ABSTRACT
On 18 March 2000 the DPP’s candidate Chen Shui-bian won Taiwan’s second direct presidential election. The election was a historic milestone on a range of accounts. It brought an end to a period of uninterrupted KMT rule over Taiwan since 1945. If we include the KMT’s period of rule over mainland China, then its defeat in 2000 ended over seven decades of ruling party status. The DPP’s victory represents the fi rst election-driven change of ruling parties not only in Taiwan but for any ethnic Chinese majority nation. For Taiwanese nationalists the election marked the end of the KMT party state that had imposed decades of harsh authoritarian rule and a Chinese nation-building project. Many then hoped for progress in their own alternative Taiwanese nation-building programme while Chinese nationalists feared this would bring the start of an era of cultural desinifi cation. For optimists in the KMT, the smooth handover of power in May 2000 refl ected the maturity of Taiwan’s democracy and also created a golden opportunity for their party to reform itself and put it once more on the road to recovering government offi ce. PRC threats prior to the election, memories of the 1996 missile crisis and KMT election advertisements all contributed to fears that a Chinese invasion was possible if the wrong team won the election. Lastly, after 2000 Taiwan had its fi rst experience of divided government, as although the DPP now held the presidency, it controlled only about a third of seats in the Legislative Yuan.
