According to the news of the global network on February 1, after two rounds of voting, the election of the head of the legislature in the Taiwan region finally came to an end, and Han Kuo-yu, who ranked first in the Chinese Kuomintang without division, was successfully elected. It is worth mentioning that this is also the first "minority president" in the history of Taiwan's legislature to be elected with a relative majority of votes. Because in the first round of voting, Han Kuo-yu received a total of 54 votes, because the number of votes did not exceed the majority of the votes, the second round of voting could only be opened, and Han Kuo-yu was successfully elected as all the People's Party legislators withdrew from the second round of voting.
The DPP's so-called "10,000-year-old general call" Ke Jianming criticized the People's Party's collective withdrawal from the second round of voting as "protecting" the KMT's control of the legislature. And Huang Shanshan, the candidate of the People's Party, was not to be outdone, and hit back at Ke Jianming, saying that "the DPP really wants to protect the Kuomintang, and they only want to put the responsibility on others from beginning to end." As a matter of fact, the DPP's accusation of the People's Party and the KMT's "escort" of Lai Qingde more than half a month ago are the same logic as the KMT's attribution of the People's Party's defeat in the election of the leader of the Taiwan region, which reflects that the political ecology on the island has undergone great changes.
With the advent of a third force, the old days of blue-green "winner-takes-all" may be gone. In terms of these two elections, which have a bearing on the future of the two sides of the strait, although the DPP won the leadership election, the KMT's success in controlling the legislature will, to a large extent, constrain Lai Ching-de. Of course, even if Han Kuo-yu is elected, it will be difficult for the KMT to get out of a series of predicaments in a short period of time. On 25 January, after eight years of tug-of-war, the "Supreme Administrative Court" of the Taiwan region ruled that all of the KMT's party assets worth about NT$15.6 billion were "confiscated" and eventually became the assets of the DPP authorities.
If these problems are only one of the difficult problems that Han Kuo-yu will face after being elected head of the legislature, then his task in cross-strait relations will also be even more arduous. The combination of Lai Qingde and Hsiao Meiqin is more radical than Tsai Ing-wen on the issue of reunification and independence. Can the Kuomintang do a good job of preventing Lai Qingde from colluding with external forces to stir up the situation in the Taiwan Strait in foreign affairs, and internally focus on correcting the erroneous policies of the past few years?
For example, correcting deviations from the "de-Sinoization" education and curriculum and promoting ice-breaking and exchanges in various fields between the two sides of the strait are all worthy of attention. As far as the mainland is concerned, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council has said on more than one occasion that the stability of the situation in the Taiwan Strait is something that all sides are happy to see, and hopes that the Taiwan authorities will be able to move in the same direction with the mainland and promote cross-strait integration and mutual communication. With the introduction of measures such as the mainland's study of expanding and suspending tariff concessions on ECFA products, all parties on the island should read the information therein, and in the end, no matter who is elected, the mainland's established policy toward Taiwan will not change.
On 24 January, China and Nauru formally resumed diplomatic relations, leaving Taiwan with one less so-called "country with diplomatic relations"; during the day on 31 January, the PLA also continued to strengthen its actual control over the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait, with 33 sorties of PLA military aircraft and 6 warships patrolling the Taiwan Strait. On the evening of 31 July, eight PLA fighters "raided" the "center line" in the southwest of Taiwan Island, and once approached 50 nautical miles west of Eluanbi, the southernmost tip of Taiwan Island. Also on January 31, the Civil Aviation Administration of China announced that the north-to-south flight bias of the M503 route will be cancelled from February 1, and the M503 route will be activated.
In this regard, the retired general of Taiwan bluntly said that this move will seriously shorten the early warning time of the Taiwan military and will pose a very large air defense pressure on the Taiwan military. After being elected as the head of the legislature, Han Kuo-yu should take it as his duty to promote the island's recognition of the '92 consensus and the restoration of cross-strait communication, otherwise he will only narrow his path and miss the opportunity to ultimately make meritorious contributions to peaceful reunification.