China is aiming to use pressure to affect elections: Taiwan president
DHARAMSALA, August, 22: Taiwan’s President has said that China is exerting pressure on the island in an attempt to influence its politics, including upcoming local elections, media reports said.
“China’s pressure towards Taiwan will not stop ahead of the elections,” Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in a statement issued earlier today, reports the Reuters.
Further, Beijing was attempting to affect the election results, the Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen added, the report noted.
The self-ruled island nation will hold the mayoral and magisterial elections in late November later this year.
The report also said that Taiwan vowed on Tuesday to fight China’s ‘increasingly out of control’ behaviour after the island lost its third diplomatic ally this year to Beijing after El Salvador switched allegiances to China.
Beijing considers Taiwan as an errant province and never shied away from using force to bring it under its control.
The ties between the two countries deteriorated under Taiwan’s first female President, Tsai Ing-wen as she refused to accept the Chinese claim over her island nation after her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took office in May 2016, after a landslide victory over the Kuomintang (KMT).
