It's all right, Ma

摘要

The presidential and parliamentary elections that Taiwan held on January 14th were unusual. No party was engulfed in scandal, as was the ruling party at the time in 2008. No candidate was shot at, as the incumbent was four years before that. China issued no dire warnings, as it did in 2000. Nor did it reinforce such warnings by lobbing missiles into the seas around Taiwan, as it did in 1996. Indeed, perhaps most striking this time round was the reaction the polls aroused in China. There, some saw President Ma Ying-jeou's reelection in a peacefully contested race as evidence that democracy might one day have a chance in China too.