Being Taiwan

China’s foreign minister warned in April that anyone in Taiwan who rejected Beijing’s ultimate control over their country was “playing with fire.” The rhetoric accompanied large-scale Chinese military exercises in the Taiwan Strait after the island’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, met with Kevin McCarthy, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

Tensions between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan date back to 1949, when Mao Zedong’s Communist Party took over the Chinese mainland and the nationalist Kuomintang moved its rival government to Taipei—but confrontations have been escalating since the 2016 election of Tsai, who favors greater independence from Beijing. China has meanwhile stepped up military flights into Taiwanese airspace, ramped up cyberattacks into the thousands daily against Taiwan government agencies, and is using more and more ominous language all around.

But as China’s president, Xi Jinping, continues to concentrate power and consolidate his autocratic rule, Taiwan is preparing for a presidential election in January. Having served two terms, Tsai is ineligible to run again—but her vice president, William Lai, is leading in the polls, and the race is dominated by questions about Taipei’s relationship with Beijing. So what do those questions look like for people in Taiwan?

Hsin-Hsin Pan is an assistant professor of sociology at Soochow University in Taipei. According to Pan, the majority of Taiwanese have long preferred maintaining the status quo of their ambiguous relationship with the mainland, though in recent years, more have been leaning toward independence—a shift reflected in the growing popularity of Tsai’s and Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Overwhelming numbers of people in Taiwan fear a Chinese invasion—and believe that the odds of one have grown since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Despite enduring anxiety over the island’s sovereignty, Pan says, public support for democracy remains strong—even as some skepticism about it emerges among a disaffected younger generation …

Michael Bluhm: What does the debate look like right now among Taiwan’s major political parties about the country’s relationship with the People’s Republic?

Hsin-Hsin Pan: This coming presidential election is all about Taiwan’s China policy. President Tsai Ing-wen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) resists China more forcefully, taking a harder line on defending Taiwan’s sovereignty, than the opposition Kuomintang (KMT). The other major candidates, including the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and the independent Terry Gou, are also less aggressive than the DPP—and more flexible about potential negotiations with Beijing regarding Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Vice President William Lai, the DPP nominee now leading in national polls, is clearly pro-U.S. and anti-China, whereas the rest of the parties call for maintaining an equal distance between the two powers—making them more pro-China, relatively speaking. Economically, Lai is more in favor of decoupling from China, which is in line with the U.S. stance. The other parties and candidates are more supportive of resuming trade with China.

Where it comes to talks with Beijing, Lai and the DPP say they still support negotiating the relationship, but without any preconceived ideas about Taiwan’s status. The other parties support negotiating with Beijing, but they fundamentally accept Beijing’s position on the status of Taiwan.