This post is from March 2004. Facts and links may have changed since. See more from that month

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Taiwan Election Close; Chen Wounded in Shooting

Saturday’s presidential election in Taiwan will be close. The last crop of opinion polls (which were prohibited during the ten days prior to the election) showed incumbent Chen Shui-bian had closed to a statistical tie with the KMT candidate, Lien Chan. The race is now a statistical tie, with the election likely to be decided by three “swing cities” in central Taiwan: Taichung, Changhua and Nantou. The New York Times has a nice summary of the ethnic identity politics that divide Taiwan.

On a related note, President Chen Shui-bian was slightly wounded during a rally. Reuters has the best coverage of the attack; some speculate the shooting my help Chen.

Jeffrey Lewis

Writing on ACW 2004–2026

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis is the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk.com. He is the Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His also a non-resident affiliate at Stanford's Center for Security and International Cooperation and a Contributing Editor to Survival.

All posts by Jeffrey Lewis