In a bumper year of elections, a small archipelago of 24 million people will take part in a presidential vote that will have far-reaching consequences.
On 13 January, voters in Taiwan will choose a new president, who will set the tone for relations between the world’s two biggest superpowers for the years to come.
Although the Chinese Communist party (CCP) has never ruled Taiwan, it claims the territory as part of the People’s Republic of China, and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve its long-stated ambition of “reunification”. But an increasing proportion of people see themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, and want little to do with Beijing.
The US is committed to supporting Taiwan in the event of an attempted incursion from China, although the nature and extent of this support remains unclear – a policy known as “strategic ambiguity”. All this makes Taiwan one of the biggest flashpoints in US-China relations.
For voters in Taiwan, the question of which candidate will preserve peace across the Taiwan strait is an existential one. Many people care about issues other than China, too. But whatever they decide on 13 January, the ripples will be felt across the region.
Who are the candidates?
The frontrunner is Lai Ching-te from the incumbent Democratic Progressive party (DPP). Lai is vice-president to Tsai Ing-wen, who is stepping down because of term limits. Lai, and his running mate, the former Taiwanese envoy to the US Hsiao Bi-Khim, represent the continuity choice.
The DPP believes that maintaining Taiwan’s peaceful status quo relies on building stronger relationships on the world stage, particularly with the US. Some analysts think Lai is not as well-liked in Washington as Tsai or Hsiao, which explains one of the reasons why Hsiao was picked as his running mate, despite being subject to Chinese sanctions. Lai is openly despised by the Chinese government, which has called him a “complete troublemaker”.
The main opposition candidate is the avuncular Hou You-yi from the more conservative Kuomintang (KMT). Hou is a former policeofficer and popular mayor of New Taipei City. The KMT, which has long struggled with an image of elitism, hopes Hou’s working-class roots will appeal to a broad range of voters as the party struggles to unite its older base with young Taiwanese.
That everyman persona may also be Hou’s weakness, as some question whether he has the requisite foreign policy experience to lead Taiwan through the delicate balancing act between the US and China.
Hou argues that increasing economic links and opening dialogue with China is the best way to preserve peace, although he has rejected the idea of Taiwan independence and the “one country, two systems” model that has been suggested by the Chinese Communist party, leaving some voters unsure about where he stands on the China issue.
The disrupter in the race is Ko Wen-je of the newly formed Taiwan People’s party (TPP). Ko is a popular former Taipei mayor who was a surgeon before entering politics in 2014. He has tried to leverage his scientific background to present himself as a technocrat who would be a safe pair of hands in the president’s office.
His medical credentials have not always played well, however. In October, he caused an outcry by likening cross-strait relations to prostate cancer treatment. He said patients with prostate cancer could often live well for many years, while removal of the prostate “can cause an even quicker death”. It was supposed to be a metaphor about the importance of coexisting with your enemies, but it was widely criticised – including by the Taiwan Urological Association.
Ko says the TPP offers a “middle way” between the DPP and the KMT on the China issue, but in fact his policies are closer to the KMT’s.
What are the main issues?
The question of how to deal with China is dominating the final stretch of the campaign. Although Taiwan has long lived under the threat of a Chinese invasion, tensions have increased in recent years, with more intense military drills and US intelligence suggesting China may be capable of annexing Taiwan within the next decade.
China and the KMT have framed the vote as a choice between war and peace. But such arguments have previously failed to convince voters to shun the DPP. Tsai was returned to office in a landslide vote in 2020, when a major talking point was the crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, which Tsai said should be a warning to Taiwan. Last month she repeated that message at a rally for Lai, saying: “We don’t want Hong Kong-style peace. We want dignified peace.”
But Hou argues that a vote for the DPP would be akin to “sending everyone out to the battlefield”, as it would provoke a war with China.
Although compared with other parts of the world inflation in Taiwan has been low – reaching 2.92% in November – many people still feel that the cost of living is too high. More than a third of people say economic development is the most pressing concern for the next president, making it the top issue for voters.
Lai and Hou have promised to increase the minimum wage, which is particularly important to younger voters.
Hou argues that the DPP has failed to improve living standards, and has offered a host of new social policies such as increasing publicly funded childcare and helping young people to buy homes.
But even debates about the economy end up circling back to politics. “The challenges that Taiwan faces in its economy, and the proposed solutions, can’t be completely separated from the relationship with China,” says Bonnie Glaser, the managing director and Taiwan expert at the German Marshall Fund, a US thinktank.
As a small, rocky archipelago, Taiwan relies on imports for nearly 97% of its energy, making it vulnerable to disruption. Energy security is a key concern for many voters. In 2017, 2019 and 2022 there were mass blackouts, affecting millions of households. In the event of a Chinese blockade, stockpiles of gas, coal and oil would last about 200 days, although the government has set targets to increase reserves.
This has raised the question of resurrecting Taiwan’s nuclear power programme, which has been in decline since Tsai came to power in 2016. The only remaining nuclear power plant is scheduled to retire by 2025. Hou has promised to rebuild Taiwan’s nuclear energy capacity, although a referendum in 2021 that voted against restarting construction on a nuclear power plant suggests many voters are sceptical.
What does it mean for China?
Beijing is watching the vote closely and is expected to increase pressure on the island in the coming days. In a new year’s address, China’s president, Xi Jinping, said “reunification of the motherland is a historical inevitability”. The CCP still hopes to use political and economic pressure to achieve that goal, rather than all-out war. Taiwan’s foreign ministry said it had been documenting Chinese attempts to interfere in the election and would publish its analysis after the vote.
“Psychological warfare [from China] over a long period influences local political discourse and the deeper narratives,” says Tim Niven, research lead at Doublethink Lab, an NGO based in Taipei.
The China analyst Bill Bishop said in a recent newsletter that although a Lai victory was unlikely to provoke an immediate military assault from China, “do not be surprised if Beijing does not wait until his inauguration in May to start taking actions”. One response could be to suspend the 2010 trade agreement that has been the subject of recent disputes, Bishop suggested. Some analysts also expect to see an increase in Chinese military drills around the island.
Whoever wins the election on 13 January, their relationship with the US will not be secure until the outcome of the US presidential election in November is announced. Taiwan’s January election will set the tone for global geopolitics in 2024, but much is still to play for.
