Taiwan's President-elect Tsai Ing-wen, the island's first woman leader, said in a press interview on Thursday she respects the 1992 Consensus reached between Taiwan and China, as local media reported that thousands of Chinese Internet users lashed out at her party's pro-independence stand on social media. 

Tsai said in an interview to Liberty Times she "understands and respects" the fact that Taiwan and China "reached some common acknowledgements and understanding in 1992". 

The 1992 Consensus refers to the agreement between China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation in 1992 in Hong Kong, that the Chinese mainland and Taiwan were part of "one China", though the interpretation was left open.

Tsai came to power in a historic election on Saturday that saw her defeat arch-rivals from the former ruling party Kuomintang (KMT) by millions of votes. Her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) also won the maximum number of seats in Taiwan's legislature for the first time. 

On Wednesday, thousands of anti-independence messages, believed to be from Chinese Internet users, flooded the president-elect's Facebook page.

There were than 20,000 posts on her page by Thursday, with many referring to Tsai as "Taiwan province governor" and hitting out at her party's pro-independence leanings. 

While Facebook is blocked in China, several groups of Internet users reportedly joined hands to circumvent the firewall and post the messages, reports said. 

China has considered Taiwan to be a renegade province ever since the nationalist Kuomintang party declared the Republic of China government on the island following its defeat to the Communist Party of China in the 1949 civil war. 

Cross-strait relations somewhat improved following the 1992 Consensus, and reached a new high when Chinese President Xi Jinping and outgoing Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou shook hands in Singapore last November.

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