TAIPEI, Taiwan, Dec. 10 -- Taiwan votes Saturday in high-stakes legislative elections likely to reinforce President Chen Shui-bian's drive to bestow more trappings of independence on this self-governing island despite warnings from the Chinese government and cautionary advice from the United States.
In a long and vigorous campaign, Chen has sought from Taiwan's 16.5 million voters a freer hand in the legislature to pursue the independence that he has fought for throughout a stormy political career and has advanced since being elected president in 2000.
Supporters of President Chen Shui-bian's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party wave flags at a rally in Taipei on the eve of the elections. Chen seeks to wrest a parliamentary majority from an opposition that is more conciliatory toward China.
(Richard Chung -- Reuters)
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"We are rewriting Taiwanese history," he shouted to thousands of followers at a final rally Friday night featuring the chorus from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a pair of giant Christmas trees and whirling fireworks. "I urge all of you to vote for our democracy."
If preelection forecasts prove true, he is likely to get what he wants -- a more compliant legislature for his second four-year term. As a result, relations with China seem headed for higher tension, particularly if Chen follows through with pledges to reform the constitution and rename key state-owned enterprises and representational offices abroad to emphasize the name Taiwan.
Although Chen's government has cast both moves as efforts to increase efficiency, the implications for Taiwan's political status have been noted with concern in China and the United States.
The government in Beijing regards Taiwan as a province that must return to Chinese rule and has vowed to reintegrate the island one way or another, with military force if necessary. It has repeatedly warned against any step that denotes formal independence. With Washington pledged to help Taiwan defend itself, any additional tension in the standoff would ripple not only across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait, but also across the Pacific to the United States.
The opposition Nationalist Party and its allies in the People First Party, which have acted as a parliamentary brake on Chen's presidency for the past four years, are likely to lose their majority in the 225-member Legislative Yuan, according to analysts and polling data.
In campaign speeches across Taiwan's 29 electoral districts, Chen's independence policies have been the main issue, eclipsing such local concerns as schools and roads. The Nationalist leader, Lien Chan, said Wednesday at a news conference that his party's main goal in seeking to retain its legislative majority was "to check the recklessness of Mr. Chen Shui-bian."
Chen's Democratic Progressive Party and its main ally, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, both strongly pro-independence, have no guarantee of gaining a solid majority. But they appear likely to significantly increase their representation, analysts from both camps said, probably enough to cobble together working majorities by enlisting independents and defecting Nationalists -- and in any case winning another democratic endorsement of Chen's stand.
A parliamentary majority for Chen would clear the way for approval of a special budget his government has proposed for a long-delayed $18.2 billion arms purchase from the United States. Citing concerns that the weapons are too expensive, the Nationalist-People First majority this fall blocked the deal, raising complaints from the Pentagon that Taiwan is unwilling to pay the bill for its defense. Within Chen's government, officials recently have begun to talk of a smaller package.
At the same time, the U.S. government has a strong interest in moderating Chen's independence-minded proposals, lest China lose patience and resort to a display of force. The State Department said last week, for instance, that it did not support the plan to rename state businesses and offices abroad because that would appear to unilaterally change Taiwan's status.
Officials in Chen's government, eager to avoid the appearance of recklessness, have said in recent days that they are only trying to streamline Taiwan's constitutional system, which they note was drawn up for all of China more than half a century ago. Similarly, they have repeatedly said the name changes have been proposed only to avoid confusion.
Taiwan's China Airlines, for instance, often has been confused with the mainland's Air China and, they said, Taiwan's people have demanded that something be done to clear things up. "In a democratic society, when the people cry out with such an intention, such a desire, you have to face it," said Y.Y. Lee, deputy secretary general of the Democratic Progressive Party.
But running through the plans is an underlying desire to move as fast as the international atmosphere allows toward formal independence, matching what officials already describe as de facto independence and a growing sense of national identity among Taiwan's 23 million people.
Frank Lin, a Taipei businessman who cheered Chen at Friday night's closing rally, said that although the president aims to lead Taiwan toward independence, he has to proceed carefully given U.S. reticence and the threat from China. "Step by step," he explained.
In a campaign speech this week, Chen noted that Chinese and U.S. warnings also preceded his earlier steps on the independence issue, but that nothing really came of them.
"We do not need the approval of mainland China to change the name of a company in Taiwan," Chang Chun-hsiung, the party's secretary general, told foreign journalists.
Special correspondent Tim Culpan contributed to this report.
