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PaperclipPerfector
3mo ago
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Transnational Thursday for January 18, 2024
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Notes -
Taiwan
Taiwan held their latest election on Saturday with China’s presence breathing down the nation’s neck. The ruling Democrat Progressive Party was running on the strongest pro-independence platform whereas the KMT (successor of the form Chiang Kai-Shek dictatorship ruling party) ran on conciliating with China and the Taiwanese Peoples Party (TPP) ran on ignoring the China issue and focusing on Taiwan (previously Foxconn billionaire owner Terry Gou was running an independent campaign on really conciliating with China, but he dropped out). Despite China repeatedly saying they would consider a DPP victory provocative, voters handed the Democrats their third victory in a row. This will elevate current Vice President Lai Ching-te to the Presidency.
However, they will lack a majority in Congress and in fact will only have 51 seats to KMT’s 52. The really interesting result was the previously marginal Taiwanese People’s Party actually doubling its share of the vote from the 2020 election all the way up to 26.45%, drawn mostly from the youth vote, which will earn the party 8 seats in the legislature. Needless to say DPP will have to work together with at least some members of TPP to get anything done, which isn’t a bad thing. TPP won’t likely have any interest in DPP’s pro independence agenda, but a lot of that it rhetorical anyway - the DPP hasn’t made any serious moves in the previous two terms to move towards independence in any real way.
The real question will be how China reacts. They were apparently futzing around and removing preferential tariffs from Taiwanese goods as the voting drew nearer, so more trade war-esque saber rattling is conceivable, along with the same song and dance they do of flying jets around to get everyone worked up. The other country China has been inching closer to conflict with, the Philippines, wished President Ching-Te a public congratulations, which of course has also infuriated China.
Indeed. I don't have quotes, but I heard that they threatened to invade, and while that is standard rhetoric, there are some signs that this time they might actually not be bluffing. Minihan's warning, for instance, predicted (a year ago) that this would be used as casus belli. There's also the hair-raising Paul Symon interview in roughly the same timeframe where he implied that "a linear path" leads to "major-power conflict"; the most obvious explanation for that comment is that the Five Eyes had detected preparations for a major Taiwan play, although I suppose there could be something else similarly dire.
The simple fact of the matter is that in the 2010s they had reason to hope for Taiwan agreeing to One Country, Two Systems (the "charm offensive" is clearly visible in polls of Taiwanese attitudes toward unification), but that died a horrible screaming death in 2019-20 when Xi did his little Darth Vader stunt to Hong Kong. So they have the motive to try to force the issue, and they have the opportunity with the USA reeling from the CW and this election being predictably a mess a long time in advance; why wouldn't we expect them to be quietly preparing? They could still definitely call "no-go", but we live in Interesting Times.
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