Taiwan votes: Who deals with China next?

Analysts say a candidate’s stance on reunification with China will be a deciding factor for undecided voters and send a clear message to China. Beijing issued a veiled warning to the DPP on Thursday that official separation from the mainland was impossible.

Stung by a low turnout in the first few hours of balloting, although exact figures were not available, the KMT issued urgent appeals for its supporters to get out and vote. “A higher voting rate would be in favor of theKMT,” the party’s secretary general John Chang said. “Ma is on the verge of winning or losing. We need all the support we can get,” Chang said, adding that the KMT candidate was slightly behind the DPP incumbent.

Political science professor Lu Ya-li of National Taiwan University said the Taipei mayoralty held special importance as it was seen as the second most powerful post in Taiwan next to the President.

“Voters tend to vote for the Taipei mayor as if it were a national election. There is something very serious here. It is not an ordinary local election,” Lu said.

“If the KMT wins, the status quo will continue. But if the DPP wins… it means the DPP will be more powerful and more popular. It means public support on the issue of Taiwan independence is bigger and that is something that will give Beijing some concern.”

China has viewed Taiwan as a renegade province since communist troops drove nationalist forces to the island in 1949 at the end of a civil war, and has threatened to invade ifit formally seeks independence.