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Taipei: Taiwanese voters were deciding on Saturday whether to stick with a party whose pro-independence bent has strained ties with China or switch to one pushing for a reduction of tensions and more economic engagement with the communist country.
Just two weeks ago, opposition candidate Ma Ying-jeou seemed ready to cruise to victory in the island's fourth direct presidential election, promising to work toward friendlier relations and even a common market with China.
But ruling party candidate Frank Hsieh appears to have been closing the gap. His party used the last day of campaigning to fan outrage over China's crackdown in Tibet.
Hsieh warns that China's crackdown in Tibet could be replicated in Taiwan, which split from the mainland amid civil war in 1949. Beijing still considers the island to be part of its territory and has threatened to attack if Taiwan rejects unification and seeks a permanent break.
"If Ma is elected, Taiwan's future will be in danger," Hsieh told a cheering crowd at a rally Friday in the southern city of Chiayi. "It will be the same for China to attack Tibet or Taiwan because it will be China's domestic issue."
But Ma has accused Hsieh of exploiting Tibet for political gain, although he himself has threatened to boycott the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing if the Tibetan situation worsens.
Ma has proposed a formal peace treaty with Beijing that would demilitarise the Taiwan Strait, the 100-mile-wide waterway that separates the two heavily armed sides. But he too has drawn the line at unification, promising that it would not be discussed during his presidency.
Hsieh, a former premier and dissident lawyer, has criticised Ma's common market plan as a half-baked idea that would flood the island with migrant Chinese workers who would steal jobs from working-class Taiwanese.
While Taiwanese law forbids the publication of opinion polls in the last 10 days of campaigning, both parties agree that Hsieh has been closing in on his rival over the last two weeks.
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