Taipei Times
Date: Nov 15, 2015
By: Staff writer, with CNA

The meeting between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore on Nov. 7 is set to impact upon the engagement between Taiwan’s next leader and Beijing, and redirect US attention to the importance of cross-strait development, according to a US academic.

New York University School of Law professor Jarome Cohen said the summit’s immediate impact would be on the presidential and legislative elections slated for Jan. 16.

“It will result in higher priority to cross-strait relations in the developing electoral dialogue and make voters give somewhat less attention to often-decisive domestic issues,” Cohen said, adding that he believes this might boost the floundering Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — which is trailing behind the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the polls — to a “modest, but insufficient extent.”

However, he said that the more important impact on Taiwan goes beyond the elections.

Cohen said that the Ma-Xi meeting has had a favorable effect on cross-strait relations, “not by strengthening the impact of Ma’s already-conciliatory policies of the past seven years, but by helping to limit their expected erosion when he leaves the stage.”     [FULL  STORY]