Taiwan’s election

 Jan. 14, 2024

Taipei, Taiwan

Taiwan’s election

Taiwan went to the polls yesterday, defying Chinese interference by choosing a president in a free and democratic election. William Lai of the DPP has been duly elected Taiwan‘s next president. The race, which was closely watched by the international press and US military and diplomatic observers, including the strike carrier group of the USS Carl Vinson, which was posted in the nearby Philippines, to observe and deter any aggression by China during the election process, featured three parties vying for the presidency and seats in the legislative branch. By all accounts, the race was open and fair, and the only problems came from Chinese interference. Lai has promised to continue the foreign policy of his predecessor, the term-limited Tsai Ing-wen, which will include emphasis on Pacific trade policy with a focus on Southeast Asia and the US, and is open to talk with China on a basis of parity. Relations with China have been a constant flashpoint in Taiwanese politics, including the 2014 Sunflower Movement, which revealed massive popular support for preserving Taiwanese sovereignty and dignity, and its trade relations with its neighbor, who continues to claim Taiwan as a runaway province, and harasses it daily with economic, diplomatic, and short-of-war coercion.  Although most Taiwanese see themselves as Taiwanese – a unique identity as opposed to mainland Chinese – a long history remains of competing governments of China, one on Taiwan, and the other on the mainland. Those tensions have ebbed in recent years as Taiwanese politics has shifted to domestic issues and partnership with the US on trade and technology issues.  This happened under the eight-year term of President Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP, the first female president of Taiwan, and with her former vice president, William Lai, now taking over for an unprecedented third term in office for the DPP, the cooperation with the United States looks to continue and deepen.

It’s hard to look at Taiwan’s now-vibrant democracy, and imagine that in 1979 after the US cut off formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, the election activities were canceled. Taiwan is a young democracy. Its first free elections for president were in 1996. That was also the year when China sent several missiles into the waters to the north and south of Taiwan, and the world was the closest it has ever been to a war over Taiwan’s status. The Clinton administration then sent a carrier group into the Taiwan Strait in a show of force to quiet the Chinese. Before that seminal event, the status of Taiwan had been overshadowed for several years. This is due to the canceling of diplomatic relations in 1979 by the Carter administration, an event that still leaves a bad taste in the mouth of Taiwanese to this day. When the diplomatic status of Taiwan was revoked at that time, the one-party strongman state that governed Taiwan under martial law canceled local elections. However, they immediately saw the desire of the Taiwanese people for democracy, because this led to the Formosa Incident, a protest in the southern city of Kaohsiung, that led to clashes with the police.  The governing party quickly discovered how deep the roots were in favor of democratization. In truth, Taiwanese people have always been for self rule, because several prominent movements against Japanese colonial rule, and against the one party state had left a legacy of dissent that the popular movements for democracy in the martial law period could draw on.  Although faced at this time by a massive surveillance apparatus, including the latest in police technology, the activists, calling for a return to democracy and elections, used new social and political technology to stay ahead of the times.

How do you organize an opposition in an atmosphere of pervasive surveillance? The Kaohsiung activists used a combination of human rights law, informal networks and associations, and the press to confront authoritarianism and evade the police. Although the ensuing trials of the Kaohsiung activists resulted in heavy punishment for the defendants, the overall result was a political victory. Because the trials were open to the public, the defendants had the opportunity to make their case to the public, the press, and international observers, and this bolstered the fledgling democratization movement that would come into full bloom later.

One can see Su Tseng-chang’s face and hear his voice all over these days, as he has become an elder statesman of the DPP, but in those days he was a lawyer, one of the defense attorneys for the Kaohsiung Eight. His is just one example of the way that the Formosa Incident and the Kaohsiung trial is an integral part of the character of the DPP, and this is likely to continue in the four years to come. The role of the press played a major part in the culture of that movement and time, both in publishing the Formosa Magazine and others like it, but also in the role of the writer himself. 

The Formosa Incident, and all other movements like it, are proof of the power of the press, which functioned in that era as an ad-hoc opposition party.  It also played a huge role in changing the culture of the time through the concept of human rights. Lest we forget, freedom of expression “through any media“ is a fundamental human right encapsulated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This essential notion of freedom of expression was brought into the democratic culture of Taiwan by the social movements behind the Formosa Magazine, and its peers.  They stand to this day as the forerunners of the thriving media environment in Taiwan, which is, I would argue, one of the pillars of its sovereignty in a very pragmatic sense.

During this election season, one of the successes in defending democracy, was the media’s willingness to report on election interference by China, raising the stakes of the election internationally by garnering the interest of international observers and foreign governments. Even when China diverted a rocket launch to travel over Taiwan, while AI generated deepfake videos were all over social media, and other election interference in trade in diplomacy was also going on, the ability of people to, on the whole, tell the truth from fiction, and avoid fear or paralysis, was notable and worthy of praise.

Although William Lai was victorious in the polls, he will face a government with no party holding a majority in the legislature. This will underscore the importance of coalition building in the years to come, and the sizable amount of seats won by the third-party will be a novel addition to the politics of the country.  A few of the third-party seats would be enough to swing a majority to either party, and so the fundamental governing challenge, facing the Lai Administration may be navigating third-party politics, a first for Taiwan, and interesting in the democratic world. The US should have nothing to fear from this organization of government. The first act Lai took after being declared the victor was to reassure the international press and through them, the world, about the policies his administration will take, including toward the crucial semiconductor industry, which he promised to bolster, and to develop a comprehensive cluster of semiconductor industries in Taiwan.

We now embark on the rest of the year of democratic elections around the world with Taiwan having shown that even in the face of adversity brought on by authoritarian governments, democracy can thrive. The lessons of this moment would be to be active in opposing disinformation, open in your advocacy for democratic governance, and to focus your energies on rallying people in favor of democratic norms. Now we hope that the rest of the world will follow suit, and we as a world community can resist the authoritarian slide. Democracy did not come easy to any country that has it. It is worth defending.