Will behind election

Updated: 2012-01-16 08:06

(China Daily)

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Taiwan leader Ma Ying-jeou's re-election on Saturday reflects the will of the majority of Taiwan residents. The message is that most people on the island know that a good relationship with the mainland is the basis for the peace and stability that the island needs for development.

In the past three years, since Ma came to power in 2008, peaceful and stable relations across the Taiwan Straits have resulted in the three direct links (direct postal, air and shipping services), which have facilitated trade and other exchanges between the island and the mainland.

Taiwan's exports to the mainland increased from $105.4 billion in 2008 to $114.7 billion in 2010, comprising 42 percent of its total exports that year. The ever-developing economic relations across the Straits have also facilitated cooperation in other areas.

For the first time in the past more than 300 years, the long-separated two parts of the well-known painting Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains by Huang Gongwang (1269-1354) were reunited at the Palace Museum in Taiwan and exhibited in June last year. This followed an exhibition of the cultural relics from the Yongzheng Reign of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) at the Palace Museum in Taiwan in October in 2009, when 37 pieces were loaned from its counterpart in Beijing.

In 2010 alone, the number of tourists from the mainland visiting Taiwan reached more than 16 million, which brought the island revenue of more than $2 billion.

All these have been achieved amid the increasingly benign conditions created by efforts from both sides under the consensus of 1992. Taiwan residents were casting votes not just for Ma Ying-jeou and his Kuomintang Party but also for their own future.

Peace and common development will bring benefits to residents on both sides of the Straits. The growing momentum of ties and the increasing cooperation prove residents in Taiwan have made the right choice.

With further efforts, there is no reason to doubt that economic cooperation and exchanges will continue to prosper. With the opening of Taiwan's tourist market to individual mainland tourists in the middle of last year, more mainland visitors will visit the island. Their visits will encourage further people-to-people exchanges, which are important to the development of relations.

With more benefits to be gained from the development of cross-Straits ties, an increasing number of Taiwan residents will realize how important it is to develop them further. This will create a virtuous cycle for relations between the island and the mainland, which will facilitate efforts to promote such ties and make unpopular any ill-intentioned moves to derail such relations.

(China Daily 01/16/2012 page8)