwan’s formal independence from China after nearly five decades of de facto separation.

But the DPP won 12 of 23 mayoral and county seats in Saturday’s elections and, for the first time, received more votes overall than the long-entrenched Nationalists. It won more than 43 percent of total votes, to the Nationalists’ 42 percent.

The DPP’s impressive showing boosts its chances in national legislative elections next year and presidential elections in 2000.

Taiwan has been separated from mainland China since 1949, when Mao Tse-tung’s communists won a long civil war and Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated Nationalists took refuge on the island. Beijing always has sought reunification, alternately offering negotiations and threatening force.

The Nationalists, although fiercely anti-communist, also advocated reunification in principle. Now, Beijing could face discussing reunion with a party demanding independence.

The situation could increase the chance that Beijing’s leaders will resort to arms to fulfill their dream of reunifying the scattered pieces of the once-glorious Chinese empire.

Indications are, however, that Beijing is trying to open diplomatic channels to the DPP, anticipating it might rise to power soon.

The 11-year-old DPP long has been divided between leaders who want to actively pursue independence and those who want to soft-pedal it.

Most Taiwanese want to maintain the status quo, which amounts to de facto independence. The DPP’s proindependence stance has hurt it in past elections, and this time it downplayed the issue in favor of local concerns such as fighting crime.

The Nationalists, who were hurt in Saturday’s election by their poor performance in controlling crime and corruption, might seek to win public favor by moving to end the deadlock in talks with Beijing. A series of high-level but unofficial meetings came to an abrupt end in 1995 when President Lee Teng-hui visited America.

As Soochow University political science professor Yang Kai-huang put it: “Significant progress in mainland ties may be the Nationalists’ last chance to hold on to power.”