Taiwan’s Lu aims to be first woman president
Taiwan’s former vice-president Annette Lu, often vilified by China when she was in office, has declared her bid to run in the 2012 presidential election, a report said on Friday. “I am the most experienced in running a country in Taiwan. I am the only vice president who has served (the maximum) eight years,” she said in an interview with Apple Daily.
Lu is expected to formally announce her candidacy and that she will join the primary of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) at a rally on Monday, the report said. Lu, 67, was deputy to president Chen Shui-bian during his two terms from 2000 to 2008, during which Taiwan’s ties with China hit rock bottom under Chen’s policies promoting the island’s independence. Lu said she had made up her mind to run because “Taiwan will soon come to a demise” if President Ma Ying-jeou carries on in power, the report said.
It is a fact that Taiwan and China is a country on each side (of the Taiwan Strait)…. We should not oppose China for the sake of opposing, but we should not appease China for the sake of appeasing,” she said. China sees Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, even though the two sides have been governed separately since the end of a civil war in 1049.