Taiwan Also Chooses Economy

In the presidential election in Taiwan held on March 22, Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), candidate Ma Ying-jeou, 58, defeated Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Hsieh Chang-ting and was elected president. Accordingly, the KMT achieved a regime change in eight years after it lost power to the DDP in the 2000 election.

Later in the day, Taiwan’s Central Election Commission announced the results of the final ballot counting, which showed that Ma won 7,658,224 votes (58.45 percent), defeating Hsieh, who won 5,445,239 votes (41.55 percent) by 16.9 percentage points.

After his victory was confirmed at night, Ma said, “This is a victory of the entire Taiwanese people. I’ll also refer to the 19 pledges of Hsieh in leading the nation.” He also said he wants to "visit the United States, Japan and Korea in an early stage” but said he has “no plan to visit China yet.” Hsieh acknowledged his defeat, saying, “I humbly accept the election results."

President-elect Ma will officially take office as the 12th president of Taiwan on May 20.

orionha@donga.com