Maintaining cross-Straits peace top responsibility for Taiwan leader

BEIJING -- Tsai Ing-wen, candidate of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was elected Taiwan's leader on Saturday.

The news has aroused concerns about the development of the relationship between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan and doubts about the mainland's policies concerning affairs across the Taiwan Straits in the past eight years.

How should people view and react to such a result?

The first thing that should be noted is that it is a result influenced by multiple and complex factors, among which the island's economy, people's livelihoods and the mentality of the young were the most decisive.

Despite well-acknowledged achievements made in improving cross-Straits relations, Taiwan under the rule of Kuomintang (KMT) in the past eight years has suffered an economic downturn, a growing wealth gap, unsatisfactory improvement in livelihoods and a sense of deprivation among the younger generation.

As a result, voters pinned their hope on someone new and a new ruling party to bail Taiwan out.

Secondly, maintaining and promoting cross-Straits relations remains the mainstream public opinion in Taiwan.

Results of multiple opinion polls prior to the election showed that the majority of Taiwan people identify with the KMT's cross-Straits policies and hope the peaceful development of ties will not be affected by a change in the political arena.

Even Tsai has not dared to publicly deny the 1992 Consensus reached between the two sides which acknowleges that the Chinese mainland and Taiwan belong to one China.

Instead, she proposed maintaining the status quo and has deliberately evaded the topic of "Taiwan independence."

Tsai acted gingerly because she knows that advocating "Taiwan independence" would be a campaign disaster.