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'National identity' seen Chen's legacy

By Drew Wilson
March 21, 2008

Agence France-Press/Getty Images Taiwan's vice president Annette Lu, (right) said President Chen Shui-bian's administration has helped Taiwanese build a strong national identity. Taiwan will vote for a new president tomorrow.

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TAIPEI — Taiwan's outgoing vice president, Annette Lu, speaking ahead of the presidential elections tomorrow, said the main contribution of President Chen Shui-bian's administration over the past eight years was a strengthening of national identity.

Before Mr. Chen took over in 2000, general polls indicated only 30 percent of people identified themselves as Taiwanese, Ms. Lu said.

"After eight years, more than 70 percent take it for granted that we are Taiwanese," she said in an interview. "We built up a national identity and that was not easy."

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of Mr. Chen and Ms. Lu was trounced by the opposition Nationalist Party, or KMT, in January parliamentary elections.

In the last public opinion poll, conducted 11 days ago and before images of China's crackdown in Tibet flooded Taiwan's airways, Nationalist Party candidate Ma Ying-jeou had a 20- percentage-point lead over DPP candidate Frank Hsieh.

The DPP hopes violence in Tibet will erode Mr. Ma's lead because the Nationalists have based their campaign on calls for a common market with China and a peace treaty with the mainland.

Ms. Lu conceded that the parliamentary elections were a big setback for her party.

Richard Bush, director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, said the results were partly driven by people's dissatisfaction with the DPP, which has failed to invigorate Taiwan's weakening economy and has seen several scandals.

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