Taiwanese President Ma calls for end to island's political strife
Reconciliation is needed after protests and a political backlash against his pro-mainland policies, Taiwan president says in New Year address
Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou has called for social reconciliation on the island after student protests and electoral defeats set back his pro-mainland policies last year.
"The antagonism that has long plagued relations between the ruling and opposition camps has prevented effective cooperation," Ma said in a New Year address from the presidential office. "This has been my greatest regret since taking office."
The embattled leader, whose approval rating stood at 14.2 per cent according to a December poll, faced a protracted student-led demonstration at home last year against a cross-strait trade agreement.
In a sign of indifference toward his economic policies, voters on November 29 delivered Ma's Nationalist party, the Kuomintang, its worst-ever losses in local-level elections, swayed in part by opposition to his moves to bring Taiwan closer to the mainland and also by food safety scandals.
Ma, who is due to end his second and final term next year, also called in his address for continued peace and stability in Taiwan's relationship with the mainland, which stands as both its biggest economic partner and largest external threat.
Taiwan and the mainland have endured decades of enmity since Nationalist forces fled to the island in 1949 after losing a civil war to communist forces.
"Achieving reconciliation within our society is only part of the picture; in addition, cross-strait peace must be consolidated," Ma said.
"As I see it, we seek but three goals in our conduct of cross-strait relations. The first is peace. The second is also peace. And the third, once again, is peace."
Richard Bush, director of the Centre for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in the United States and formerly the top US official in Taiwan, said it was hard for leaders to sell the benefits of trade and liberalisation agreements, in this case with the mainland, to the public.
"Most of the costs of opening one's domestic market are immediate and specific whereas the benefits are general and long-term," he wrote. "President Ma is no exception."
Officials from Taipei and Beijing met for the first time in 65 years in Nanjing in February. President Xi Jinping had said in 2013 the political impasse between the two governments should not be passed on to the next generation and echoed Ma's call for closer ties.
A month after the historic Nanjing meeting, Taiwanese student leaders expressed outrage against an agreement opening up industries such as banking, hospitals and hair salons across the Taiwan Strait by storming into government buildings and occupying the legislature until officials agreed to implement measures for greater transparency in future deals.
The mainland government admitted this week that there had been difficulties in developing warmer ties with Taiwan because of political changes on the island in recent months.
Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Fan Liqing said in Beijing the government was committed to fostering closer relations.
