{"id":12394,"date":"2024-01-26T21:19:17","date_gmt":"2024-01-27T02:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=12394"},"modified":"2024-02-01T00:30:45","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T05:30:45","slug":"taiwans-2024-presidential-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2024\/01\/taiwans-2024-presidential-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan\u2019s 2024 presidential elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he 2024 Taiwanese elections take place at a time that Taiwan has seen more international attention than ever, amidst rising United States-China tensions, and Chinese military drills that have stepped up<\/a> since the visit of then-U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in August 2022.<\/p>\n

Taiwanese voters have historically had to choose between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a center-left party that emerged from Taiwan\u2019s democracy movement, and the Kuomintang (KMT, also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party), which once ruled over Taiwan in an authoritarian manner during the period known as the White Terror. Since democratization, the KMT has reinvented itself as the pro-China party in Taiwanese politics, while the historically pro-independence DPP has distanced itself from this position to avoid the risk of provoking China.<\/p>\n

The KMT\u2019s push for closer political and economic relations with China has sometimes heretofore met with opposition from the Taiwanese public. But the DPP\u2019s eight years in power have led to rising dissatisfaction with its rule for failing to address long standing issues of economic inequality in Taiwan. That has left an opening for the rise of a new populist right in the form of the Taiwanese People\u2019s Party to pose as an alternative to both the DPP and KMT.<\/p>\n

Tight election<\/h4>\n

After the dust settled, Lai Ching-te of the DPP won the presidential election, marking an unprecedented third consecutive term in office for the center-left party. Lai’s election victory occurs in spite of attempts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to undermine his campaign, framing the vote as a choice between war and peace.<\/p>\n

The KMT picked up the discourse of war and peace and instilled a sense of fear in Taiwanese civil society as the theme of their campaign. The KMT candidate, Hou You-yi, repeatedly argued that \u201ca vote for the DPP is a vote for war.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Such discourse also circulated in the Anglophone media. Even some on the western Left joined in the chorus in an odd case<\/a> of self-proclaimed radicals siding with the former authoritarian party in Taiwan. Ironically, the KMT seemed to mimic talking points from such radicals, posturing as an anti-war party.<\/p>\n