Voters in Taiwan are heading to the polls in less than two weeks to elect a new government for the next four years. The free and fair elections are overshadowed by China’s influence campaigns trying to swing the election results in its favor.
On Jan. 13, some 19.5 million Taiwanese voters are expected to elect a new president and members of the nation’s 113-seat national legislature. Three of the biggest parties in Taiwan—the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the main opposition Kuomintang Party (KMT), and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), a relatively new party founded in 2019—have each fielded a ticket for president and vice president.
Former Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je is the TPP candidate, who has picked fellow party member, Legislator Wu Hsin-ying, as his running mate.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which intends to take over Taiwan either by peaceful means or war, has long viewed the DPP with hostility, seeing the party and its agenda as roadblocks to its path to “reunification” with the self-ruled island. The communist regime favors KMT candidates, who see Beijing as less threatening to the island’s national security.
Two factors will decide the outcome of the elections—voters’ perspective on China–Taiwan relations and domestic policies relating to the economy, according to Wang Juntao, a U.S.-based Chinese democracy activist and scholar. He pointed out that the overwhelming majority of Taiwanese youth don’t want the island to become part of China.
On Dec. 31, 2023, CCP leader Xi Jinping reaffirmed in his 2024 New Year address his intention to seize Taiwan, saying China and Taiwan “will surely be reunified” and “all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common sense of purpose and share in the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who’s also the DPP chairwoman, responded to media inquiries about Xi’s remarks, saying the decision on any future cross-strait relationship must be based on “democratic principles” and the “common will” of the Taiwanese people.
China’s Interference
During a presidential debate on Dec. 30, 2023, all three candidates pledged to uphold Taiwan’s current status quo. Mr. Lai also said he would continue the current president’s policies toward China and the United States.“On so-called Taiwan independence, Taiwan’s basic position is that Taiwan’s sovereignty and independence belong to its 23 million people, not the People’s Republic of China,” he said during the debate.
Mr. Hou said he opposes both Taiwanese independence and the “one country, two systems” political system that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong after the former British colony was handed back to China in 1997.
Mr. Ko emphasized that maintaining Taiwan’s current status quo is “the only option.”
Despite some similarities in how the three candidates stand on cross-strait relations, there are signs that China would prefer Mr. Hou to win the election. For example, on Dec. 22, an online media reporter surnamed Lin was detained for allegedly publishing fake polls showing the KMT ticket in the lead. Mr. Lin is alleged to have done so at the behest of CCP’s provincial committee in China’s Fujian Province.
Lee Yeau-tran, an adjunct professor at the Graduate Institute of Development Studies of Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, told The Epoch Times that China has posted on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter in an attempt to influence the Jan. 13 elections. Other influence tactics included offering funded China trips to low-level Taiwanese government officials and Taiwanese temple groups, according to Mr. Lee.
“The content closely tracked Taiwan’s news cycle, quickly leveraging domestic news developments, such as controversies surrounding an egg shortage and the alleged drugging of toddlers at a kindergarten, to portray the KMT’s opponents as incompetent and corrupt,” the report reads.
On Dec. 29, local prosecutors in Taiwan’s central city of Taichung announced an investigation into eight borough chiefs, 28 Taiwanese voters, and the head of a local travel agency for potential violations of the island’s anti-infiltration law. The chiefs and voters allegedly paid below-market prices for trips to the southern Chinese city of Xiamen, during which they met with the city’s CCP officials. Six of the borough chiefs have since been released on bail, and two others are restricted to their homes.
Yuan Hongbing, a former law professor at China’s Beijing University, told The Epoch Times that he had learned from sources that the Taiwan Affairs Office at all levels of the Chinese regime’s political system had been given an order to “privately pressure” Taiwanese businessmen in their regions to support political candidates that Beijing has approved of in the upcoming January elections.
According to data released by the Taiwan government last month, about 473,000 Taiwanese nationals worked overseas in 2022, with China accounting for the majority, or 37.5 percent of the total.
Ultimately, China has different goals behind its efforts to influence the outcomes of Taiwan’s elections, according to Mr. Wang and Mr. Lee.
“Making Taiwan chaotic can reduce [Chinese] people’s desire for wanting to live in a democracy like Taiwan while making [the CCP’s] rule look more legitimate,” Mr. Wang said.
Responses
The legislative elections on Jan. 13 are equally important since the outcomes will decide if the party that wins the presidency can also enjoy a majority in the national legislature.Nathan Batto, an associate research fellow at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, predicted in early December that the DPP will likely lose its legislative majority.
A hung parliament means that no single party secures the necessary 57 seats to hold a majority in the national legislature.
“If it is a hung parliament and the TPP holds the balance of power, and Ko Wen-je maintains strong control over his party, he will be the one who controls the balance of power in the legislature,” Mr. Batto said.
“I think the conventional wisdom is that even if Lai Ching-te wins, he’s not gonna have a governing majority in the legislature. And if Hou Yu-ih wins, he’s also unlikely to have a KMT majority at least.”
If the DPP wins the presidency and takes the legislative majority, Mr. Lee said the CCP might react by taking forceful measures against the island.
“If Lai and Hsiao become elected and the KMT and the TPP hold the legislative majority, [China] will try to manipulate [KMT and TPP] legislators so that they can interfere with the DPP’s agenda at the legislature,” he said.
Washington will also react differently to different election outcomes, according to Mr. Lee.
“If Lai and Hsiao become elected, the relationship between Taiwan and the United States will continue to be like the close cooperation between the United States and free worlds during Tsai’s presidency,” he said.
“In other words, it is the so-called new cold war where free democracies take on Russia, North Korea, and Iran, which are allied with the CCP as the axis of evil.”
If the former Taipei mayor is elected, Washington will ask him to follow Ms. Tsai’s foreign policies on China, Mr. Lee said.
“Under such circumstances, the United States will definitely have a lot of doubts about Taiwan,“ Mr. Lee said. ”The bilateral exchange on high-tech and military technology will be greatly impacted.”
