Presidential election in Taiwan: “The question of war is on the table”

Tomorrow’s presidential election in Taiwan is being followed with great excitement around the world. Because the candidates also represent different attitudes towards China. Taiwan expert Klöter explains in an interview what makes this choice so delicate.

tagesschau.de: Taiwan elects a new president – why is this relevant for the entire region, but also for the West as a whole?

Henning Klöter: This has to do with Taiwan’s politically unclear status. Taiwan, which calls itself the Republic of China, is not internationally recognized. The People’s Republic of China, i.e. internationally recognized China, lays territorial claim to Taiwan. Taiwan has been resisting this since the end of the Chinese Civil War, since 1949, and whenever there is an election in Taiwan, Taiwan’s unsettled political status is a dominant theme. The People’s Republic has been making it increasingly clear for years that it no longer wants to accept this open state of affairs and is blatantly threatening war. Therefore there is also a question of war in the room.

Candidate of continuity

tagesschau.de: Vice President Lai Ching-te is the favorite in the race. What would change because of him; especially with regard to the People’s Republic?

Klöter: Lai would probably continue the policies of incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen, who is no longer allowed to run. That means: don’t attack the People’s Republic too aggressively in terms of rhetoric, adopt a mild tone, but at the same time retreat to the position that Taiwan is already virtually independent. Like President Tsai, Lai would therefore not open Taiwan any further to the People’s Republic, for example in trade matters.

tagesschau.de: The prospect that Lai could win the election has led to increased military threats in the People’s Republic. Do you have the impression that this will have an influence on citizens’ voting behavior?

Klöter: To a certain extent this will certainly be the case. But you shouldn’t forget that the voters don’t know any different. Since the first democratic presidential election in 1996, which was accompanied by very strong maneuvers and threatening gestures from China, it has been this way in every presidential election. Threats from Beijing are nothing new in a Taiwanese perception. At the same time, voters are feeling greater aggression, especially since Chinese President Xi Jinping has formulated concrete deadlines for unification with Taiwan for the first time. And the war in Ukraine also made people in Taiwan realize that the unthinkable suddenly became concrete. All of this is hanging in the air before the election.

Profiling as a “candidate of peace” and as a “third option”

tagesschau.de: Hou Yu-ih, the candidate of the largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), himself speaks of a choice between war and peace. What would the KMT, which ruled Taiwan for many years, do to reduce tensions with China?

Klöter: Hou has taken a strong stance on what he doesn’t want. He does not want to continue the current president’s very negative attitude towards the People’s Republic. But he also doesn’t want to get involved in the “one country, two systems” formula, which the People’s Republic of China has long proposed as a solution. He has indicated that he certainly wants to hold talks again and has strongly criticized the incumbent president and candidate Lai for the fact that the dialogue on China has largely come to a standstill. His repeated phrase “choice between war and peace” was also a rhetorical move that attempted to brand Lai as a factor of insecurity and to frame himself as the one who would stand for peace.

tagesschau.de: The last president from Hou’s party met with Xi Jinping in Singapore in 2015 and signed a trade deal. Would that even be conceivable today?

Klöter: This “legacy” and the question of how to deal with the last member of the party as president was a problem for Hou in the final stretch of the election campaign. Especially since former President Ma Ying-jeou said in an interview that it would be nonsense for Taiwan to invest too much in defense because it would have no chance anyway. In response, Hou and his vice presidential candidate have explicitly said they do not share this position. On the one hand, both advocate a rapprochement with China, but on the other hand, they run the risk of being perceived as those who want to continue something that a president has already failed with.

tagesschau.de: There is also a third candidate. Where should Ko Wen-je be classified?

Klöter: Ko has had great success at the local political level in selling himself as a “newcomer” who breaks through the camp mentality between the DPP and the KMT. He was mayor of Taipei and is now trying to sell himself as a “third option” – not sealing himself off from Beijing, but not pandering either. In addition, on economic and social policy issues, he presented himself as a candidate for the younger generation that feels economically left behind. He is quick-witted, but some also consider him too dubious for the presidency and too fickle in his statements.

“No willingness to give up freedom that has been won”

tagesschau.de: The only political solution for Beijing is likely to be the “one country, two systems” model. How do you assess the attitude of the people in Taiwan?

Klöter: This would definitely not be accepted by the population. There have been demographic changes in Taiwan since democratization began in the late 1990s. The voting population has a completely different life experience than the generation of those who fled from China to Taiwan after the end of the Second World War and the end of the Chinese Civil War. The example of Hong Kong has also shown that in practice nothing remains of the “one country, two systems” model. That is why there is no willingness in Taiwan to give up the hard-won freedom and democracy in favor of this formula.

“A thoroughly consolidated democracy”

tagesschau.de: In Taiwan we are dealing with a functioning democracy, with a separation of powers, with independent media and with regular changes of power. Do you have the impression that the West and especially the European Union appreciate this enough?

Klöter: IPersonally, I have the impression that this is not the case. In recent years, and especially since the pandemic, it has certainly been noticed and mentioned more often that there are freedoms and liberalizations in Taiwan that do not exist in other regions of Asia. Taiwan is a thoroughly consolidated democracy. There have been several peaceful transfers of power, and there is freedom of religion and freedom of the press. In doing so, Taiwan successfully refutes what is often said in the People’s Republic of China, that democracy and freedoms are incompatible with Chinese cultural roots. I think that this could be more appreciated in a Western assessment of the situation in East Asia in the broader context and the situation in Taiwan in the narrower context.

The interview was conducted by Eckart Aretz, tagesschau.de