Pro-China Party Wins in Taiwan

Taiwan’s China-friendly opposition party handily beat the island’s ruling party in today’s presidential election, signaling smoother relations between the feuding governments, Reuters reports. President-elect Ma Ying-jeou, who won the vote over the Democratic Progressive Party 58%-42%, campaigned on a call for stronger economic ties with Beijing.

He says he would be open to a peace deal if Beijing stopped aiming an alleged 1,000 missiles at Taiwan. “Before we can talk about peace, we need to remove the threat,” said Ma, whose party favors reunification with China, once it embraces democracy, instead of independence. Beijing has offered peace talks with Taiwan, which it still claims as its own, but only under its “one China” policy. (More Taiwan stories.)