NEW YORK -- No less than the future of Taiwan is at stake in the presidential election Saturday. If President Chen Shui-bian is re-elected, Taiwan's move toward becoming an independent state will accelerate and the Taiwan-China impasse will harden. If the Lien Chan/James Soong ticket wins, China will soon achieve its goal of unification with Taiwan.
Since Chen assumed a clear stance, his public support, which was only 26 percent a year ago vs. 51 percent for Lien, has risen. The race is a virtual tie now.
The protagonists fought a three-way battle four years ago. Lien was nominated by the Nationalist Party (NP), which ruled Taiwan for more than 50 years. Soong, split from the NP, to run as an independent. Chen was the opposition Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) candidate. The NP's split allowed Chen to win with only 39.3 percent of the votes. In April 2003, therefore, pro-Chinese forces put enormous pressures on Lien and Soong to form a joint ticket.