Elections in Taiwan. Features, forecasts, consequences

On 13 January 2024, Taiwan will hold regular presidential and parliamentary elections. This is an important indicator of possible changes in the political and economic vectors of the country’s development. Also, the election results will have a major impact on the overall security in the region and the possibility of dialogue with China to reduce military tensions. Read more about the potential election results and how they will affect further developments in the region in this article.

Historical struggle

To understand the general context of the political confrontation in Taiwan, it is necessary to understand the historical retrospective of events that shaped the current state of affairs, especially in relations between the Chinese mainland and the island. The Taiwan issue, in the modern sense, was formed in 1949 during the Chinese Civil War, which lasted for 20 years with little interruption. At that time, the nationalist Kuomintang Party lost to the Communist Party of China and was forced to regroup on the island of Taiwan. On 1 October 1949, the Communists announced the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. However, the Kuomintang, led by its leader Chiang Kai-shek (left in the photo), did not accept the Communists’ decision, calling it a rebellion. Accordingly, the struggle continued, but not in the military dimension, but in the political and diplomatic one.

Chiang Kai-shek expressed his claims to the Chinese mainland until 1971. And this is not surprising, because it was by this time that the leadership of the Republic of China in Taiwan had quite serious diplomatic recognition. Just remember the fact that Taiwan was one of the founders of the United Nations and a permanent member of the Security Council. Taiwan was recognised by most states as a full-fledged international entity. However, in 1971, the Republic of China was expelled from the UN and its place was taken by the People’s Republic of China. Since then, there has been a noticeable “cooling” of relations with the international community. The year 1979 was particularly significant, when Taipei’s key ally, the United States, turned its back on it and recognised the legitimacy of the communist government. Nevertheless, to this day, Taiwan maintains official diplomatic relations with 13 UN member states.

For many years now, the issue of Taiwan has been a hot-button issue in the context of Sino-US relations. Since 1979, the United States has pursued a “one-China policy”, while maintaining strategic uncertainty over the island’s affiliation. Despite the fact that the US side legally recognises the PRC as the legitimate government of the whole of China, it still maintains close ties with Taipei. In this regard, it is important to recall the Taiwan Relations Act, passed by Congress in 1979, which provides for the supply of weapons to the island to maintain peaceful existence in the region. To this day, representatives of the US political establishment make statements about defending Taiwan in the event of armed aggression. And this is precisely where the serious risks of confrontation between the two geopolitical leaders lie.

Official Beijing has consistently demonstrated its intention to reunite the island with the mainland. The reunification is officially declared in the constitution as a “sacred duty of the Chinese people”, but officially, the Chinese authorities seek, first of all, to resolve this issue peacefully. However, recently, there have been more and more signals about the inevitable use of a military scenario. The main task that Beijing is currently facing is to prevent changes to the status quo in the context of making it impossible for the island to become legally independent. In 2005, China passed the Law on Counteracting Activities to Divide the Country, which clearly spells out the legal grounds for using force against forces that advocate the island’s independence, as well as in the event of possible attempts by the Taiwanese administration to separate the island from China. If the Chinese authorities use this law, it will mean the beginning of a military conflict on the island.

Political situation in Taiwan

It is worth mentioning that until 1987, martial law was in effect on the island and only the Kuomintang Party was the ruling elite, as the activities of all other political forces were banned. After the martial law was lifted, the island gradually democratised, which brought general “civilised” elections.

In January 1988, President Chiang Ching-kuo  died and was replaced by Lee Deng-hui (pictured), who continued the movement of democratic reforms in the country. In the first democratic elections held in 1996, Li Denghui was re-elected to the presidency with 54% of the vote. In fact, he was the first president to be popularly elected. After these elections, the country effectively established a modern two-party political model, with two key forces vying for power – the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Since the 2000s, the parties have been replacing each other. This political tradition has remained in place to this day.

Local elections 2022

A special context for understanding the results of the current elections to be held in January 2024 is the electoral picture that emerged a year ago in the local elections, where residents voted for mayors and members of city councils. On 26 November and 18 December 2022, the majority of Taiwanese residents voted for the conservative Kuomintang Party, which won 14 mayoral (magistrate) seats. The second place was taken by the Democratic Progressive Party (5 seats), and the new political force, the Taiwan People’s Party (2 seats), was in the top three. Accordingly, a confident vector of electoral sympathies has been built towards the Kuomintang. The election results also clearly outlined the regional divide, as the Democrats retained their influence only in the southwestern region of the country.             

The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) ratings were hit hard by the Kuomintang’s victory in the capital, Taipei, where Chiang Wan-an, whose family has been members of the nationalist party for generations, was elected. The Kuomintang’s victory will not necessarily produce a similar result in the parliamentary elections. There was a similar precedent in the 2018 regional elections, when the Kuomintang led, but the DPP won the 2020 general election. To some extent, this was due to the protests in Hong Kong, which prompted citizens to vote for the DPP, which advocates Taiwan’s self-determination.

However, the social and political environment changed somewhat in 2022-2023. This is primarily due to the deterioration of relations between Beijing and Taipei. In August 2022, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited the island. This was perceived by Beijing as a provocation, which led to the intensification of China’s military exercises in the Taiwan Strait.  Accordingly, citizens began to fear “decisive steps” from China, which was illustrated by the decline in the ratings of the Democratic Progressive Party and resulted in the loss of positions in local elections.

Elections 2024. Public opinion polls

The results of the local elections clearly highlighted public sentiment, which has shifted towards a conservative view of social development and foreign policy. Analysing the extreme polls of electoral sentiment, we can note a trend towards a slight but growing support for the Kuomintang.

If we analyse the dynamics of political sentiment in Taiwan from late September to early December, we can note the following dynamics:

ETtoday, UDN, Mnews polls.

As we can see, the Kuomintang is consistently ahead of the DPP by several percentage points and has a chance to win the election. However, in any case, preliminary polls do not guarantee a landslide victory for the Kuomintang, as the percentages of support for both parties are too similar (within the margin of error).

The situation is somewhat different with the results of public opinion polls on Taiwan’s presidential election. In these ratings, the leader of the Democratic Progressive Party, Lai Ching-te, has a certain advantage, being on average 2-4% ahead of his Kuomintang opponent.

Thus, given the preliminary results of the polls, we can note a rather serious confrontation between the two key parties, with no clear advantage for either political force.

According to the electoral law, the candidate and his or her running mate who receive the most votes will be elected. If the current polls remain as they are, Taiwan will have a president whose legitimacy is based on only a third of the popular vote. More importantly, his governing ability will depend on the distribution of seats in the Legislative Yuan. An executive that does not have a simultaneous majority in the legislature is likely to lead to political paralysis. To break the deadlock, a charismatic leader who can consolidate political forces is needed.

Party leaders

Three candidates are vying for the right to lead Taiwan for the next four years: Lai Ching-te of the DPP, Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang, and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party.

Lai Ching-te is the current chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. The 64-year-old politician stands out among his opponents due to his extensive experience in leadership positions in the country. The candidate has served as chairman of the Executive Yuan (the island’s government), six years as mayor of Tainan, and 12 years as a member of the Legislative Yuan (parliament).  Therefore, the party agreed on his candidacy without alternative. 

His rhetoric is based on the struggle for Taiwan’s independence. The candidate’s political position on many points resonates with the beliefs of the island’s current president, Tsai Ing-wen. Lai insists that Taiwan is de facto independent, but should seek legal independence through global recognition.

Prior to his political career, Kuomintang candidate Hou Yu-ih was one of the island’s most effective police officers. Starting in the 1980s, Hou worked in the Police Department of the island’s Ministry of Home Affairs. Due to his professional merits, which were confirmed by dozens of cases of criminal gangs, Hou was appointed Director General of the National Police Agency in 2006. In 2010, Hou Yu-ih became the vice mayor of the newly created city of central government, New Taipei. This event marked the beginning of his political career. After 8 years, he became the head of the city and was re-elected in 2022. Hou Yu-ih is quite popular among the people because he has the image of “his own man” and speaks to the electorate in a specific Taiwanese language (South Fujian dialect of Chinese), which has historically been common on the island.

The biggest surprise in the presidential race is the presidential candidate of the Taiwan People’s Party, Ko Wen-je.  Since the 1980s, Ko has been known as a successful doctor, as he was the first in Taiwan to use the method of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to save lives.

Ko Wen-je entered politics in 2012 after a scandal at his native National Taiwan University Hospital. At that time, several patients received organs from HIV-infected donors, holding Ko Wen-je responsible for the incident. Ko decided to use politics to fight for justice. In 2014, as a self-nominated candidate, he won the election for mayor of Taipei and was re-elected to this position 4 years later. In 2019, he formed his own party, the Taiwan People’s Party, which positions itself as an alternative to the Kuomintang and the DPP.

Ko Wen-je is quite popular among young voters, has a good reputation, but little political experience. The candidate positions himself as a politician unencumbered by ideology, with a pragmatic mindset and style of work, an alternative to the two traditional camps that have long divided the political spectrum in Taiwan. In addition, Ko is proposing a new form of joint or “coalition” government, in which political appointments would be made on the basis of competence rather than party affiliation.

Three months ago, most observers did not believe that Ko had a realistic chance of winning the election. However, to everyone’s surprise, he confidently took 3rd place with a slight lead over the other two candidates. The current electoral picture is unstable, and the outcome of the presidential election in Taiwan remains unpredictable.

Results and implications

First of all, it should be noted that Beijing’s influence on the election results could be significant, as there is a high probability that the conservatives will win. After all, they play the role of the “Chinese lobby” on the island.

In fact, for more than 20 years, the Kuomintang and the DPP have been constantly replacing each other in central and local government. Accordingly, there are changes in attitudes towards mainland China. If we look at the key years of the Conservative government (2008-2016), relations with China were as friendly and constructive as possible: Taiwan was more involved in international relations, and dialogues were opened with other countries, where the island acted as a full-fledged political entity.

However, these friendly relations have changed dramatically since 2016, when the Democrats came to power. This was primarily due to the fact that the DPP put the issue of the island’s independence back on the agenda, which angered Beijing, as it considers the issue of “reunification of China” to be fundamental and fundamental. Moreover, this issue is enshrined as a priority in the Charter of the Communist Party of China and enshrined in the 2018 Constitution. Also, the campaign to return to the UN, launched in September 2021, was an indicative action for Taiwan’s independence.

For the majority of the Chinese population, the return of Taiwan is a matter of time. However, it is important to understand how Beijing plans to implement this idea. Aware of the complexity and unpredictability of the military campaign against the island, China’s party officials are focusing their efforts on soft power to ensure that the Kuomintang performs as well as possible in the elections. However, the party itself does not openly declare a “great reunification”. Their key position is based on the idea of peaceful coexistence, as it was 10 years ago. This rhetoric is primarily acceptable to China, as it is a matter of principle for them to eliminate public dialogue on the island’s independence.

However, representatives of the mainland are ready to use economic and information tools to influence the general political mood of the Taiwanese. This was particularly eloquently demonstrated by blocking any initiatives to promote the island as an independent political entity (severing diplomatic relations, blocking participation in international conferences).  In the economic sphere, there were restrictions on the import of goods from Taiwan. All these actions were accompanied by a constant aggravation of the situation in the region, through military exercises around the island. The situation with military manoeuvres was somewhat levelled out during the preparation and conduct of the meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden on 15 November. The “panda diplomacy” was implemented by reducing tensions and demonstrating readiness for peaceful coexistence. However, during the meeting, the Chinese leader noted that the absorption of Taiwan was “inevitable” and made it clear that China would reunify, and that it could not be stopped.

It is not clear whether Taiwan will be returned by military means, as the implementation of such a plan would lead to catastrophic consequences for all parties. Therefore, Beijing will use all mechanisms of influence to achieve peaceful reunification to the last.

Conclusions

The Kuomintang’s election victory increases the chance of resolving the “reunification” issue peacefully. The nationalists have serious experience of finding compromises with Beijing in resolving pressing issues. In this context, the meeting between Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao and Kuomintang Chairman Lien Chan in 2005 is particularly noteworthy. It was indeed a historic event, as such meetings had not taken place for 50 years.

If the Kuomintang wins, official Beijing will be as loyal as possible to the return of peaceful coexistence initiatives, as China sees this party as a real negotiator in the future unification process. But to do so, they need to gain a foothold in power, strengthen their positions and electoral support.

Also, the nationalists need to develop a clear and understandable strategy for engaging with China, taking into account the actual priorities of the island’s citizens, especially when it comes to the young and progressive electorate, which perceives the mainland as a constant threat and destabilising factor.

If the Democratic People’s Party comes to power, seeking to formulate its own independent policy of national self-determination, which will form the basis of countering Beijing, this could have unforeseen consequences, primarily in the form of a potential military confrontation between China and Taiwan.