Saturday’s election has mainly been about one thing: the relationship with China.
Meanwhile, the US superpower is holding its breath, which has both economic and strategic interests in Taiwan remaining friendly to the West.
Influence campaigns are stepped up
For the past eight years, Taiwan has been ruled by the party that China dislikes the most: the DPP. President Tsai Ing-wen has now served two terms and cannot be re-elected.
Whoever succeeds Taiwan’s outgoing president, who takes a tough stance against China, will have a major impact on the relationship with the country going forward.
In order to prevent the “wrong party” from coming to power, China has now stepped up its influence campaigns against the country, which is criticized by Taiwan’s government.
“Frankly speaking, Beijing should stop meddling in other countries’ elections and keep its own,” writes Foreign Minister Joseph Wu in a post on X.
The opposition party pro-China
Tsai Ing-wen’s vice president, Lai Ching-Te, is the favorite in Saturday’s presidential election, albeit by a small margin. He represents the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and has described the election as “a choice between democracy and autocracy”.
China instead hopes that the opposition party’s, Kuomintang’s, candidate Hou Yu-ih will win the presidential election.
Hou and the Kuomintang are more conciliatory to China than Lai and the DPP, and Hou has made it clear that he does not support a declaration of independence.
Unclear election outcome
A reunification with China is not supported by the country’s population. Surveys show that the percentage of Taiwanese who want formal independence has increased significantly in recent years.
Opinion polls do not give a clear picture of where the election may go. The only thing that is completely clear is that none of the major parties have managed to arouse particularly great enthusiasm among the voters. Interest in the election has therefore been cooler than usual.