Why Taiwan's Elections Could Change the World

Dozens of elections will be held around the world this year, bookended in November by hotly contested presidential, congressional and gubernatorial races in the United States. Across the Pacific, Taiwan will this weekend hold one of the most closely watched polls globally and its outcome could impact rocky U.S.-China ties and dictate geopolitical trends in 2024. China has called it a choice between war and peace.

On January 13, 19.54 million people—83 percent of Taiwan's population—will be eligible to vote, including 1.03 million possible first-timers, according to the Central Election Commission in Taipei. At stake are the promise of myriad social reforms, the future of Taiwan's economic and energy policies, and, as always, its relationship with neighboring China, balanced against its decades-long closeness with America.

The People's Republic of China claims the former Japanese colony as part of Chinese territory. Taiwan's Republic of China government, which retreated to Taipei in 1949 after a civil war defeat to the Communist Party now ruling from Beijing, says it rightfully reclaimed the island from Imperial Japan after World War II.

Washington takes no position on sovereignty over Taiwan, whose postwar status it believes remains undetermined. The U.S. does not support Taiwan independence but has intervened in the Taiwan Strait—on Taipei's behalf—at least three times since the Cold War. It now maintains only unofficial ties with its former ally since recognizing Beijing's legitimacy in the late 1970s, when its "one China" policy began.

In the decades since, all three parties have knowingly or unknowingly shifted the so-called status quo, which has never truly satisfied everyone, although it has widespread support among Taiwanese. Today, with the return of great power rivalry, compromise is as hard to find in Taipei and Washington as it is in Beijing. The only remaining consensus, at least on paper, is that cross-strait differences should be resolved by peaceful means.

On the ballot on Saturday are two establishment candidates, whose latest polls suggest they may both fail to appeal to a majority of the electorate, and one wild card, who could yet swing the country in an unpredictable direction.

Lai Ching-te of the governing Democratic Progressive Party is Taiwan's current vice president. He once called himself a "pragmatic Taiwan independence worker" and is now best described as staunchly anti-unification, although China's leaders might argue they are two sides of the same coin.

His main opponent, New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih of the opposition Kuomintang, opposes Taiwan independence, but does not accept Beijing's designs on the island either. His plan to keep the peace involves more economic and cultural exchanges with the mainland.

Both men say they want the same thing—to maintain the status quo—but they disagree fundamentally on how Taipei should go about it.

Third-party candidate Ko Wen-je, chair of the Taiwan People's Party founded in 2019, is a populist and a realist, who attributes his lack of doctrine to a practical desire to solve real-world problems. The retired physician has been called a chameleon, having straddled both ends of Taiwan's two-tone political spectrum. He tells his group of self-identified disaffected voters that the KMT and the DPP have swindled them for years with ingrained ideologies about China.

A Can—Kicked Down the Road

The uneasy dynamic across the Taiwan Strait was fraught with contradictions from the start. Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden's national security adviser, said last year that "internal tensions" in the one China policy were never meant to be reconciled. Where it lacked in clarity, he said, the age-old formula "has succeeded in actually achieving the practical objective of decades of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait."

Taiwan's democratization in the 1990s, following decades of martial law under the KMT, led to the formation of a unique national identity and a mature electoral system that together have made a political union with an authoritarian China even more unpalatable for the island's residents, who have traditionally held more favorable views of the United States.

Decision makers in Beijing acquiesced to, but never openly accepted, the quietly robust U.S.-Taiwan economic and security partnership conducted under the auspices of the Taiwan Relations Act, a 1979 law—supported by then Delaware Sen. Biden—that Chinese officials have called "illegal and invalid."

China's carrots and sticks—the enticement of personal wealth contrasted with economic and military coercion—may have curbed Taiwan's desire for formal statehood for now, but it has not moved the needle toward further political integration. It is a frustrating reality check for President Xi Jinping.

"China had a long game with strategic patience, but this long game, for him, cannot continue from one generation to another—that's what he talks about," said Suisheng Zhao, a professor of Chinese politics at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies.

China's strongest leader in generations wants to accomplish his dream of national rejuvenation on his watch. "China now has more tools and more power to pressure Taiwan toward its terms of unification. If not by peaceful means, it will definitely use force. But China is not ready, for sure," Zhao told Newsweek.

In their efforts to back Taiwan and keep a vulnerable society out of the hands of America's foremost geopolitical rival, leaders in Washington have gone beyond what was previously thought possible under the one China policy and the U.S.'s long-held position of "strategic ambiguity"—all but shattered by Biden's repeated pledges to defend the island in the event of war.

The niceties of November's Biden-Xi summit in San Francisco barely masked and did not resolve fundamental tensions in the bilateral relationship, according to Zhao, who believes the two superpowers are locked in a "prolonged crisis."

"We are seeing a temporary detente at best, and I'm concerned about the calm before the storm," he said. The professor cautioned that Xi, like Russia's President Vladimir Putin, was making decisions "in a bubble."

An armed conflict between the U.S. and China—fought in some of the world's busiest shipping lanes—would cost the global economy at least $10 trillion, or 10 percent of global GDP, according to a recent estimate by Bloomberg Economics. The fallout would dwarf that of the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

'War Has No Winners'

Long-term surveys show Taiwanese people have little interest in declaring formal independence or accepting unification with China, yet their party and policy preferences are inextricable from their views on Taiwan's giant next door neighbor.

"Mainstream public opinion expects the status quo to be maintained and opposes cross-strait policies that swing too drastically," said Kuan-chen Lee, an assistant research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei.

"However, as Xi Jinping and the CCP tighten their Taiwan policy and escalate efforts to coerce reunification, the so-called 'status quo' is constantly being redefined, and its room for interpretation is diminishing. As the ambiguity of the 'status quo' gradually dissipates, the government's cross-strait policies can be easily interpreted by voters in different camps as either too pro-China or too provocative," Lee told Newsweek.

It is in this highly polarized environment that all three presidential candidates have put themselves forward as the safest bet.

None of the candidates has been able to articulate a credible alternative to China's insistence on the so-called 1992 Consensus, a gentlemen's agreement between the KMT and the CCP that does not touch on mutual legitimacy but agrees on "one China," of which Taiwan is a part.

Ko likes to lean on his experience with Chinese interlocutors during his time as Taipei mayor. He has described the 1992 Consensus as "tainted," suggesting the constructive ambiguity be rebranded—an unenviable task if he ever lands the top job.

Hou, Taiwan's former police chief, has signaled his willingness to hold further dialogue with Beijing under the framework, backed by the China-friendly credentials of former President Ma Ying-jeou, who remains the only democratically elected Taiwanese leader to have met a Chinese counterpart, at the 2015 Ma-Xi summit in Singapore.

Ma's legacy, however, can be unwelcome baggage for the KMT's next generation young leaders. Ma argued this week that Taiwan's people could accept peaceful and democratic unification with China, and that the weaker party had no choice but to trust Xi's assurances about peace.

"He and I are different," Hou said of the former president's position. "I will not touch on the topic of unification in my term. Cross-strait relations cannot rely on one side's goodwill."

Lai has had a tough time breaking through the DPP's political base; eight years in power have come with noticeable public fatigue.

On relations with China, Taiwan's former premier has had to work extra hard to convince voters at home and partners abroad that his party's righteous path will not court disaster for the country's 23.4 million people. His pick for No. 2, Taipei's well-regarded former representative to Washington, Hsiao Bi-khim, was meant as a reassuring choice, but it is Lai who ultimately will call the shots should they win.

Lai this week reaffirmed his promise to continue the pragmatic line walked by President Tsai Ing-wen, but said his administration would never place dialogue above deterrence.

"Our door will always be open to engagements with Beijing on the principles of equality and dignity. We are ready and willing to engage for the shared welfare of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait," he said. "Peace is priceless, and war has no winners."

Known and Unknown

Beijing has not engaged in meaningful dialogue with Taipei for nearly eight years over Tsai's rejection of the 1992 Consensus. It may be worried that Lai has learned the wrong lessons from her popular and disciplined time in office, namely that Taiwan can go it alone if it chooses.

China, which sanctioned Hsiao for the second time last year, has made its preference clear to the Taiwanese public by describing Saturday's polls as a choice between "peace and war."

"The so-called Tsai Ing-wen way is the Taiwan independence way. It is the way of confrontation and harm. It is the root cause of Taiwan's dangerous situation and social division, and jeopardizes the interests of the people," the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing said.

The U.S., meanwhile, has been far more cautious in trying to shape voter preferences, a wait-and-see attitude that will curry favor with the new executive branch in Taipei.

"We strongly support Taiwan's free and fair elections, which are a model for democracy not only in the region, but also globally," a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Newsweek. "U.S. policy on Taiwan will remain the same regardless of which party is in power. We look forward to working with whomever Taiwan voters elect."

Kharis Templeman, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, said: "Tsai Ing-wen has set a really high bar; she is the best Taiwanese president the U.S. will ever get. She is completely trustworthy and predictable, and doesn't move rashly or make comments that cause problems in the relationship. All three candidates in this election fall short of that standard."

To be sure, Tsai spent 15 long years building her reputation in America, where policymakers in Washington were once hesitant to bet on her competence.

"She's a known quantity and has a demonstrated track record, so no candidate could live up to that at this point," Templeman told Newsweek. "So whoever wins this election, the U.S. might have some concerns privately about each of them, and there will need to be some work done to build up that same level of trust that the United States has with the Tsai administration."

Taiwan's pre-election rules forbid the publication and discussion of public opinion surveys 10 days before the vote. In early January, Lai was the frontrunner in a narrowing contest that was "one of the most difficult elections to forecast since 2000," said Templeman.

That year—the last time Taiwan's voters were treated to a proper three-way race—the DPP's Chen Shui-bian captured a plurality of 39.3 percent and the third-party candidate came in second, ending more than half a century of KMT rule.

This time, few are predicting such a strong showing from Ko, who went from a DPP ally 10 years ago to signing up for a KMT-led coalition in November—an idea that collapsed dramatically after a TPP internal revolt. More likely, his one-man band will control a meaningful minority in the legislature that will give him sway over the two major parties by whipping decisive votes.

The first assignment for this weekend's winner will be to appoint a cabinet that can pacify what is likely to be a divided government. Some say a split parliament could slow social and defense reforms; others believe Taiwanese lawmakers will practice some much needed compromise.

If the Lai-Hsiao ticket prevails, it would be the first time in Taiwan's democratic history that a ruling party is returned to power for a third consecutive term—more unchartered territory.

"If the KMT wins, there will be possibilities that cross-strait relations could be better managed. And even if Lai wins, there might be a policy shift in Taipei, because Lai is not Tsai," said Yeh-chung Lu, a professor at the diplomacy department of National Chengchi University in Taipei.

"Though Lai pledged to follow Tsai's course many times, due to his personality, it is believed that all stakeholders will have to do more to reign in Lai's ambitions that may cause more uncertainties than necessary across the Taiwan Strait," Lu told Newsweek.

"In any case, China should take the result pragmatically and may translate it into its own advantages," he said.

Any overreaction in Beijing, however, is likely to affect Democratic and Republican positions as they vie for the White House this fall.