Ma Ying-jeou AP PHOTO

Nationalist Party leader Ma Ying-jeou took office as Taiwan's president May 20, promising to seek greater economic cooperation with rival China and ease nearly six decades of tensions.

The inauguration of the 57-year-old Ma represents a clear break from the eight-year presidency of Chen Shui-bian, whose confrontational pro-independence policies often led to friction with Beijing — and with the United States, Taiwan's most important foreign partner.

But in a break with the Nationalist old guard, Ma's major emphasis has been on seeking to tie Taiwan's powerful but laggard high-tech economy more closely to China's white-hot economic boom.