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The presidential elections will be held in Taiwan on Saturday 13 January, which are probably the most observed and anticipated international event of the beginning of 2024. The favorite candidate, according to the polls, is Lai Ching-te, current vice-president and one of the main exponents of Center-left Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the same as the outgoing president Tsai Ing-wen. Lai Ching-te has long been one of the most prominent exponents of the movement that proposes greater distance between Taiwan and China, and until a few years ago he even said he was in favor of the island’s independence.
Also for this reason, according to some analysts, his election could change the delicate balance that exists at this time between China and Taiwan, and even cause a crisis between the two countries. Others, however, believe that these fears are decidedly exaggerated, and Lai himself did everything he could during the election campaign to reassure the Taiwanese and the international community.
Although Taiwan is a small island of 23 million inhabitants, its importance on an international level is out of proportion, especially due to its complicated relationship with China, which considers Taiwan its own rebellious province which sooner or later will have to return to being part of the country : Chinese President Xi Jinping periodically reminds us that the “reunification” between China and Taiwan is “unavoidable», using a rhetoric that has become increasingly threatening over time.
Added to this is the fact that Taiwan is politically very close to the United States, and that President Joe Biden has promised several times that the United States will defend the island in the event of a Chinese invasion. These factors have placed Taiwan at the center of a much larger international dispute, which also involves Saturday’s elections.
On January 13th in Taiwan there will be a vote to elect the president and renew the parliament. The presidential elections are single round: the candidate with the most votes gets the position.
Although Lai Ching-te is considered the favorite candidate, the vote is still quite open. There are three main candidates: in addition to Lei from the DPP there are Hou Yu-ih from the Kuomintang (KMT), the main conservative party in the country, which for several decades has also been the most favorable to maintaining good relations with China, and Ko Wen -je, the former mayor of the capital Taipei who presents himself as an independent technocrat. The polls show all three candidates close enough: Lei at 36 percent, Hou at 31 percent and Ko at 24 percent.
Although numerous internal issues were discussed during the election campaign, such as the housing crisis and the cost of energy, the element that monopolized the attention of the media, especially the international ones, were relations with China.
The situation in Taiwan is very particular: the island has been de facto independent since 1949, and has never been governed by the Chinese Communist Party, which dominates China. But China has always considered it as part of its territory, and over the decades a peculiar balance has developed whereby, in order not to provoke China, the majority of the international community does not recognize Taiwan on a formal level, but instead equally as an independent state.
– Read also: A Brief History of Taiwanese Democracy
For this reason, for example, Taiwan cannot have ambassadors abroad (it is not a country recognized as independent) but it still has “representatives” in other countries, who effectively perform the same functions. Taiwan can also participate in the Olympics, but only with the strange name of “Chinese Taipei”, again so as not to anger China.
China is extremely sensitive towards the Taiwan issue, and any attempt to change the current balance in favor of greater autonomy for the island causes excessive and often disjointed reactions. In this sense, the story of Lai Ching-te has considerable weight.
Lai, who is 64, has been involved in politics in Taiwan for nearly 40 years. He was raised by his mother after his father, a miner, died in a mining accident when he was only two years old. He studied medicine and also spent a period at the prestigious American university of Harvard, but at the end of the 1980s, when Taiwan became a free democracy, he abandoned his profession to devote himself to politics. He joined the DPP and became a parliamentarian and mayor of the city of Tainan, one of the largest in the country. Between 2017 and 2019 he became the country’s prime minister, under President Tsai Ing-wen. He is currently vice president.
Lai has always been part of the most progressive wing of the party, the one that pushes for the highest level of Taiwan’s autonomy from China and even to declare the island’s independence. Until a few years ago, he was an outspoken supporter of Taiwanese independence, and defined himself as “a pragmatic pro-independence worker.” For this reason he is considered by China to be a dangerous politician and a “separatist”, who must be kept away from power at all costs.
In recent years, however, Lai has moderated his position, and during the election campaign he said that if he is elected he will not take steps towards independence and will follow the more prudent policy of President Tsai, who despite being a strong supporter of the autonomy of Taiwan has always tried to avoid direct confrontation with China.
Despite this, his opponents have repeatedly accused Lai of being a threat to peace, and some analysts they believe that his election could be enough to create some kind of reaction from China, and a crisis between the two countries.
For Taiwan, declaring itself independent would mean provoking a definitive break with China, with probably very serious consequences, which could include a military response or even a Chinese invasion of the island.
To respond to the accusations of his adversaries, during the election campaign Lai is trying to present himself as a reassuring figure capable of maintaining peace and relations with China: during a public debate with his adversaries he saidamong other things, that in the eyes of China all the candidates in the Taiwanese elections – even the most pro-Chinese – are “separatists”, because if China governed the island, obviously, it would not allow free elections.
Perhaps the main selling point of Lai’s campaign is her running mate, Hsiao Bi-khim, a 52-year-old politician who served as Taiwan’s representative to the United States (i.e., unofficial ambassador) and who is one of Taiwan’s most beloved figures and appreciated in the country. Hsiao was born in Japan to American and Taiwanese parents, and she became famous when she gave herself the nickname “cat warrior”.
Hsiao Bi-khim (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
The nickname was a response to Chinese diplomats, who a few years ago began to adopt a very aggressive policy, calling themselves “wolf warriors”. Hsiao contrasted the aggressiveness of the wolf with the cat, which in his opinion is a graceful but at the same time decisive and independent animal.
Hsiao speaks Chinese, English and Hokkien, which is the language of Taiwanese aborigines, has traveled extensively and is seen by many Taiwanese, especially younger ones, as the prototype of a new Taiwanese identity that is increasingly independent from China and at the same time cosmopolitan and hybrid .