Taiwan: island votes for pro-sovereignty leader unpopular with Beijing
In January, Taiwan went to the polls to elect a new president. With the incumbent, Tsai Ing-wen, ineligible for re-election due to term limits, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominated vice-president Lai Ching-te. With the world watching closely and amid threats from China – which seeks reunification with Taiwan – the island’s voters elected pro-sovereignty candidate Lai as the next president.
The potential ramifications of the result stretch way beyond the Taiwan Strait. Senior analysts cited it as one of several events that could, ultimately, trigger a conflict between Taiwan and mainland China.
Beijing had described Lai as a ‘troublemaker’ and ‘separatist’ in the run-up to the election, asserting that the vote was a ‘choice between war and peace’. The leaders of Lai’s opponents, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), favour closer ties with China.
Among a variety of tactics used to intimidate voters, Beijing suspended from 1 January tariff cuts on 12 products under the free trade agreement between Taiwan and China. While this only equated to less than two per cent of exports to the mainland, China’s Ministry of Commerce signalled that other agricultural and industrial products could be next.
Dalton James Albrecht, Co-Chair of the IBA International Commerce and Distribution Committee and counsel with EY Law in Toronto, says this was a clear attempt to interfere in the election. ‘The tariff suspension was an attempt to say to the Taiwanese, “if you want independence then it’s going to come at an economic cost”. And a blockade in the Straits would be an incredible economic cost.’
Beijing’s tariff suspension was an attempt to say to the Taiwanese, ‘if you want independence then it’s going to come at an economic cost’
Dalton James Albrecht
Co-Chair, IBA International Commerce and Distribution Committee
As an international trade law specialist, Albrecht acted for many Chinese manufacturers in Taiwan in the 1990s. ‘China is trying to turn the screws economically because, firstly, they can, and secondly, that’s what Taiwan reacts to’, he says. ‘In my experience, the Taiwanese are very independent but, at the same time, very business-like and very practical. They are free market people, and they know who’s “buttering their bread”.’
Despite the tariff cuts and the regular deployment of military planes and vessels close to the island nation, Lai was elected. ‘The reason why Mr Lai is strongly disliked by Beijing is because, even before he ran for the presidency, he said he was a “realistic Taiwan independence activist”’, says C V Chen, Managing Partner at Lee and Li Attorneys-at-Law in Taipei, who notes that the last time Lai repeated this statement on record was in August 2023. ‘These were words that had never been used before by the DPP.’
The days following Lai’s victory witnessed a flurry of rhetoric from Beijing, words that had been predicted by many. China’s foreign ministry described US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s congratulations to Lai as a violation of the US promise to maintain ‘only cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations’ with Taiwan, for example. More sinister were comments made by the Chinese ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, who warned his hosts of ‘unspecified dangers’ if it supported pro-independence forces in Taiwan.
But despite such sabre rattling, in many ways the initial response from Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office was surprisingly circumspect. In part, this was due to diplomacy in the months preceding the election, including statements from the US that were seen as reassuring in Beijing.
Of more importance, says Chen, was Lai’s victory speech itself, in which he reaffirmed the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution as the constitutional order behind his governing platform. ‘While it was understandable that Legislator Lai, Mayor Lai, Premier Lai and Vice President Lai might champion Taiwan independence, President Lai will be responsible for cross-strait peace and [handling Beijing’s pursuit of] national reunification under the 1946 Constitution of the ROC’, explains Chen.
While Lai’s victory was no doubt a source of frustration for Beijing, the result itself showed that a majority of voters prefer to preserve the status quo. Although Lai won the presidency with 40.05 per cent of the vote, this was the lowest percentage for a winning candidate since 2000. In addition, the DPP failed to retain control of Taiwan’s parliament, the Legislative Yuan, winning 51 seats compared to the KMT’s 52.
The loss of ten seats in parliament will affect Lai’s ability to pursue some policies that require legislative approval, such as the island’s ability to increase military spending in the face of China’s assertiveness. He also doesn’t have a mandate to alter Taiwan’s status, and the DPP lacks the numbers to deliver such an outcome.
Lai’s comparatively weaker performance to that of his predecessor had less to do with the KMT –their 33.5 per cent of the vote marked a smaller share than in 2020 – and more to do with the emergence of a third political party, the TPP.
Populist candidate Ko Wen-je only founded the TPP in 2019, but caught the imagination of younger voters unhappy with the DPP over rising costs, unaffordable housing and shrinking opportunities. ‘Although the TPP only got 26.5 per cent of the vote, they still increased from five to eight seats in parliament, so they are improving’, explains Yuka Kobayashi, Professor of China and International Politics, School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
With the DPP losing ground in the legislature, and the KMT still holding a large number of seats, Beijing will probably see a growing opportunity to influence Taiwanese politics without the need to resort to force.
This suits Beijing for several reasons. President Xi Jinping doesn’t need to gain control of Taiwan in the near term. But he cannot afford to permanently ‘lose’ Taiwan on his watch, and so the DPP’s depleted strength in parliament will be welcome in Beijing. In addition, wars are expensive, and China is facing a softening economy and record youth unemployment.
Lai, for his part, has said that Taiwan doesn’t need formal independence and that he intends to pursue a balanced approach to cross-straits relations, including ‘cooperation with China’. However, Zhu Songling, a professor at the Institute of Taiwan Studies at Beijing Union University, says ‘we cannot rule out the possibility that unpredictable and unknown developments may occur during his tenure’.
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