Taiwan’s national election is scheduled for 13 January this year. There are a series of domestic issues for Taiwan’s voters to cast their ballots, including the cost of living, housing and labor rights, energy, education, and elderly care. Taiwan has a large number of old aged population and there is a significant wealth gap having highly lower wages. The domestic polls campaign so far has seen standard cross-party sniping over competing promises. They are engaged in accusations of misconduct and corruption, and endless scandals ranging from allegedly to charges of secret second nationalities.
But all these election moods are channeling how to deal with China, this is the central theme of the campaign.
The Chinese leadership has never ruled the democratic island of 24 million people, but still, they are psychologically molded up to claim it as its territory and refuse to rule out a military attack.
Very regularly, China warplanes cross the Taiwan Strait. In this scenario, the USA is also stepping up military exercises with its loyal allies across the Indo-Pacific. It seems that Taiwan’s next president will be the center of simmering superpower rivalries.
The Taiwanese last cast their votes for a president in 2020, but the threat felt totally different. The Hong Kong protests and resulting crackdown were fresh in people’s minds at that time and that was the key part of Ms. Tsai Ing-wen’s campaign’s success to get reelected president. But generally, when one asked, people would brush off questions of imminent invasion of China. The “China threat” had been all along phase for decades, and there was as much point moving a citizen’s day by worrying about it as there was being worried about another of Taiwan’s natural disasters like frequent earthquakes.
Presidential Candidates Profile:
While talking about Taiwan’s National Election, it’s better to portray the three leaders who are running for the presidential election. According to the Economists, their profile gives us a vivid impression of their political career.
The candidates
![](https://pressxpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Lai-chaing-te.jpg)
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
Lai Ching-te, also known as William Lai, is a softly-spoken former doctor who has held almost every top political post in Taiwan. He was a legislator for over a decade, and then a popular mayor of the southern city of Tainan. Mr Lai is most appealing to hardline independence supporters, but in the past, he has also been popular with centrist voters. Distrusted by China, he once described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence”. Mr Lai has promised to stick to Ms Tsai’s careful dictum: that because Taiwan is already independent, it needs no further declarations. Still, if he wins, China seems sure to continue to threaten and isolate Taiwan.
![](https://pressxpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/hou.jpg)
Kuomintang (KMT)
Hou Yu-ih is a former policeman who headed Taiwan’s National Police Agency in 2006. Born to street-market pork dealers in Chiayi, a pro-independence stronghold in the south, he has a “Taiwanese flavor”, in the words of a former DPP legislator. There are hopes in the kmt that he will counter the party’s elite image and appeal to voters outside the party’s traditional base of mainland immigrants and their descendants. Last year Mr Hou easily won re-election as the mayor of New Taipei City (the exurbs surrounding the capital) as a moderate with a reputation for efficiency. He advocates talks with the Communist Party to lower cross-strait tensions.
![](https://pressxpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Ko.jpg)
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP)
Ko Wen-je was a surgeon until he ran for mayor of Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, as an independent in 2014. He defeated a kmt politician in a landslide, despite having no prior political experience, and served for two terms until 2022. Four years ago he founded the Taiwan People’s Party. Mr Ko casts himself as a “rational” and “scientific” technocrat and has focused more on domestic concerns such as energy and housing than relations with China. His tpp is not strong enough to win a legislative majority and his best hope is that it ends up holding the balance of power in parliament. Mr Ko advocates a coalition with the kmt. Mr Ko claims to offer a “third choice” for voters between provoking China and deferring to it. In fact, his China policies are closer to the kmt’s.
The Chinese Leadership on the Taiwan Election:
Over Taiwan’s election, the Chinese authority keeps every possible eye. They wish to have a government that will not be hostile to Chinese policy and also close to the USA. Very openly, on 3 January, a senior Chinese official urged Taiwan’s people to make a “correct their political choice” on the island’s upcoming elections. He tried to alert the people of the Island that casting a vote is their choice for a scope to pick peace and war, prosperity and decline. China, which claims Taiwan’s territory is its own part so its concerns are highly deep to the presidential and parliamentary elections in January.
True, the top Chinese leaders generally avoid making comments in public on the Taiwan vote. But President Xi Jinping said in his New Year’s address that China’s “reunification” with Taiwan is inevitable, but did not say anything about the election.
In his own New Year’s message, Zhang Zhijun, head of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, a quasi-official body that handles ties with Taiwan, said the Taiwanese faced an important choice in the election. “The two elections coming up in the Taiwan region are important choices between the prospects for peace and war, prosperity and decline,” said Zhang, who headed the central government’s Taiwan Affairs Office from 2013 to 2018.
Bangladesh’s Stand on Taiwan:
In 2022, overtly Bangladesh voiced its support for the One-China policy. It was announced in the early part of August when the House of Representatives of the USA Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan increased tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Apart from Pelosi’s visit, which has sparked tensions in the Taiwan Strait with live-fire military drills by China, Bangladesh’s stance comes in the run-up to a scheduled visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to the South Asian country. Bangladesh’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Shahriar Alam said, “We believe in the One-China policy. We don’t want the situation to deteriorate because the world is facing enough problems. We hope all parties would exercise restraint and follow the UN charter in this regard.”
Bangladesh’s foreign ministry earlier in a statement on its verified Facebook had also reiterated its support for the One-China policy. “Bangladesh reiterates her firm adherence to ‘One China’ policy and urges the parties concerned to resolve their differences in accordance with the UN Charter and through dialogue,” it said.
The Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh, Li Jiming, in a separate statement, lauded Bangladesh’s position, and described the two countries as “good neighbors, trustworthy friends, and reliable partners.” “The two countries have always understood and supported each other on issues of core interests concerning respective sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity,” he said in a statement posted on the Embassy’s Facebook page.
Then in August, visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi thanked Bangladesh for adhering to the ‘One China’ policy in the backdrop of the Taiwan crisis. The discussion in this regard took place between Mr. Wang and his Bangladesh counterpart Dr. A.K. Abdul Momen in Dhaka. “We largely know what is happening centering Taiwan. China has its own policy. He (Wang) thanked Bangladesh and expressed gratitude as we reiterated our position. We hope it will not further aggravate… as the world can’t afford to have another crisis.” He appreciated with a tone that Bangladesh has urged all sides to exercise “utmost restraint” and avoid any actions that may increase tension and undermine peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.
The existing opinion polls have created more confusion than clarification about the outcome of Taiwan’s presidential race to the external world. At the same frame, it can be said, that Taiwan’s election next week poses a huge challenge for America no matter who wins the race.
The victory for the ruling party is sure to exacerbate tensions with China while an opposition triumph may raise awkward questions about the island’s defense policies. Both the United States and China will be watching the outcome of Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election. Indeed, for China, another victory for President Tsai Ing-wen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could display prolonged hostilities between Taipei and Beijing. But the first-order effects will be felt in Taiwan, where the race for presidentship will implicate national identity, energy policy, and the economy all of which are core interests for the people of that island.