Three popular former mayors are vying against each other to replace Tsai ing-wen as president and lead Taiwan through one of the most dangerous periods in its history.
The presidential election, to be held in January 2024, will be decided by 23.5 million people voting on a range of issues, but how each party intends to deal with the threat of China has global ramifications.
Beijing claims Taiwan as a Chinese province, and the Chinese Communist party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping has refused to rule out using force to achieve what he terms “reunification”. Taiwan’s main political parties and an overwhelming majority of Taiwan’s people reject the prospect of Chinese rule. So do its main political parties, but there are large differences in their plans for protecting Taiwan.
The incumbent Democratic Progressive party (DPP) and Taiwan’s opposition nationalist party, the Kuomintang (KMT), both oppose unification. But the KMT says the best way forward is to have friendlier ties with China, and accuses the DPP – which Beijing has refused to talk to since it came to power in 2016 – of worsening tensions.
The DPP says Beijing is intent on changing the status quo, demanding Taiwan choose between surrender or forceful annexation. It has spent years strengthening Taiwan’s international ties as Beijing increases its military aggression.
With a growing list of external and internal voices predicting China will attempt – or at least achieve the capability – to invade in the coming years, the question of who will lead Taiwan from 2024 is crucial not just to the island’s inhabitants, but also to the world.
The fight for the presidency is essentially between the KMT’s Hou You-yi and the DPP’s Lai Ching-te, but there is also a significant third-party disruptor in the mix: the former mayor of Taipei, Ko Wen-je, who is polling high.
Democratic Progressive party: Lai Ching-te
President Tsai Ing-wen has to step down at the end of her second term, under constitutional limits. Her chosen successor, Lai, has been vice-president since 2019. The 63-year-old former public health expert has been in politics since 1996, including as mayor of Tainan.
Should he win in January it will mark the first time a party has won three consecutive terms since democratic elections began in 1996.
Lai has enjoyed political popularity – in 2014 he was re-elected as mayor of Tainan with a record-breaking 72.9% of the vote. This is his second tilt at the presidency, after he lost a challenge for the nomination to the incumbent Tsai in 2019, instead joining her on the ticket as vice-president.
He’s been described as more “green” (pro-independence) than Tsai, which had prompted some concern about whether a Lai presidency could worsen cross-strait tensions. In 2017 he described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence”, but has since stepped back from the stance, and is now sticking to Tsai’s more cautious formulation on Taiwan – that it is already a sovereign nation with no need to declare independence.
“We have to be unified, continue to strengthen Taiwan, protect the democratic frontline and ensure Taiwan’s security,” he said in April.
Wen-ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University (ANU), says the combination of being cautious but having a history of more strident views is working for Lai.
“For the DPP’s independentist wing, Lai has always been their favourite son. For DPP’s moderate wing, Lai’s recent movement towards the centre is merely following President Tsai’s footsteps.”
Kuomintang (KMT): Hou You-yi
Hou You-yi is a popular moderate political figure, who became mayor of Taiwan’s most populous jurisdiction, New Taipei City, in 2018, and was most recently re-elected in November.
The 65-year-old spent three decades as a police officer, and was involved in several high-profile cases, including during Taiwan’s period of authoritarianism. He has been a member of the KMT since 1975. Hou is seen as a pragmatic choice for the KMT, with the best chance of uniting its ageing base with the younger voters it desperately needs. The KMT still identifies with the idea of a unified Chinese nation, but a growing majority in Taiwan – especially younger people – no longer identify as Chinese.
The fact that he has no known ties to China is thought to have contributed to his selection over that of the billionaire Foxconn founder, Terry Gou, who had also sought nomination.
Hou has been described by some who met him as charismatic in person, but with little track record on foreign policy. He has said he opposes “Taiwan independence” and also “one country, two systems”, which is the governance structure offered by Beijing if it ruled Taiwan.
ANU’s Sung says Hou’s few statements on Taiwan’s political status appear to offer reassurance to Beijing that he doesn’t intend to stray from the mainstream KMT position that still holds on to the idea of “One China”, which has different interpretations in Beijing and Taipei. .
Chen Fang-Yu, an assistant professor in political science at Soochow University in Taiwan, expects Hou to stick to the KMT platform, but says “his foreign policy is currently a piece of blank paper”.
“I would speculate that, given the KMT’s traditional foreign policy, he would not see the need for much cooperation with the US and would be more interested in negotiating with China.”
Taiwan People’s party: Ko Wen-je
Ko Wen-je is a significant disruptor to the DPP v KMT race. The former mayor of Taipei was first elected as an independent in 2014, supported by the DPP which did not run against him. Five years later he established the Taiwan People’s party (TPP). The TPP formally announced his candidacy on Wednesday.
Ko is a popular figure, but his policies – particularly on cross-strait relations – “are in a state of ambiguity”, according to Chen.
“His foreign policy is closer to the KMT … His attitude towards the United States is erratic. He kept emphasising that he was an acceptable candidate for China … But he was not anti-American either. He is in the middle of both.”
Ko has called for a boosting of Taiwan’s military capabilities at the same time as increasing cross-strait cultural exchanges, and declared the status quo of de facto independence the only realistic option – despite Beijing’s plan to change it. He has accused the KMT of being “too deferential” and the DPP of being “pro-war”, in a recent interview with Nikkei Asia.
In April he went on a three-week trip to the US, in part to introduce his party to senior figures there.
“US views on presidential candidates is something significant numbers of voters in Taiwan do pay attention to,” Dafydd Fell, director of the Centre of Taiwan Studies at Soas University of London, told the Guardian last month. But Ko is not siding too closely to the US. He told Nikkei he would look to Japan and Singapore as examples of how to deal with the opposing pressure from China and the US.
Ko is unlikely to win the presidency, but with polls showing support at 15-20%, he is “strong enough to be a spoiler”, says Sung.
“His candidacy makes the presidential election a three-way race and makes it less likely to become a single-issue election or a clearcut referendum on China policy.”
