Like so many voters around the world, Taiwan’s have put the economy at the top of their agenda. Yet when they go to the polls on 13 January to elect a new president and legislature, those day-to-day concerns will sit alongside the existential question of Taiwan’s future.
The island has enjoyed de facto independence since the defeated Kuomintang (KMT) fled there at the end of its civil war with the Communist party. But China claims sovereignty over it and has never ruled out using force to bring it into the fold. It has intensified its rhetoric and its economic and military pressure since the incumbent president, Tsai Ing-wen, of the Democratic Progressive party (DPP) won power in 2016. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sharpened concerns about Taiwan’s fate. In his new year address, Xi Jinping reiterated that “reunification of the motherland is a historical inevitability”.
