Taiwanese opposition leader Tsai Ing-wen extends lead in post-Xi-Ma summit opinion poll
Taiwan's opposition presidential candidate retains a big lead ahead of forthcoming elections, according to two opinion polls released on Monday, despite a historic summit between President Ma Ying-jeou and President Xi Jinping.
The breakthrough meeting on Saturday was the first by the leaders of the two sides since the Chinese civil war ended in 1949, but it has stoked public debate over the island's ties with its giant neighbour in the lead-up to presidential and parliamentary elections in January.
The independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, has accused Ma of trying to revive the chances of the governing Kuomintang in the elections with the surprise summit. An opinion poll by Taiwan's Cross-Strait Policy Association on Sunday showed 48.6 per cent of 1,014 people surveyed supported DPP leader and candidate Tsai Ing-wen while 21.4 per cent backed KMT candidate Eric Chu.
That compared with support of 45.2 per cent for Tsai in mid-October and 21.9 per cent for Chu in an earlier poll by the association, which is comprised of prominent scholars and bipartisan figures.
"The Ma-Xi meeting wasn't aimed at interfering in Taiwan's elections. It is to set the tone for the cross-strait relationship in the post-Ma generation," Pang Chien-kuo, a member of the association, said on Monday.
Tsai has been critical of the summit, saying she was disappointed Ma made no direct mention of Taiwan's freedoms and democracy.
In the poll taken on Sunday, 46.8 per cent of those surveyed said they did not think Ma protected nor maintained Taiwan's sovereignty and interests in the meeting with Xi, while 32.9 per cent said he did.
A second poll of 1,330 people by a new group founded last month of bipartisan academics in Taiwan called the Justice Association found that 32.7 per cent would vote for Tsai, while 21.1 per cent backed Chu. The remainder gave their support to minority candidates or chose not to vote.
Ma's attempts to forge closer ties with the mainland, mostly on the economic and trade front, have been greeted with some suspicion in Taiwan, with student protesters last year storming and occupying Taiwan's parliament for several weeks to demand the scrapping of a wide-ranging trade pact with the mainland.
Read more: Full coverage of Xi-Ma summit
Xi said on Saturday that proponents of Taiwan independence must not split the two sides, a viewpoint since widely echoed in mainland state media.
"If she takes office, Tsai will see her 'Taiwan Independence' policy responded to by powerful countermoves from the mainland," a editorial said. "The Xi-Ma meeting pushes forward the cross-strait relationship and has been applauded globally. Yet Tsai, appearing wrathful, voiced harsh words that tried to belittle the meeting and exposed her support for 'Taiwan Independence'."
Only the people of Taiwan can decide its future, Tsai said on Sunday.
