The China Factor in Taiwan’s 2020 Election

Attendees of a political campaign rally wave Taiwan flags, in Taipei on Nov. 11, 2018. Chris Stowers/AFP/Getty Images

Commentary

Taiwan’s presidential election in 2020 is set to be a showdown between Tsai Ing-wen and Han Kuo-yu. For the pan-Green coalition—parties that support a tougher stance towards the mainland—it is a stroke of luck that Han, the most pro-China of the Kuomintang (KMT) candidates, has become Tsai’s rival—this will make their mainland policies the main theme of the campaign trail, distracting from Tsai’s much-maligned governance. This comes as a major reversal of the situation following the victory of the “anti-Democratic Progressive Party force” in the Taiwanese local elections of 2018. No matter what happens in Taiwan over the next few months, the China factor will be the salient issue of the election.

Han the ‘Beijing Agent’

On June 1, Han’s first major campaign event was held in front of the Presidential Office, with over 400,000 people reportedly in attendance. According to a live interview by a BBC reporter, many in the audience were Taiwanese businessmen residing abroad who had returned home specifically to participate as “reinforcement of the pro-Han commoners.” Most Taiwanese businessmen support the pan-Blue coalition—parties that support closer ties with mainland China— and it’s an open secret that the mainland Chinese regime has in recent years chartered airliners to take Taiwanese residing in mainland China back to Taiwan so they could more conveniently take part in the local election process.