Taiwan president steps down as party chairman

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou announced his resignation as chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) on Wednesday in response to the party's massive defeat in local elections on Nov. 29, the Taipei-based Central News Agency reported.
"The elections remind us that those in power should listen humbly," Ma was quoted as saying at a KMT Central Standing Committee meeting. Noting that the KMT suffered an unprecedented setback in Saturday's polls, Ma said he wanted to apologize to all supporters and felt ashamed to have let them down. "I must deeply examine myself honestly and shoulder the greatest responsibility for the election defeat," Ma said.
The KMT lost five of the six municipalities and managed to win only five of the other 16 cities and counties in the country in the local government elections. Ma, who has pledged to improve ties with China, first became Taiwan's president in 2008 and was re-elected in 2012 for a four-year term.
Meanwhile, China's Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday denied a Taiwanese media report that Beijing is making major changes in its policy on Taiwan following the elections, the news agency said. "This is a pure fabrication," its spokeswoman Fan Liqing was quoted as saying in the statement. Fan reiterated her office's stance on the outcome of the elections, noting that "the mainland's policy toward Taiwan has not changed." China and Taiwan separated after a civil war in 1949, but Beijing still sees the island as its territory. Taiwan's relations with China have eased since Ma took office six years ago.