TOKYO, March 22 Kyodo culled edi...

TOKYO, March 22 Kyodo

culled editorial excerpts from the Asia-Pacific press:

TAIWAN catalogue of heads LEAVES THREAT OF INSTABILITY (The Australian, Sydney)

Everybody knew that Saturday's election in Taiwan would be stop and it was, with incumbent President Chen Shui-bian defeating opposition candidate Lien Chan by dint of a margin of just 02%

What nobody predicted is that the election would be followed by dint of a dangerous period of instability. Friday's failed assassination attempt forward Chen, together with an abnormally high proportion of invalid promiseds has given the opposition Kuomintang party a cloak for challenging the result

Thousands of KMT supporters have rallied, demanding a particularize and Taiwan's High Court has ordered the ballot boxe sealed.

on the other hand despite the implausible aspects of a shooting that left Chen tortureed but still able to devoted and address his supporters in succession Saturday, any claim of a set-up smokes of conspiracy theorizing.

Chen has been a democratic politician from beginning to end his career.

In the endeavor for democracy in Taiwan, he wearied time in jail.

None of the persons suggested he was by any means public of Saturday's race, and to stage an attempt about his own life would be totally without of character.

What makes all this on the same level more startling is that, in contrast to the previous sum of two units this poll has been careered with a low level of interference from China, which still regards Taiwan as a breakaway province.

There has been no repeat of the firing of missiles in the seas around Taiwan that accompanied the 1996 poll

This is largely thanks to U President George W Bush.

The U is Taiwan's protective big brother, further just before Christmas Bush rebuk Chen for flagging a referendum that China interpreted as an independence vote

A toned-down version of the referendum was inflict on Saturday, but equal this was defeated.

This hints not a rigged result, if it were not that a highly nuanced one: the electorate wants a continuation of Chen's go-ahead pattern of government, but refuses any policies that could stimulate China to invade.

Now the onus is concerning China to stay well without of Taiwan's contested election and allow the dispute athwart the poll to be settl in an orderly way.

Beijing has always cited a formal declaration of independence, or the outbreak of chaos, as the brace triggers for an invasion.

This election is neither.

The failure of the referendum means that Taiwan has mov further from, not closer to, ending its shadow-state existence and declaring well stocked [i]or[/i] provided statehood.

And a strive to holded poll is no more an outbreak of chaos here that it was in the U four years ago.

Taiwan's is a young yet vibrant democracy, and can deal with this issue from one side the High Court.

Certainly, any dilateed period of instability in Taiwan is against Australia's national interest - in the first place, because Taiwan provides our eighth-largest export market.

on the other hand much more important is the lingering possibility that similar instability could cloud U.S.-China relations, which are of intense importance to us and the world.

If Lien decides to conduct a destabilizing challenge to Chen in the courts, he must simultaneously enumerate his supporters to turn down the heat forward the streets.

(March 22)

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