Taiwan's candidate urges stronger ties with China

Taiwan's candidate urges stronger ties with China

TAIPEI (Agencies): Taiwan's pro-independence presidential
candidate on Sunday urged closer economic ties with China,
including an end to a half-century ban on direct transportation
links.

Former Taipei mayor Chen Shui-bian said the mainland was too
important to Taiwan's economy to be ignored, and urged more
flexible policies towards Beijing in an apparent bid to clarify
his China policy and assuage voter nervousness.

But economic necessity must be balanced with measures to keep
Taiwan's economy free of Chinese control, and China must soften
its hardline towards the island for the relationship to improve,
said Chen, who represents the main opposition Democratic
Progressive Party.

In a speech to a conference on China relations, Chen sought to
position himself between current official discouragement of
increased business with China and alternative calls for a
complete embrace of the China market.

That appeared aimed at grasping the initiative on relations
with China, an issue of key importance in next March's
presidential polls.

Chen, in third in most polls among presidential candidates,
has to work extra hard to convince voters that his election will
not prompt a violent response from China.

Though China has ruled Taiwan in just four of the last 100
years, Beijing continues to consider the island a breakaway
province to be reunified with by force if necessary.

The sides last split amid a civil war in 1949, and military
tensions between them flared again this summer over an assertion
of Taiwanese statehood by Nationalist President Lee Teng-hui.

Both sides say they want to reunify eventually, but the DPP
calls for making Taiwan's de-facto independence formal and
permanent. However, the party has softpedaled the independence
call in recent years as it attempts to break the 54-year
Nationalist hold on power here.

"Taiwan needs China and China needs Taiwan. How to pursue
reconciliation amid contradictions, and establish order amid
conflict is not only important to the two sides, but is also a
somber issue for all of Asia and the outside world," said Chen.

Separately, Taiwan's Kuomintang ruling party officials and
analysts said on Sunday that the Kuomintang (KMT) should heed a
warning that its grip on power is loosening after it lost a by-
election for a new local government head.

KMT candidate Chang Cheng-hsiung only came in third in
Saturday's vote in central Yunlin county losing to independent
Chang Jung-wei, and even trailing behind the opposition
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the unprecedented result.
The elections were to fill a vacancy left after the KMT's head of
the Yunlin government, known as a magistrate, Su Wen-hsiung, died
earlier this year.

"It sent a warning (to the KMT) ... As a party member I felt
deeply worried," Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou told reporters on
Sunday after the elections.

"The KMT may see its local influence further undermined if the
party does not pay more heed to training the party's grass-roots
officials," Ma said.

It was the first time the KMT had lost polls in the poor
coastal county since nationalist party leaders fled to Taiwan in
1949 at the end of a civil war with the Chinese Communists.

The KMT still dominates the central government but has
gradually lost power in local elections over the past 10 years,
and now controls less than one third of local governments.

The polls outcome however was a boost to former Taiwan
provincial governor James Soong, who is running as an independent
candidate in next year's presidential polls.

"The images of both the KMT and the DPP failed to attract the
voters ... despite their all-out campaign efforts," the United
Daily News said in an editorial on Sunday.