Compass Elections: Taiwan Election 101

Taiwanese voters go to the polls on January 11 to choose their next president. Amid growing geopolitical strain for the island nation of 24 million, the contested election pits the nativist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) against the establishment Kuomintang (KMT). It will decide whether incumbent DPP President Tsai Ing-wen is reelected or replaced by KMT populist Mayor Han Kuo-yu of Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second city. To understand how they differ on policy, one must first understand how their parties differ philosophically; to understand this, one must understand Taiwan’s fraught history.

How Many Chinas Am I Holding Up?: 70 Years of Seeing Double

Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), has existed in its current form since 1949. Before that, the nationalist KMT fought a long civil war with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After the end of World War II, the truce that the two sides agreed on to fight the Japanese evaporated, and the weakened KMT retreated to the island province of Taiwan, where its two million migrants joined the 14 million native residents.

The ROC took control of Taiwan from Japan at the end of World War II but lost control of mainland China shortly after, in 1949. Since then, the CCP has controlled China.

Since 1949, the ROC has technically remained at war with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland. One-party rule persisted in Taiwan under the KMT until democratization in the 1990s. During the KMT’s long period of martial law, the government minimized Taiwanese-language media, maintained ideology dossiers on suspected pro-democracy activists, and undertook a campaign of Sinicization to make Taiwan the center of Greater China. KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek was succeeded as ROC president by his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, who handpicked Taiwan-born Lee Teng-hui to succeed him.

Lee led negotiations with the PRC that produced the 1992 Consensus, also called the One China Principle, which states that there is only one China but elects not to define which China that is (Lee has since denied that such a consensus exists). Most KMT politicians support the 1992 Consensus, arguing that the ROC is the sole legitimate government of an indivisible China; on the other hand, it is the stated position of the DPP that Taiwan and China are both sovereign states and that no 1992 Consensus exists.

Taiwan has held direct elections for its Legislative Yuan since 1992 and for its presidency since 1996. Power has changed hands several times between the pro-unification KMT and the pro-independence DPP since then. In 2016, the DPP’s Tsai, a 59-year-old international trade lawyer, won in a landslide on promises to reform the economy, reverse the trend of deepening economic ties with China, and liberalize Taiwan on social issues like gay marriage.

Tsai’s Report Card

Voters were overwhelmingly dissatisfied with Tsai’s job performance in late 2018 when they stingingly rebuked the DPP with across-the-board losses in municipal elections. Tsai resigned as DPP chair in response and faced-off a primary challenge from her own premier, William Lai, in June; Lai will run for vice president on Tsai’s ticket on January 11.

Tsai and Lai register as DPP ticket for the 2020 presidential election.

The KMT alleges that Tsai’s economic policies have weakened growth, pulling GDP growth rates down from their 2.83 percent average during the previous KMT administration to just 2.4 percent. An aging workforce presents particularly acute problems for Taiwan’s economy, which relies heavily on exports of high-end electronics. The economy is also dependent on China, by far its biggest market for both imports and exports. In fact, Taiwanese nationals work freely in mainland China because the PRC considers them its own citizens.

Tsai’s signature New Southbound economic policy program aims to reduce Taiwan’s reliance on China’s market by increasing trade relations with South and Southeast Asia. Her government has also supported future industries like biopharmaceuticals and green energy production. Many voters have found the results lackluster. 

“Simply put, Tsai offends not only her party’s base supporters who think reform initiatives are not aggressive enough, but also opposition sympathizers who believe the reforms are politically motivated and moderates who are sick and tired of the two parties,” pollster Tai Li-an says.

Storm From the South

Han Kuo-yu won an upset victory over DPP candidate Chen Chi-mai in the November 2018 mayoral election in Kaohsiung on a platform promising economic revitalization. Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second city, is a post-industrial port economy of almost three million and, in many ways, a microcosm of the island nation’s demographic and economic challenges. The city’s mayoralty had been held by the DPP since 1998, but Han won election comfortably, receiving an outright majority of votes in a field of four candidates.

Han colloquially referred to himself as a “bald-headed vegetable vendor” during his underdog campaign to be mayor of Kaohsiung in 2018.

Since his campaign for Kaohsiung mayor began, Han has achieved both national notoriety and controversy. He has been critical of the ruling DPP, especially on its economic and China policies. Though Han initially said he planned to serve out his term as mayor of Kaohsiung, he decided to run for president in 2019, easily winning the KMT primary with 44.8 percent of the vote. His closest competitor was billionaire Terry Gou, the founder of contract electronics manufacturer Foxconn, who got 28 percent. (Though Gou left the KMT after his loss and threatened to run for president as an independent, he has decided not to do so.)

Taiwan has hemorrhaged allies during Tsai’s administration as Beijing has stepped-up efforts to diplomatically isolate the island state from the remaining countries that formally recognize it. Embarrassingly, the Solomon Islands switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in September just days after its foreign minister was received in Taipei for a state visit. In August, Beijing banned its citizens from completing individual trips to Taiwan in an effort to squeeze Taiwan’s tourism industry (despite the pinch, foreign visits to Taiwan clocked a record-breaking seven-percent growth rate in 2019). 

Han and other KMT leaders have been critical of Tsai’s policies toward China, arguing that they have led to Taiwan’s increasing geopolitical isolation. But China’s attempted vilification of the DPP may have backfired in light of prevailing global trends. Tsai is now expected to win reelection even in spite of the unpopularity of many of her economic reforms.

The Enemy of My Enemy

Tsai’s electoral hopes seemed at a trough on November 24, 2018, when her party was soundly trounced in municipal elections. She resigned as leader of the DPP shortly thereafter, and her chances at reelection seemed slim. But a number of developments since then have made her the presumptive front-runner.

Her administration passed a new law in 2019 to recognize same-sex marriages made in Taiwan and in other countries that allowed such unions. Tsai, herself an early supporter of marriage equality, was faulted by younger supporters for making little progress on the issue early in her term. 

Taipei, the site of East Asia’s largest Gay Pride Parade, hosted celebrations in May as Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalize gay marriage.

But following the victory of conservative groups in passing a non-binding referendum to deny gay marriage—during the same November 24, 2018, election that was so ruinous for the DPP—Tsai championed marriage equality and passed the most progressive version of the legalization law that had been proposed to comply with a landmark May 2017 Supreme Court decision mandating legalization. Her confidence in this significantly improved her approval rating among young voters disappointed with her failure to realize many of the reforms she promised during her 2016 campaign.

Tsai is also the beneficiary of souring public perception of China. Since protests began in Hong Kong last spring over Beijing’s encroachment into the city’s promised autonomy, Taiwanese voters have grown increasingly skeptical of closer ties with their massive neighbor. Han, whose KMT is typically associated with more intimate relations with China, famously visited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to strike economic deals on behalf of Kaohsiung and was photographed entering China’s Hong Kong Liaison Office even as protests roiled the city.

Han met with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office director Liu Jieyi to discuss trade ties between Kaohsiung and the mainland.

Amid growing anti-China sentiment, Han now faces recall as mayor of Kaohsiung after more than 300,000 people signed a petition to put his recall to a vote, which could take place as soon as May. At the same time, Tsai’s own support has been bolstered by voters increasingly skeptical of Beijing’s intentions. Chinese President Xi Jinping only helped her chances when he said that the use of force could not be ruled-out in efforts to reunify Taiwan with the mainland.

Han later said that a “one country, two systems” arrangement such as that used in Hong Kong would happen in Taiwan “over [his] dead body.” The system was supposed to guarantee the autonomy of Hong Kong, but many Taiwanese think it is a tool for Beijing to slowly take over the autonomous city and a schematic for the eventual takeover of Taiwan itself. This intense skepticism is expected to hand Tsai reelection and blunt the hopes of KMT politicians swept to power in 2018 by-elections.

Demonstrators have remained steadfast since their first rallies in March, drawing millions to the streets to protest China’s influence on Hong Kong’s governance.

More young voters now view Han and the KMT as the party of their grandparents’ generation. “I think the candidates running for president need to know what not to say,” college student Etta Chang told the Caravel in an interview. “Han Kuo-yu’s public statements always shock me — it’s like they didn’t go through his brain first! He himself seems unclear what he is saying, just that he wants to be president. And if he speaks loudly enough, shouldn’t that be good enough? But there’s no substance in what he says. During the presidential debate, he avoided every question and didn’t explain any of his policies. He has no respect for the media.”

But things aren’t all rosy for Tsai’s DPP. Another college student, Shanie Chang (no relation) told the Caravel, “Though the DPP strongly supports Taiwan’s independence, I still won’t vote for them. I’d rather vote for a third party because their platforms are more concrete and practical. I’m just so sick of the KMT and DPP [being the only options]. However, I still support Tsai Ing-wen since she’s the only presidential candidate who sticks to Taiwan’s independence.” The election comes as a record number of Taiwan’s young people identify as Taiwanese, forsaking the Chinese label that defined the identities of their parents and grandparents for so many decades.

“The Spy Who Lives Next Door”

In late November, a Chinese national who identified himself as Wang Liqiang arrived in Australia to claim asylum. He claimed to be a disillusioned member of China’s covert intelligence operations and, specifically, to have worked inside the project to influence elections in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Western intelligence agencies have not officially verified Wang’s allegations but are treating them as credible, according to the New York Times.

“I do not want to see Taiwan becoming a second Hong Kong,” Wang wrote in his plea for asylum. “And I would not become an accomplice in the conspiracy of turning an originally democratic and free land into autocratic land.”

Wang’s asylum application details efforts to affect Hong Kong’s recent municipal elections and Taiwan’s presidential election through illegal media buys and covert donations to pro-China politicians. Wang also apparently disclosed the code names of Chinese operatives in Taiwan.

Wang has said that he will surely be killed for “knowing too much” if Australia denies his asylum request and deports him back to China.

Perhaps Wang’s most incendiary claim is that he personally helped funnel $2.8 million in illicit campaign donations to Han during his 2018 Kaohsiung mayoral race. Han’s campaign has strenuously denied that such a donation was ever accepted. Wang further claimed that China had invested more than $200 million in Taiwanese television stations as part of work to skew coverage against the ruling DPP.

Whether Wang’s specific allegations are true or not, this is not the first allegation of foreign meddling to roil Taiwan’s election season, however. When she officially launched her campaign in November, Tsai said, “I have to repeat that China is factually interfering in Taiwan’s election, and it happens every day.”

Intelligence experts agree that China has robust espionage operations in Taiwan and will likely use them to covertly influence the presidential election. The Legislative Yuan passed an Anti-Infiltration Law on December 31 to fight Chinese election interference. The legislation was fast-tracked over the protests of the opposition KMT after a KMT staffer was accused of falsifying documents to arrange entry visas for thousands of mainland Chinese, several of whom the government suspects of espionage.

Consulting the Oracle Bones

Whatever the outcome, Taiwan’s presidential election will determine the country’s course. If Tsai is reelected, as pollsters expect, China will likely continue its campaign to diplomatically isolate and economically punish Taiwan. If Han were to win an upset victory, there would surely be at least a partial thaw in cross-strait relations, but critics say it would come at the cost of increased influence for their overbearing neighbor. Regardless, the election will fail to unite the two sides of Taiwan’s increasingly hyper-partisan politics. The “green” DPP supporters and “blue” KMT supporters will press onward with fundamentally different understandings of Taiwan’s place in the world.

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