TAIPEI — Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party won an unprecedented third-straight presidential term, as incoming leader Lai Ching-te pledged to stay open-minded in his approach toward governance, while committing to forging consensus in a split legislature.

The outcome of the presidential election on Saturday riled Beijing, which has repeatedly labeled Lai as a “stubborn worker for Taiwan independence” and a dangerous separatist. There are also fears this could in turn influence frosty China-U.S. relations and security in the broader Indo-Pacific region, with China having escalated military activity in the Taiwan Strait and other nearby waters.

“As president, I have an important responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits,” Lai said in a press conference, in an official party translation of his comments in Mandarin. He added though that he is also “determined to safeguard Taiwan from threats and intimidation from China.”

“I will act in accordance with our democratic and free constitutional order, in a manner that is balanced and maintains the cross-Straits status quo,” he added. “Under the principles of dignity and parity, we will use exchanges to replace obstructionism, dialogue to replace confrontation, and confidently present exchanges and cooperation with China.”

The Chinese Communist Party has refused to engage with outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen since she assumed office in 2016. Tsai did not stand at this election because she has served the maximum two presidential terms.

The DPP has not accepted the so-called “1992 Consensus,” disputing the tacit agreement for “one China” between the then-KMT government and Chinese Communist Party officials, which Beijing assumes as the basis for cross-Straits engagement.

Still, in his post-election comments in Mandarin, Lai invoked the official name of Taiwan — the Republic of China — at least twice.

DPP’s Lai — Taiwan’s current vice-president — won more than 40% of the popular vote in Taiwan’s eighth presidential election. DPP is the first party to win the presidential office three times in row since direct presidential elections were introduced in 1996. Beijing had framed the election as a choice between “peace and war, prosperity and decline.”

Kuomintang or KMT, Beijing’s preferred political partner, gained roughly 33% of the vote with Hou You-yi at the top of its ticket. Ko Wen-je — the surly, straight-talking former Taipei mayor who ran under the banner of the Taiwan People’s Party that was formed only in 2019 — received just over 26% of the vote.

Voter turnout appeared to be the second-weakest since direct presidential elections started in Taiwan in 1996. This year, 71.9% of all eligible voters cast their ballots for the presidential election, according to preliminary data from Taiwan’s Central Election Commission.

China dismissed the outcome of Taiwan’s Saturday elections, saying its ruling Democratic Progressive Party does not represent the mainstream public opinion.

“Taiwan is China’s Taiwan,” Chen Binhua, the spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said on Saturday shortly after DPP’s Lai emerged as the winner.

“This election cannot change the basic pattern and the development of cross-Strait relations, nor can it change the common desire of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to draw closer,” Chen added, according to a CNBC translation of a report from Xinhua, the official state news agency.

China has never relinquished its claim over Taiwan — which has been self-governing since the Chinese nationalist party, or Kuomintang, fled to the island following its defeat in the Chinese civil war in 1949.

Chinese President Xi Jinping regards reunification with the mainland “a historical inevitability.”

The U.S. response starkly differed, but was broadly consistent with its past positions.

“We … congratulate the Taiwan people for once again demonstrating the strength of their robust democratic system and electoral process,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

“The United States is committed to maintaining cross-Strait peace and stability, and the peaceful resolution of differences, free from coercion and pressure,” he added.

The outcome of the race to control Taiwan’s 113-seat legislature though is far less clear, with the DPP losing its majority. A hung parliament could well hobble Lai’s policy agenda, while heralding a return of the kind of notorious open feuding among Taiwan’s legislators.

“On the legislative elections, the DPP did not hold onto a majority,” Lai said. “This means we did not work hard enough, and there are areas where we must humbly review and look back on.”

As it stands, the new Taiwan government will have its hands full, with voters largely concerned with bread-and-butter issues, particularly stagnant wages at a time of escalating rents and home prices that have been worsened by high inflation.

These issues have largely helped buoy Ko’s popularity as he positioned himself as a political outsider. 

“Taiwan People’s Party got more votes than expected. Ko got 25%, showing there is still a significant number of voters wanting a change,” Wei-Ting Yen, an assistant professor in government at Franklin and Marshall College, told CNBC.

“The social force is there, and the Lai administration has to address the social and economic issues right on,” she said. “People may be supporting the DPP’s foreign policy directions, but they are not necessarily supporting them for domestic policies.”

At the same press conference on Saturday after his two opponents conceded, Lai said he will carefully consider and include policy ideas and positions of his two electoral rivals that further Taiwan’s interests.

In a nod to issues that dominated the presidential election campaign, Lai singled out the financial sustainability of Taiwan’s labor and health insurance, along with the country’s energy transition as urgent issues that he will prioritize in forging consensus.

Lai also said he will appoint the most qualified professionals and personnel regardless of political affiliations in the “spirit of a democratic alliance.”

“The elections have told us that the people expect a strong government and effective checks and balances,” Lai said. “As for the new structure of the new legislature, Taiwan must build a new political environment of communication, consultation, participation, and cooperation.”

Still, Lai also had one eye on the broader strategic significance of his electoral victory — however diminished it may seem in comparison to the DPP’s comfortable victory in the presidential and legislative elections in 2016.

“Through our actions, the Taiwanese people have successfully resisted efforts from external forces to influence this election. We trust that only the people of Taiwan have the right to choose their own president,” Lai said.

Taiwan’s DPP-led government has often accused Beijing of vote interference either by military intimidation or by co-opting Taiwan’s business elite due to their economic reliance on China.

In the run-up to Saturday’s vote, Lai said that Beijing’s meddling is “the most serious” at this elections.

Xi told U.S. counterpart Joe Biden on the sidelines of the APEC leaders summit in November that Taiwan has always been the “most important and sensitive” issue in China-U.S. relations.

Prior to Saturday’s elections, a senior Biden administration official said the White House is preparing for several different outcomes. Biden has pledged to defend Taiwan in the event of a China invasion, a position that has irked Beijing.

Former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the island in over two decades. Her trip was one reason that communication between the world’s two leading powers ground to a halt before a tentative resumption only months ago.

“As one of the first and most highly anticipated elections of 2024, Taiwan has achieved a victory for the community of democracy,” Lai said. “We are telling the international community that between democracy and authoritarianism, we will stand on the side of democracy.”

Tencent lost about $43.5 billion in market value on Friday after China surprised financial markets with a fresh set of rules aimed at curbing excessive gaming and spending.

The draft guidelines from China’s National Press and Publication Administration sank the Hong Kong-listed shares of Tencent, NetEase and Bilibili — among the largest online gaming-related counters in the world’s biggest online gaming market.

“The most recent regulatory move on the online gaming industry is the last thing the market was hoping to hear out of Beijing,” Brian Tycangco, an analyst at Stansberry Research told CNBC.  

“While well intended, the move casts doubt on the viability of existing business models that mostly are built around incentive or rewards to attract users and boost loyalty,” he added.

Shenzhen-based Tencent, which owns WeChat and generated over a fifth of its third-quarter revenue from domestic online gaming, saw its shares tumble about 12.4% to close at HK$274, its lowest closing level since end-November 2022.

NetEase, 80% of whose third-quarter revenue came from domestic online gaming, plunged 24.6% to close at HK$122. Friday’s losses wiped out about 115.1 billion Hong Kong dollars ($14.7 billion) off NetEase’s market capitalization.

Bilibili, a social media site that derived 17.1% of its total third-quarter net revenue from Chinese domestic gaming, saw its shares slide 9.7% to close at HK$80.30, its lowest since November 2022 — shaving about 2.4 billion Hong Kong dollars ($307 million) off its market capitalization.

The Hang Seng Index closed down 1.7% on Friday ahead of a four-day holiday weekend, while the China Enterprises Index of the largest offshore mainland blue-chip names listed in Hong Kong ended down 2.3%.

“I’m confident we’ll get more clarity on these new rules in the coming days and weeks. But investors don’t want to wait around for the dust to settle. Better coordination between industry and regulators will benefit everyone in the future,” Tycangco said.

New draft guidelines released by China’s top gaming regulator require owners of online games to abstain from providing or condoning high-value or expensive transactions in virtual entities whether by auction or speculative activity, among other things.

Daily login rewards will also be banned, while recharging limits must be imposed with pop-up warnings issued to users who display “irrational consumption behavior,” the National Press and Publication Administration said.

“These new measures do not fundamentally alter the online gaming business model and operations,” Vigo Zhang, vice-president of Tencent Games, told CNBC. “They clarify the authorities’ support for the online gaming industry, providing instructive guidance encouraging the innovation of high quality games.”

These latest draft rules come at a time, given the broader China technology industry was just emerging from a broader crackdown that started in late 2020.

Just over a year ago, Tencent secured rights to five of the 45 foreign game licenses approved by the National Press and Publication Administration in the first batch of approvals since Beijing’s crackdown on the video-games sector that started in August 2021.

At the country’s annual legislative meetings in 2021, China President Xi Jinping blamed addiction to online gaming for rising myopia and the adverse psychological well-being of the country’s young.

Later that year, the National Press and Publication Administration proposed that children under 18 be should not allowed to play online games for more than three hours a week, limiting them to legal game time only between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Fridays, weekends and public holidays starting in early September.

In August, the Cyberspace Administration of China proposed rules to limit the smartphone screen time of people under the age of 18 to a maximum of two hours per day.

— CNBC’s Lim Hui Jie and Arjun Kharpal contributed to this story.

(Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the milestone after the slide in Tencent’s share price.)

China reported Friday its industrial output expanded at the fastest pace since February 2022 in November, though retail sales growth missed expectations, pointing to a patchy recovery in the world’s second-largest economy.

Economists are approaching the China data with some caution, given a low base effect. The country was in the final months of its stringent zero-Covid curbs in the last quarter of 2022, which had adversely impacted the economy.

“The data is a mixed bag,” Miao Ouyang, Bank of America’s Greater China economist, told CNBC. “If you look at the whole set of data, it still shows that domestic demand is still on the weak side…and [the government] still definitely needs to do more to stabilize the economy.”

China’s industrial output grew 6.6% in November from a year earlier, according to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics Friday. This outpaced expectations for 5.6% in a Reuters poll and follows a 4.6% rise in October.

Retail sales climbed 10.1% in November from a year ago, the fastest pace of growth since May — though analysts had expected a 12.5% spike following a low base in 2022. Retail sales rose 7.6% in October.

“Year-on-year growth in retail sales also rose in November, thanks mainly to faster automobile and Covid-sensitive restaurant sales growth on the back of favorable base effects, although this is well below market (high) expectations and implies a negative sequential growth,” Goldman Sachs economists led by Lisheng Wang wrote in a note.

Fixed asset investment in urban areas cumulatively grew 2.9% in the first 11 months of the year, compared with expectations for 3% growth. China’s urban unemployment rate stayed at 5% in November.

Hong Kong shares, among this year’s underperformers in Asia Pacific, saw gains briefly accelerate after the release of Friday’s data. The Hang Seng pared those gains to eventually close up 2.4% on the day.

The CSI 300 benchmark of the largest blue chips listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen gave up modest gains to close down 0.3% on the day.

The post-Covid recovery of the world’s second-largest economy has so far fallen short of expectations, plagued by a festering real estate crisis, debt risks and chronic youth unemployment.

A slew of policy support measures have not sufficiently lifted economic sentiment, igniting calls for Beijing to amp up its stimulus amid fears of a deepening slowdown.

Still, there are several green shoots that point to Beijing’s focus on growth, while also underscoring the depths of the real estate malaise.

On a cumulative basis in the first 11 months, investments in infrastructure and manufacturing increased 5.8% and 6.3%, year-on-year, respectively; retail sales rose 7.2%, while real estate development investment dropped 9.4%, China’s NBS said.

Official data released earlier Friday showed that China’s new home prices fell for the fifth straight month in November, underscoring weak confidence in demand and investment as some of the largest real estate developers are facing serious debt problems as Beijing strives to deleverage its once-bloated real estate sector.

Eddie Wu will succeed Daniel Zhang as chief executive of Alibaba Group, while Joe Tsai will take Zhang’s place as the group’s chairman, China’s largest e-commerce company announced Tuesday.

Wu is one of Alibaba’s co-founders and currently chairman of Taobao and Tmall Group. Brooklyn Nets owner Tsai is currently Alibaba’s executive vice chairman.

Zhang will continue to lead the Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group as chairman and chief executive after this change, which the company said will take effect Sept. 10.

This surprise succession announcement comes after Alibaba said in March it will split its company into six business groups. The company explained at that time that this will allow each business group to raise outside funding and go public in the most significant reorganization in the Chinese e-commerce giant’s history.

Wu has held a multitude of roles in his time at the company, including heading technology at Alibaba’s inception, as well as chief technology officer at Alipay and Taobao. He was also director of Alibaba Health Information Technology and founded Vision Plus Capital, a venture capital firm focused on investing in advanced technologies, enterprise services and digital healthcare.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

North Korea’s first attempt at launching a military spy satellite resulted in failure on Wednesday, with South Korea’s military picking up wreckage after the carrier rocket crashed into its western waters.

North Korea’s state media agency, the Korean Central News Agency, said that an “accident” occurred during the launch of a military reconnaissance satellite.

“The carrier rocket ‘Chollima-1’ fell to the West Sea of Korea after losing thrust due to the abnormal starting of the second-stage engine after the separation of the first stage during the normal flight,” it said on the English language version of its website.

The rocket, with a mounted satellite, was launched at 6:27 a.m. local time as it previously announced.

North Korea’s state media added that the failed launch was due to “low reliability and stability of the new-type engine system applied” to the carrier rocket and the “unstable character of the fuel used.”

South Korean officials added that they are in the process of recovering “what could be the wreckages from the purported ‘space launch vehicle’ fired by North Korea.”

South Korea, Japan and the U.S. condemned North Korea’s Wednesday morning launch and emphasized that it was a violation of a United Nations security council resolution.

The U.S.’s National Security Council said in a statement: “The door has not closed on diplomacy but Pyongyang must immediately cease its provocative actions and instead choose engagement.”

“The United States will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and the defense of our Republic of Korea and Japanese allies,” it added.

North Korea state media added that it will make a second attempt “as soon as possible” after looking into the “serious defects” from Wednesday’s launch.

Officials in South Korea and Japan also acknowledged the possibility of an imminent launch from Pyongyang.

“North Korea has consistently shown its intention to strengthen its nuclear and missile capabilities, and we believe there is a possibility that it will continue to launch various types of missiles, conduct nuclear tests, and engage in other provocations in the future,” Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters in a briefing.

South Korea’s presidential office also said that its National Security Council convened a meeting following North Korea’s launch.

“The NSC members decided to continuously monitor North Korea’s possible additional launch and maintained cooperation with allies and friendly nations,” South Korea’s NSC said.

SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific looked set for a lower start on Wednesday as investors await the release of inflation data from China and the U.S.

The Nikkei futures contract in Chicago was at 26,110 while its counterpart in Osaka was at 26,060 — lower than the Nikkei 225’s last close at 26,167.10.

Australian stocks also appeared poised to dip, with the SPI futures contract at 7,014, against the S&P/ASX 200’s last close at 7,051.20.

China is set to release its inflation data on Wednesday, with the consumer price index and producer price index for April both set to be out at 9:30 a.m. HK/SIN. The data releases come as the mainland continues to battle its worst Covid outbreak since the initial phase of the pandemic in early 2020.

The U.S. April consumer price index is also set to be released Wednesday stateside, and is expected to come in slightly below March’s 8.5% which could signal that inflation has reached a peak.

“The US CPI for April is today’s, indeed the week’s, highlight,” Joseph Capurso, head of international economics at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, wrote in a note.

“The consensus of US economists expect headline inflation to decelerate significantly from 1.2%/mth in March to only 0.2%/mth in April because retail petrol prices have stabilised. But core inflation is expected to step up slightly from 0.3%/mth in March to 0.4%/mth in April,” Capurso said.

Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 climbed about 0.25% to 4,001.05 while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.98% to 11,737.67. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged, falling 84.96 points — or 0.26% — to 32,160.74.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 103.92 — above levels below 103.8 seen earlier in the week.

The Japanese yen traded at 130.34 per dollar, stronger as compared with levels above 130.5 seen against the greenback earlier this week. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.6937 as it struggles for a bounce after declining from above $0.70 earlier in the week.

SINGAPORE — Shares in Chinese tech firms mostly rose in mixed Asia-Pacific trading on Monday, with oil prices falling more than 3%.

The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong advanced 1.05%.

Shares of Meituan soared 10.89% while Tencent climbed 2.86%, as of the final hour of trading in Hong Kong on Monday.

Meituan on Friday posted better-than-expected revenue for the last three months of 2021. The company’s revenue for the fourth quarter came in at 49.52 billion yuan ($7.78 billion), above mean analyst expectations for a 49.2 billion yuan print, according to data from Refinitiv Eikon.

The Hang Seng Tech index remained in positive territory, rising 2.13%. Some Chinese tech stocks, however, slipped: Baidu edged 0.63% lower while JD.com dropped 3.06%.

“Even if you look now, where we see very significant and sharp falls so that valuations now are at much more reasonable levels, I think it’s still quite difficult for investors … to really build the courage to go back in at these levels,” Mark Konyn, group chief investment officer at AIA, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday.

The broader Asia-Pacific markets struggled for direction on Monday.

Mainland China’s Shanghai composite gained 0.07% to close at 3,214.50 while the Shenzhen component shed 1.017% to 11,949.94.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 closed fractionally higher at 7,412.40. Singapore’s Straits Times index also climbed 0.38% in afternoon trade.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific outside Japan traded 0.11% lower.

Oil prices declined in the afternoon of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures down 3.52% to $116.40 per barrel. U.S. crude futures slipped 3.97% to $109.38 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 99.2 following a recent climb from below 98.7.

The Japanese yen traded at 123.61 per dollar, weaker than levels below 120 seen against the greenback last week. The Australian dollar was at $0.7512, having risen from below $0.74 last week.

Correction: This article was updated to accurately reflect the moves of the Japanese yen during Asia trading hours on Monday.