The News Lens
Date: 2018/01/03
By: Sheryn Lee

Despite icy cross-Strait relations and a failure to address crucial reforms at home, Taiwan’s

Photo Credit: AP/達志影像

president closed 2017 in a remarkably stable position.

After being elected on a high in 2016, President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration faced the harsh realities of governing Taiwan in 2017. Instead of making progress on challenging yet needed reforms (such as those to the constitution or the slow-growing economy), Tsai’s low approval ratings resulted in undue focus on addressing voter satisfaction leading up to the 2018 local elections.

Compounding this, Tsai was faced with the monumental task of maintaining the DPP party platform to uphold the cross-Strait status quo despite a recalcitrant China. Due to Beijing’s concern that Taiwan is moving towards “peaceful separation”, no significant effort has been made to reopen formal cross-Strait channels of dialogue since they were cut in June 2016. While President Tsai maintained her “consistent, predictable and sustainable” policy towards cross-Strait status relations, she also called for both sides to develop a new model to maintain the cross-Strait status quo, arguing that it was untenable in its current format.
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