Election coverage: Michelle Kuo The Guardian; Ian Chong CNA; Simona Grano Asia Policy
Week Ending Jan. 17, 2024
Welcome to another edition of The World’s Taiwan, The Taiwan World! It was great to see the world's press come to Taiwan to cover the elections.
After the elections on Saturday, The Sydney Morning Herald Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw tweeted: “To give you a sense of the scale of the international media interest in the Taiwan election last night here is the size of the international media press conference after Lai’s victory. I can’t think of another election apart from the US that would need a tent this size”.
It would be impossible to including everything that has been written about Taiwan since Saturday, there has been so much! So here are a few articles I think are noteworthy for the sentiments they capture and the analysis they contribute.
In the Media
There's a beautiful article in The Guardian by Michelle Kuo on Taiwanese democracy that I’m sure would tally with so many Taiwanese experiences who voted on Saturday.
There was a nice capture of the mood of the nation following the elections by Helen Davidson and Amy Hawkins, also in The Guardian.
Ian Chong for CNA on the elections: “Pressure from China is a constant rather than a variable. This normalisation of the challenge from Beijing reduced the electoral effects of pressure from China”.
The Economist in the immediate aftermath of the elections: “China will be keen to make Taiwanese citizens feel that they have entered more dangerous waters by electing Mr Lai”.
In another article, The Economist shifts the focus away from the elections towards Taiwan’s collapse in investments and exports to China. What could the impact be of this decoupling? Graph below.
Think Tank policy Space
Simon Grano for Asia Policy says that a DPP victory is not likely to “profoundly modify the evolution of cross-Strait and regional tensions in the long run, as these are mostly influenced by other structural issues”. Her article also has an interesting section on what the strategic impact might have looked like had the KMT won the presidency.
Bonnie Glaser on the German Marshall Fund website said that Lai Ching-te’s victory “will disappoint China, but it is unlikely to spur any near-term change in Beijing’s reunification strategy”.
J. Michael Cole has some reflections on Taiwan and the elections for Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI). The article is called “Taiwan’s fate is our future: J. Michael Cole for Inside Policy”.
Contents
In the Media
The Guardian - “Taiwan’s election result is a triumph for democracy – and a thorn in Beijing’s side”
The Guardian - “Taiwan revels in its young democracy as president-elect charts fresh course”
CNA - “Commentary: Taiwan’s 2024 election results show China isn’t voters’ biggest concern”
The Economist - “Defying China, Taiwan elects William Lai Ching-te as president”
The Economist - “China may be losing its sway over Taiwanese business”
Think Tank / Policy Space
Asia Policy - “The Geopolitical Implications of the Taiwanese Elections for China, the United States and the World”
German Marshall Fund - “Taiwan Opts for Continuity”
Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) - “Taiwan’s fate is our future: J. Michael Cole for Inside Policy”
Council on Foreign Relations - “Why China Would Struggle to Invade Taiwan”
Academia
The ASAN forum - “Visualizing Affective Democracy: Learning Community in China and Taiwan through Images of Foreigners” (William A. Callaghan)
In the Media
The Guardian - “Taiwan’s election result is a triumph for democracy – and a thorn in Beijing’s side”
This is a beautiful essay from Michelle Kuo on Taiwan’s democracy and the rebellious traditions of Taiwanese history.
“In a world gone mad, Taiwan’s story is indisputably, heartbreakingly hopeful.”
“For a brief moment, we will celebrate the accomplishments of Taiwanese democracy: a peaceful transition of power, with graceful concession speeches, transparent voting and efficient procedures. For now, this civil society has withstood polarisation and preserved its hard-won freedom. It’s a place where families can go to the polls, and eat ice-cream together afterward”.
The Guardian - “Taiwan revels in its young democracy as president-elect charts fresh course”
This is a lovely article, three days after the elections which nicely captures the mood of the nation following the vote.
“For many voters, regardless of stripe, the biggest takeaway from the election is pride in the system itself and carrying out a transparent vote”.
CNA - “Commentary: Taiwan’s 2024 election results show China isn’t voters’ biggest concern”
Splendid analysis from Ian Chong.
“Pressure from China is a constant rather than a variable. This normalisation of the challenge from Beijing reduced the electoral effects of pressure from China”
“The election results are a culmination of several dynamics that have been fermenting in Taiwan for some time”
“Corresponding with the emphasis on domestic issues is the receding into the background of the cross-strait relationship as an electoral issue. Beijing and the KMT tried to frame the election as a matter of independence or unification, war or peace, prosperity or stagnation. These binaries had little overall effect”.
“The neutralisation of China as an issue in Taiwan’s electoral politics may point to a shift in Taiwan[ese] political landscape … Going forward, developments in Taiwan spell a likely reconfiguration of domestic politics in Taiwan and ties with China... To the extent that Beijing continues to put pressure on Taiwan to accept its domination, especially overtly, it may discover decreasing traction in Taiwan. In the short term, the CCP may face temptation to test Taiwan’s incoming DPP administration to see if it makes a mistake that Beijing can exploit. Over the longer term, China’s direction of travel may face substantial challenge”.
On this latter point, Chong, in an article for the Japanese Journal of Political Science titled “‘Stand up like a Taiwanese!’: PRC coercion and public preferences for resistance” (2023) wrote:
“Our findings suggest that as coercive attempts persist and intensify, the public in the target may become disabused of goodwill from the coercer and lower expectations for reconciliation, learning to ‘price in’ any imposition of cost as well as expectations of uncertainty”.
“The efficacy of coercive diplomacy and threats may decay over time as targets, or at least their populace, may become more accustomed to such situations”. In other words, Beijing is getting less bang for its buck and may feel that it has to up the ante to get Taiwanese submission, which is a dangerous recipe for the future.
The Economist - “Defying China, Taiwan elects William Lai Ching-te as president”
“China will be keen to make Taiwanese citizens feel that they have entered more dangerous waters by electing Mr Lai. The government in Beijing failed to scare Taiwan’s voters into abandoning the DPP. It will now try to make them regret it”.
The Economist - “China may be losing its sway over Taiwanese business”
With plenty of articles this week on the success of Taiwan’s democracy and China’s relatively muted response to Lai Chin-te’s vicotory, the Economist shifts the angle to look at the trade data in which Taiwan's investments and exports to China are collapsing. Why is this, and what could it mean?
Less appealing Chinese market:
The Chinese market is becoming less attractive. Harsh policies like ‘Zero-COVID’ restrictions and arbitrary crackdowns on consumer sectors, with the weakness of the Chinese economy “compounding the sense that Taiwan’s economic future may not be so closely bound up with the mainland”.
Less deferential
Taiwanese businesses are becoming less deferential to China, such as Pegatron, whose chairman, Tung Tzu-hsie became vice chairman of the New Frontier Foundation, a DPP- DPP-associated think tank.
In 2016, PRC academic Gang Lin wrote that to bring about unification, Beijing’s approach to Taiwan is “informed by neo-functionalism derived from European integration experiences… assuming that economic integration will eventually lead to political accommodation and even political integration”. Not only did the reverse of this happen — economic integration arguably pushed Taiwanese further away from China — but now Taiwan is potentially DECOUPLING from China.
Where does that leave China’s unification strategy?
In Sept. last year, Mark Harrison wrote on the PRC’s unification strategy shake-up with its “Proposal on supporting Fujian Province in exploring a new path for the integrated development across the Taiwan Strait”. But at present these look like piecemeal efforts in the face of what are structural shifts going against Beijing.
“Chinese data suggest that in 2022 Taiwanese firms had assets worth $43bn in the People’s Republic; by comparison the figure for companies from America, an economy 35 times the size of Taiwan’s, was $86bn”.
Think Tank / Policy Space
Asia Policy - “The Geopolitical Implications of the Taiwanese Elections for China, the United States and the World”
Simona Grano, author of a great election primer on the Taiwanese elections last year, has a update which looks at the geopolitical consequences of the DPP victory, the implications of a divided parliament, and interestingly, what might the strategic implications have been of a KMT presidential victory.
“Regardless of the DPP winning the presidency, it is not likely that the elections in Taiwan will profoundly modify the evolution of cross-Strait and regional tensions in the long run, as these are mostly influenced by other structural issues”.
If the KMT won
Stability
Grano argues that in the short-term, a KMT victory would likely have brought stability, as the KMT would open dialogue with China.
However, “Such dialogues could have turned out to be a double-edged sword — maintaining the status quo while signaling to Beijing that China’s ambitions for “peaceful reunification” would not be achieved any time soon would have proved a difficult balancing act”.
Moreover, “the KMT would have been careful not to initiate any dealing that brought Taiwan on a path of closer political cooperation with China, as this would incur the risk of upsetting the electorate. Beijing may have been led into believing that after an initial phase of reestablishing dialogue, the KMT would be ready to start political talks and deliver some concrete results for China, which would not have been feasible. Therefore, in the long run, a KMT presidency might have turned out to be even more problematic than a DPP victory.”
Economics
Grano says that the KMT’s strategy of relying on China for prosperity and the US for Security would be “difficult to navigate”.
“On an election year, the United States would have been averse to any sort of dialogue between China and Taiwan gaining ground, even regarding economic agreements”
Security
Had the KMT won and tension across the Strait decreased, this: “could have produced a diminished effort to work together with regional allies and partners to sustain Taiwan’s de facto independence, set aside by the lack of urgency in protecting the island, as tensions would have been perceived as lower”.
“Thus, a KMT win would have brought about an interval phase, during which main players including the United States and Europe would have been cautiously waiting to discern the new direction of cross-Strait dynamics”.
German Marshall Fund - “Taiwan Opts for Continuity”
Bonnie Glaser writes that Lai Ching-te’s victory “will disappoint China, but it is unlikely to spur any near-term change in Beijing’s reunification strategy”.
Council on Foreign Relations - “Why China Would Struggle to Invade Taiwan”
By David Sacks. This is an interesting visual set, with images and graphics of Taiwan’s terrain, arguing that the lack of beachheads, discourteous weather, mountainous terrain, and the urban setting would make Taiwan so hard to invade.. The sections are:
A Treacherous Crossing
Few Places to Land
Mountainous and Unforgiving Terrain
Strategic Chokepoints
Costly Urban Warfare
It’s not an in-depth analysis, but the purpose is the visualisation.
“Taiwan has inherent advantages that will make an invasion difficult, expensive, and uncertain. Still, the Taiwanese people’s will to fight and resist will likely prove more decisive than mountains, ports, roads, or the ocean. If China conducts the operation with little opposition, it can probably navigate and overcome those obstacles. However, if confronted with millions of people determined to repel an invasion, China will face a much tougher task.”
Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) - “Taiwan’s fate is our future: J. Michael Cole for Inside Policy”
Reflections on Taiwan and the elections from Taiwan expert J. Michael Cole.
“No people should be given the untenable choice between subjugation and annihilation, and if we force such choices on free peoples, we not only lose our humanity but, more problematically, we increase the likelihood that other tyrannical regimes will conclude that it is possible to coerce, terrorize, and subjugate their neighbours”. Well said!
Academia
The ASAN forum - “Visualizing Affective Democracy: Learning Community in China and Taiwan through Images of Foreigners” (William A. Callaghan)
This article (Oct. 24, 2023) was brought to my attention by William A. Callaghan’s X in the wake of the elections.
“This article contextualizes and analyzes recent China-Taiwan tensions by examining the soft power of how Beijing and Taipei construct political community through compulsory education.
“The analysis suggests that, on the one hand, Taiwan’s textbooks show a shift from Han-centric ethno-nationalism to a civic identity that is multi-layered, global, and democratic. On the other hand, China’s textbooks shift over time from Chinese-style socialist internationalism to focus more on Han-centric ethno-nationalism”.
Image credit: X/@ErykBagshaw
很有深度的文章