his counterpart will discuss peace. beijing considers it a breakaway province and has threatened force should taiwan declare independence. matt rivers following this for us from hong kong. he joins us now live. and matt, it seems this meeting has as much to do with an upcoming election in taiwan as it does trying to improve relations between taipei and beijing. that s right, timing is everything. and let s start with those national elections. there are scheduled to be held next january. and many people are speculating that the party that is currently in power in taipei is using the timing of this meeting to hopefully bolster its chances at winning the general election next year. they would hope that by strengthening ties between taipei and beijing, specifically economic ties as it has done over the past eight years or so since that party has been in power, that could further improve the taiwanese economy.
they certainly do not want that. there were large protests. a student group took over the legislature in taipei for about a month, protesting what they called an unfair trade deal that was being negotiated between beijing and between taipei. the opposition party doing very, very well with many political experts even coming close to saying they could win next year s elections, ousting the current party leadership. so there is certainly evidence of many, many taiwanese people not being very much in favor of closer ties with beijing. so whether this work moves out politically for the current party in power in taiwan, it s kind of a gamble. president mao, of course, this will be his last term. trying to set it up so the nationals can remain in power, but they re way behind.
it has a stake in which party controls this country. the opposition party in next year s elections has openly stated that it is far less open to negotiating with beijing with some of those party members even openly advocating for taiwan to become an entirely separate sovereign nation independent of mainland china. beijing has threatened using force to stop that from happening. so the hope is they wouldn t even have to go that far. and you see this is all about in some ways beijing hoping to improve the economy in taiwan, keeping some friendly allies there in power. on the island. but there s also the potential blowback as well, because many in taiwan just simply don t want china to be the mainland, at least, beijing to be meddling in politics there. that s absolutely right. there s a very real suspicious that they don t want to become, let s say, another version of hong kong, which is, you know, basically ruled by china.
its stock surged as much as 19%. the commercial public offering was part of a deal that saw the japanese government spin off and also sell the postal operators inshurps and banking subsidiaries. still part of a wider government brook to privatize state-owned company. trying to grow the economy and get some life back into it. the triple ipo raised $12 billion for the japanese government. bally s airport is closed until thursday because of the volcanic ash cloud. tremors are being recorded continuously and more ruptures are expected. thousands of travelers were stranded in bali in to july because of eruptions from another volcano in east java. for the first time since china s sil war ended 66 years ago, chie china and taiwan will hold talks.
it seems like it has as much to do with june coming election in taiwan than in improving relations. let s start with the national election you mentioned, set for next zblan taiwan. the party currently in power in taiwan is speculated it sees a political opportunity here by setting up this meeting with president xxi. they re hoping that will improve the party s chances of winning what is expected to be a tight general election come next january. if economic ties specifically can be improved between taiwan and between the mainland, then it would be the hope in the short term the economy would improve and therefore bolster the current ruling party s chances of rining an election, because when the economy is good, often times the votes vol low. as far as beijing is concerned,