This crucial year of global elections, in which almost half of the population – from India to the United States to the European Union – has turned out to vote, begins with what is likely to be one of the most impactful events for the rest of the world. Planet. Taiwan, the self-governing and democratic island that China considers an inalienable part of its territory and whose biggest ally is the United States, is holding its presidential and legislative elections this Saturday under the long shadow of tensions between the two superpowers.
This is not another internal vote. They are never in this place. Its geopolitical reach holds high seismic potential. In Beijing’s eyes, Taiwanese face a choice between “war and peace.” The result and its consequences will be an initial benchmark for the agreement signed by the presidents of the two giants, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, when they met in November.
The Taiwanese government leadership polls, until they ceased publication on January 3, were led by current Vice President Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the least popular option in the Asian giant. He is followed in the polls by Hou Yu-ih, mayor of New Taipei – the country's most populous city surrounding the capital Taipei – from the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT), a group that has traditionally favored closer rapprochement with the People's Republic.
The third in the fight is Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan Young People's Party (PPT). Ko, a former doctor who served as mayor of Taipei until 2022, has risen in the polls largely due to his appeal to young people fed up with the two traditional political groups and with whom he talks about solving everyday problems. . , such as the high cost of housing.
Lai's first place was only briefly in jeopardy when an attempt to agree on a single candidacy among the opposition leaders was ultimately unsuccessful. In any case, the KMT is leading the Legislative Yuan (Parliament) polls.
Lai, the current vice president, presents himself as a guarantor of a path of continuity with the policies of outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen, also of the PDP. Due to legal term limits, Tsai is stepping down from power after eight years marked by a lack of communication with the People's Republic, growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait and a rapprochement with Washington. Lai defines himself before the territory's 19 million voters as the best guarantor of “stability” and maintaining the current status quo. And it promises to further advance social rights, such as gay marriage, which was approved under Tsai's mandate in 2019.
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“Peace has no price and war has no winners,” Lai defended this Tuesday during an appearance before the international press in which he praised the “stability” of Taiwan’s democracy. “Striving for peace” does not mean having “illusions,” he added. In order to maintain the aforementioned stability in this area, where many have been looking in the mirror of Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2022, he has proposed “strengthening Taiwan's defensive deterrence,” in line with the policies of the executive branch of which he is a member Military cooperation with the USA has recently become closer. “We are at the forefront of defending our values against authoritarianism,” concluded Lai, who has denied that he will declare Taiwan’s independence. “We don't have a plan. [de hacerlo]”,” he said, “because the Republic of China, Taiwan, is already a sovereign, independent nation.”
Beijing, which views the island as a rebellious province that it wants to peacefully reunify without resorting to the use of force if necessary, points out that the PPD candidate hides a secessionist tendency that “harms” the people of Taiwan and “endangers” peace in Taiwan. the strait. “In order to get more votes, Lai is trying to hide the fact that, as a supporter of Taiwan independence, he is essentially a troublemaker and war instigator,” Chen Binhua, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office, said in November. Taiwan from the Chinese government, according to the state press of the People's Republic.
Beijing's favorite
Beijing's preferred candidate is Hou Yu-ih of the nationalist KMT, the successor party to the faction that fled China in 1949 after being defeated by Mao Zedong's communists in the Chinese Civil War. The defeated settled on the island of Taiwan and founded a kind of government in exile under the leadership of the leader of the KMT, the dictator Chiang Kai-shek. They called it the Republic of China, giving rise to one of the most complex and explosive geopolitical conflicts, a remnant of the Cold War that is maintained to this day through extremely complex diplomatic contortions.
The KMT leader is calling for an end to the DPP's eight years in power, which he accuses of corruption and using an “internet army” and control of local media to attack him and his party for having closer ties with China, like him said announced at a rally on Sunday in the city of Kaohsiung. Hou often recalls his career as a police officer to explain that he knows the importance of negotiating while having the support of the police. His policy towards China can be summarized in three words: “Deterrence, dialogue, de-escalation.”
Since Taiwan's first free elections in 1996, KMT candidates have won the presidency three times (compared to four for the DPP) and ruled for just eight years this century. The KMT's last president, Ma Ying-jeou (2008-2016), attended a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in 2015. But excessive proximity to the world's second-largest economy contributed to his defeat in 2016 by Tsai Ing-wen, whom Xi had never met in person. In another recent show of harmony with Beijing, former President Ma, who has been actively supporting his party's candidate these days, traveled to China in March – the first former president or Taiwanese president to do so. His unofficial visit was highly symbolic: it coincided with Tsai's visit to the United States, which sparked anger from Beijing.
International tension and inner peace
The elections in Taiwan are taking place in a strange atmosphere that combines international tension and everyday calm on an island that has lived with the threat for more than seven decades. At a busy night market this Tuesday, Kai Chang, 29, and Monica Pan, 27, said they would vote for Ko Wen-Je, in front of a steaming plate of noodles fresh from one of the stalls. “I see that he is working hard to solve young people's problems, for example when it comes to renting apartments.” They complain about the very high prices, for which salaries are barely sufficient, and about the impossibility of buying a house. And they believe Ko is bolstered by his years at the helm of the capital's mayoralty.
“He has a more practical and scientific approach than the other two candidates,” assesses the couple. Both studied abroad; she works as a technology consultant; he as a financial advisor; They live together. “Part of the reason I'm going to vote for him is because I'm tired of there being only two parties. “I want a change,” says Kai. They also believe that the elections will decide the situation regarding China. His preferred candidate proposes a position “between” the KMT and the PPD: that of “maintaining the status quo,” “independence,” but “willingness to communicate” with Beijing.
While life is in flux, the news reflects the high pressure in the region. There is, for example, the multiplied presence of Chinese balloons flying through the skies near the island or directly on its territory, which the Taiwanese Defense Ministry has denounced as a “gray zone” tactic against Taiwan in “an attempt to exploit wartime cognition. “affect the morale of our people”; or the flights of Chinese warplanes beyond the so-called median line, which marks the unofficial division of the strait and which Beijing has recently been crossing with greater intensity. In September, a record was broken when 103 Chinese aircraft were spotted in 24 hours.
All of this is a reminder that there is much more than just government at stake in these elections. There have been moments of enormous tension in the Strait in recent years under Tsai's leadership, particularly since August 2022, following the visit to Taipei of Nancy Pelosi, then President of the US House of Representatives. The Chinese government viewed his visit to the island as an affront, staged large-scale military exercises around Taiwan and severed ties with Washington in various areas, including military. These fractures have not yet healed completely.
During the recent meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in San Francisco, the first after a year in which relations went into a downward spiral, the Chinese leader stressed that “the Taiwan issue remains the most important and sensitive issue in the world.” Relations between the United States and China are “China.” He called on Biden to stop advocating Taiwan independence, to stop arming the island and to support the “peaceful reunification of China.” In his traditional year-end speech on March 31, In December, Xi affirmed: “Without a doubt, our motherland will achieve reunification.” This Saturday's elections offer an outpost to observe on a small scale what direction the biggest geopolitical impulse of the 21st century might take in the coming years.
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