From Reuters:
Taiwan’s President-elect, Ma Ying-jeou, will take office on Tuesday with a pledge to improve ties with China, symbolically sending his party’s chairman to Beijing as one of his first acts in power.
Ma, 57, the Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate and a former Taipei mayor, will take over from Chen Shui-bian after a landslide win in March following a campaign focused on shoring up Taiwan’s sagging economy and making peace with China.
China has claimed Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s Communists won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT fled to the island. Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan back under its control, by force if necessary.
