Global leaders have congratulated Lai Ching-te for winning Taiwan’s presidential election, praising the high turnout and democratic process – and drawing ire from Beijing, which had hoped to see Taiwan’s ruling party ousted.
Lai won an unprecedented third term in power for the pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive party (DPP) in Saturday’s election, with more than 40% of the vote. Lai is taking over from the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen, who has been president since 2016, promising to continue her foreign policy efforts in resisting China’s plans to annex Taiwan.
A spokesperson for the US state department congratulated the Taiwanese people “for once again demonstrating the strength of their robust democratic system and electoral process”.
Speaking to reporters shortly after the result, US president Joe Biden, who plans to send an unofficial delegation to Taiwan next week, reiterated that the US does not support Taiwanese independence.
Nonetheless, China’s foreign ministry said on Sunday that the US state department statement “seriously violated US promises that it would only maintain cultural, economic and other non-official ties with Taiwan”. The Chinese ministry said it had lodged “solemn representations” with the US over the comments.
The US, the UK, the European Union and Canada also offered their congratulations to the DPP. The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, said the result was “testament to Taiwan’s vibrant democracy”.
But the Chinese embassy in the UK said it “firmly opposed the wrong practices of the British side”, and urged the UK government to “stop any words or deeds that interfere in China’s internal affairs”.
A congratulatory statement by Japan’s foreign minister, Yoko Kamikawa, describing Taiwan as “an extremely crucial partner and an important friend,” was also blasted by Beijing’s embassy in Tokyo as “a serious interference in China’s internal affairs”.
Beijing said it had made “solemn representations” to Tokyo over the statement, which largely reiterated Japan’s previous statements.
Japan “shares fundamental values and enjoys close economic relations and people-to-people exchanges [with Taiwan],” Kamikawa had also said.
A hostile reaction to Lai’s victory from China has been widely expected. The ruling Chinese Communist party views Taiwan as part of its territory, despite never having ruled over the island. Xi Jinping, China’s ruler, has made it clear that “re-unifying” China and Taiwan is a priority, and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve that aim. It despises the DPP, which it views as separatists, and launched rhetorical and cognitive warfare efforts in an ultimately failed attempt to influence voters into ousting the party.
Speaking after the result on Saturday, Chen Binhua, the spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) repeated its claim that “Taiwan is China’s Taiwan”, and reiterated its commitment to the “inevitable trend” of annexation.
“This election cannot change the basic pattern and direction of development of cross-strait relations … that the motherland will eventually be reunified.”
On Sunday Taiwan’s foreign ministry condemned the comments as “fallacious”, “absurd”, and “not worthy of rebuttal”.
It said claiming Taiwan was an “internal Chinese matter” was “totally inconsistent with the international perception and the cross-strait situation, and goes against the expectation of the global democratic community, and the will of the people of Taiwan in insisting on the value of democracy”.
Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, said the TAO also faced criticism from nationalists in China who felt that efforts to influence public sentiment in Taiwan to become more pro-China had failed.
In recent years, Beijing has ramped up military and economic pressure on Taiwan, prompting concerns from international observers that a conflict could be on the horizon. The CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said on Friday it was on “high alert” and ready to “smash” plots of Taiwanese independence, but its activity was quiet on the actual election day.
Amanda Hsiao, a Taipei-based senior China analyst with the International Crisis Group, said Beijing was likely to react to Lai’s victory with increased pressure, particularly in the lead-up to his inauguration in May. But the activity was probably going to be less overtly aggressive than the large-scale military drills seen in recent years.
“They labelled Lai as a troublemaker, so there is some expectation that they respond,” she said.
China urges its allies to support its territorial claim over Taiwan. On Saturday, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Moscow continued to view Taiwan as an integral part of China.
In response, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said Russia had “willingly become a thug of the Chinese Communist regime” deliberately promoting its “One China principle”, Beijing’s domestic policy claiming Taiwan as a Chinese province.
Lai has called his win a “victory for the community of democracies” around the world. Almost 72% of eligible voters turned out on Saturday to give the DPP a third term, but it came without a majority mandate.
The entrance of a third party – the Taiwan People’s party (TPP) and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je – split the opposition vote, with the TPP winning 26.4% and the Kuomintang (KMT) 33.5%.
The TPP also won eight legislative yuan seats, giving Ko extraordinary power in the 113-seat parliament where neither the DPP or KMT won a majority of seats, taking 51 and 52 respectively.
“Taiwan has finally officially entered into a three-party system, which further complicates consensus-building especially for major legislations,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a China expert at the Australian National University.
Yang, the University of Chicago professor, said: “each participating party got less than they desired, but a little bit more than they prepared for”. Yang said the same applied to China: Beijing was opposed to a Lai victory, but welcomed the fact that the DPP lost control of parliament, which will constrain Lai’s policymaking.
• This article was amended on 14 January 2024. An earlier version said the DPP won 52 seats and the KMT won 51; it was the other way around.
