Beijing's Joy at Taiwan's Democracy

There is certainly no love lost between the rulers of the People's Republic of China and President Chen Shui-bian over on Taiwan, the island Beijing considers a breakaway province. Again and again, theCommunist regime has been infuriated by Chen's efforts to push the island closer to independence, completing its transformation from an exiled regime — the Republic of China, with its pretensions of ruling the mainland — into an entity completely separate from China, a fully sovereign nation called Taiwan. And so, on Saturday, one could almost hear the cheering in China after Chen's Democratic Progressive Party suffered a humiliating loss in Taiwan's legislative elections. Just almost. The Chinese have learned to keep their feelings to themselves over Taiwan.

The Communists have learned that trying too hard to influence
political affairs on the raucously democratic island only backfires. The
Kuomintang (KMT), which favors closer ties with China, won 81 of Legislative
Yuan's 113 seats, soundly defeating Chen's independence-leaning Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP), which took 27. The win also gives momentum to KMT
presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou over DPP rival Frank Hsieh in the March 22
vote. Chen Shui-bian called it the worst setback in the history of the DPP, and
took responsibility by resigning as the party's chairman.

In 1996, when Taiwan held its first direct presidential election, China fired missiles
into the strait that separates the island from the mainland in an attempt to
bully voters into not supporting the independence-leaning candidate Lee
Teng-hui. The act had the opposite effect and instead helped boost support for
Lee; he won by a large margin. Since then Beijing has slowly been learning its
lesson. "Whenever Taiwan has a big election, if Beijing makes a remark about
local politics in Taiwan [it] will have a counterproductive effect," says Andrew
Yang, secretary general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, a
Taipei-based think tank.

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Bejing has been concerned in the past about Taiwan's attempts, lead by President Chen Shui-bian, to gain full independence from China. Saturday in the Taiwan elections, however, Chen's Democratic Progressive Party lost in the legislative elections. The people of Bejing are very happy about this loss.