Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen won a second term on Saturday with a comfortable victory over Han Kuo-yu in an election that had been cast as a referendum on the island’s approach to Beijing.

Tsai, from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), captured more than 8 million votes, trumping her major challenger, Han Kuo-yu, from the mainland-friendly Kuomintang by close to 3 million votes.

Han, the populist mayor of Kaohsiung, conceded defeat and offered his congratulations to Tsai about an hour after James Soong Chu-yu from the People First Party made his concession speech. Soong garnered less than 600,000 votes, far short of 5.5 million votes received by Han.

Just after 9pm Tsai’s vote total had passed 8 million, more than the 6.9 million she received when victorious in 2016.

The DPP also secured a sweeping victory in the island’s legislative elections, winning 61 seats compared with the KMT’s 38. The result means the ruling party will maintain its majority in the Legislative Yuan.

View photos Supporters of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen celebrate outside her party’s campaign headquarters in Taipei. Photo: AFP More

Analysts said the result would give Tsai a mandate to continue her current cross-strait policy despite the KMT’s disagreements and strong opposition from the mainland.

“Cross-strait issues have been an important topic in the election with Tsai’s critics questioning her ability in dealing with China, but more than 8 million voters have cast their ballots to back her current approach,” said Lai I-chung, chairman of the council for international cooperation at Taiwan ThinkTank.

Tsai has refused to accept the one-China principle since she was first elected in 2016, prompting Beijing – which considers the island a wayward province that must return to the mainland fold, by force if necessary – to stage a series of war games and poach seven allies from Taiwan to try to force her to do so.

“Peace means that China must abandon threats of force against Taiwan,” Tsai said as she declared victory in Taipei.

View photos Graphic: SCMP More

“I also hope that the Beijing authorities understand that democratic Taiwan, and our democratically elected government, will not concede to threats and intimidation,” Tsai added. She continued that cross-strait relations should be based on “peace, equality, democracy and dialogue”.

Hinting that she would not seek to provoke Beijing in the next four years, Tsai said Taiwan would want to become “partners” and not “issues” for its neighbours.

Tsai did not comment on the protests in Hong Kong but said she believed “friends in Hong Kong would also feel glad [about the result]”.

Chuang Wen-chung, a professor of administration at Shih Hsin University, said the result also showed that the majority of the voters in Taiwan no longer accepted the one-China principle. “This means the KMT will have to develop some sort of new theories in its dealing with the mainland in the future,” he added.

The KMT had accepted the principle on the grounds that China represents the Republic of China, the island’s official title.

After the result, KMT chairman Wu Den-yi and other senior officials resigned, taking responsibility of the party’s defeat in both the presidential and legislative races.

“Voters have made their choices,” he said. “All the senior executives of the party, including the chairman … will offer their resignation to the central standing committee next week.”

View photos Han Kuo-yu admitted defeat in Kaohsiung, telling supporters, “I let down all of your expectations.” Photo: Reuters More