Liu-Shih Ding on TDM Talk Show: Taiwan not ready to get closer to China

Last week, Taiwan elected incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou from Kuomintang (KMT) for the next four years.
The so called ‘China-friendly’ president scored 51.5 percent of the votes, against opponent Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ying-wen’s 45.6 percent.
In his victory speech, Ma said the numbers show that Taiwan people support his approach to cross-strait relations, but stressed that he cannot ‘move too fast’.
On this week’s TDM Talk Show, Professor Liu-Shih Ding from the University of Macau talked about the impact of Ma’s victory on Taiwan’s future, as well as Macau-Taiwan relations.
“This time you can see that the whole election process is very dramatic,” said Liu.
The Communications Professor stressed that even on the eve of the Election Day, no one could precisely guess who would be the winner.
“What’s interesting is that you can look at before the days of the election, there’re a couple of businessmen and businesswomen coming out to support Ma Ying-jeou. And I would say this is a big push to his final campaign,” said Liu.
A majority of these businessmen, according to Liu, came from large scale high-tech companies based in Northern Taiwan. And their employees’ votes are one of the many factors that led to his victory.
“These are very big companies, and they have a lot of employees, in Mainland China and in Taiwan. And this time you can see a lot of employees and Taiwanese businessmen coming back to Taiwan from Mainland China to cast their vote,” said Liu.
But Liu said the most important factor of allis Ma’s charm.
“His personality and integrity give people some kind of faith. People trust this guy,” said the Professor.

Difference between Tsai and Ma

Tsai Ying-wen “represents something new not only to DPP supporters, but also to the whole Taiwan society,” said Liu.
Tsai Ying-wen is the first doctor, scholar and intellectual female politician to run for the presidential campaign in Taiwan. Her family background and social status is highly regarded by the society.
As a result, her sophistication appeals to the urban generation unlike DPP’s past.
“That’s very different from the image of DPP in the past. The DPP was basically developed and got its social support from the grass roots, so for a very long time very local language, vulgar, native to appeal to its supporters.”
Her strategy also differs from Ma’s.
“Her strategy is to talk about social policies, social development such as housing (…), she also talked about something that has to concern with the middle class, like taxation issues and social welfare,” said Liu. “So, yes, I think what differs Tsai Ying-wen this time from Ma Ying Jeou is Ma focuses on more economic fruit and benefits. But Tsai says we should not only look at economic benefits but social policies.”
This shift in DPP’s policies and strategies won Tsai 45.6 percent of the votes, only about 6 percent less than Ma.

Ma has proven ‘he’s good for Macau’

“If you look at what’s happening in the past four years, you can see that there are more and more cultural educational exchanges between the two sides,” said Liu.
One prime example is that the largest number of overseas students in Taiwan comes from Macau, not Hong Kong or Malaysia.
“The cultural relation is very close already,” added the professor. “Both sides have set up their offices. (The Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre) has been upgraded into an office. In Taipei 101 tower Macau has set up a new office. The official level of exchange has escalated.(…)(That’s because) the whole cross strait relations have become warmer and closer.”
Liu added that Beijing and Taipei have become closer, so it’s only natural for Taipei to grow closer to Macau as it is a part of China.
“It’s not really the effort by Macau itself because of the whole overall background and atmosphere,” said Liu.