Has Chen victory pushed Taiwan closer to war?

Editor's note: Deseret News Morning business writer Dave Anderton was one of six journalists who participated in last month's Asia Pacific Journalism Fellowship program sponsored by the Hawaii-based East-West Center, the Singapore International Foundation and the Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association of Taipei.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — I was listening to a briefing by Taiwan's vice minister of the economy when news came that President Chen Shui-bian and his vice president had been shot.

The room of journalists quickly emptied as the story shifted from trade with China to the apparent assassination attempt.

It was the last story I imagined I would be covering when I set out with five other U.S. journalists on a 12,000-mile trip that had taken us from Honolulu and Tokyo to Singapore and Taipei.

As we later confirmed, the president and vice president had suffered only minor wounds. The perpetrator has not been apprehended.

The shooting, which occurred the day before Taiwan's presidential election, barely made ripples across the world pages of most U.S. newspapers. In Taiwan, it changed everything.

Within hours, both political parties, which had expected to draw hundreds of thousands of supporters in massive political rallies, had canceled their plans. By that evening conspiracy theories ran wild on local television stations that the president had staged the shooting. Two days later violence erupted in Taiwan's second- and third-largest cities.

On election day the divide was apparent.

For every person supporting President Chen and expressing sympathy over the shooting, others scoffed, saying the assassination attempt was not real and voting instead for presidential challenger Lien Chan.

Lien has championed a more moderate approach with respect to China, holding to the status quo position in regard to Taiwan independence.

Chen has vowed to change Taiwan's constitution by the end of his second term, a move that China views as an unacceptable approach toward independence.

By early evening it was apparent Chen had won the election, but only by a 0.2 percent margin, or fewer than 30,000 votes of nearly 13 million cast. Many contend it was the sympathy vote that carried Chen's victory. A recount to verify the results is ongoing.

Du Linzhi, a 77-year-old Taipei resident who fought the Japanese and then the Communists before fleeing to Taiwan in 1949, voted for Lien.