The candidate from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the 2024 Presidential election of the Republic of China (Taiwan) after fierce competition with its old rival, the Kuomintang (KMT), and the newly rising Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). Numerous commentators and analysts consider the DPP’s electoral success a reaffirmation of the Taiwanese people’s “rebuff” or “denial” of China.[1][2][3][4] However, these types of views are too simplistic to understand the whole picture of this election and the current political dynamics in Taiwan.
These simplistic comments contain several misperceptions of Taiwan’s political dynamics. The first and foremost one is the perception bias that the DPP represents pro-independence democracy and the KMT a pro-PRC and pro-unification party. And thus, the DPP prevails in Taiwan because most of the Taiwanese people support Taiwan’s autonomy.[3][2] However, this is problematic in two aspects. In consideration of their political future, Taiwan’s public opinion had already reached a sort of consensus that would defend Taiwan’s autonomy and reject any forms of political negotiation with Mainland China that would undermine Taiwan’s political status.[5] This represents a trend of political convergence and leads to convergence in party politics. It is thus unrealistic to stay with stereotypes to consider the KMT pro-unification or the TPP pro-PRC. On the other hand, it should be noted that 40% is among the lowest winning percentage of Taiwan’s presidential election since 2000 and the DPP lost its majority in the Legislature Yuan after the legislative election. The DPP is failing to appeal to the majority of voters.
Secondly, too much emphasis was put on Mainland China’s interference in Taiwan’s election.[3] It has been underlined that Beijing employed tactics to bolster the KMT and undermine the Taiwanese support for the DPP.[4] Admittedly, Mainland China allegedly kept attempting levying influence on Taiwan’s public opinion through official propaganda and cyber influence operations.[2][6] However, these are not new phenomena and barely constitute actual election interference considering the lack of sufficient evidence. Even though Beijing’s election interference was substantial, it arguably played an insignificant role in influencing the result of recent Taiwanese elections.[7] More than 70% of Taiwanese in polls believe that disinformation is effectively countered by Taiwan’s official efforts and non-governmental organizations such as Taiwan Factcheck Center.[6]
Thirdly, these comments failed to recognize that the issue salience of cross-strait relationships in Taiwan’s election is decreasing while that of domestic socioeconomic topics, such as cost of living, are of greater importance than before. Domestic political issues and governance are the primary concerns for the Taiwanese voters.[5] Although Taiwan’s economy maintained a steady performance throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, it has chronic problems that caused a housing crisis and cost of living issues, raising the salience of economic and public policies in the 2024 elections.[8]
Fourthly, these comments failed to attach sufficient importance to the rise of the third force – the TPP in Taiwan’s politics. Led by the maverick former Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-je, the TPP is an incarnation of an anti-establishment challenger and chose a middle path between the green and blue forces in Taiwan’s party politics. The TPP is rather popular among the 20-29 age group owing to its determination to address domestic issues such as the housing crisis and stagnant wages in Taiwan.[9] In the 2024 presidential election, the TPP (26.46%) has proven itself as a powerful challenger that is capable to hallow the supports for both the DPP (40.05%) and the KMT (33.49%). The rise of Ko and the TPP deserve more attention because they are shaping Taiwan’s bipartisan political landscape and may garner even more political influence in the future.
After summarizing these myths, this article maintains that the potential sources of these misperceptions are the ruling DPP’s official-led partisan narratives. Utilizing the legacy of its leadership in Taiwan’s democratization and de-Sinification, the DPP managed to produce a set of discourses that are appealing to both their domestic supporters in election campaigns, as well as many international media and audiences. For instance, the DPP is adept at emphasizing, if not exaggerating, Mainland China’s interference in Taiwan’s democracy during its electoral campaigns. The DPP-affiliated foreign minister Joseph Wu wrote in The Economist to make his case that the influence and “stakes” of Beijing’s interference in Taiwan’s democracy are higher than ever before. [10] This undoubtedly drew domestic and international attention to the interference issue. In addition, the DPP often narrate themselves as the guard of Taiwan’s security and democracy and accuse its rivalries, the KMT and the TPP, of collaborating with Beijing.[3][11] After the election, the DPP presidential candidate William Lai called his win a “victory for the community of democracies.” His comment implies that a DPP winning is tantamount to a victory of democracy, and thus a DPP loss to the KMT or TPP could be a failure of democracy. While Lai’s comment was understandable as partisan propaganda, it should not be perceived as a political reality. Whether was the Taiwanese elections a victory of democracy should be judged by checking the electoral process, rather than who won the election.
In a nutshell, understanding Taiwan’s current political dynamics entails more scrutiny, rather than constant path dependency of obsolete logics. Although the DPP won the presidential election, its popularity has been decreasing significantly. The electoral outcome was to some extent largely a result of vote splitting between the KMT and the TPP, their failure to establish an opposition coalition caused them to draw votes from one another in the election, instead of the old cliché claiming that Taiwan voters’ rejection of China or the “choice for democracy over autocracy”. Moreover, a second takeaway is that ruling party-led narratives should be considered partisan propaganda, rather than the mainstream public opinion in Taiwan, or political realities. Falling into the narrative of either the ruling party or the opposition parties might lead to a misunderstanding of Taiwan’s domestic dynamics and political situations.
Yipin Wang is a first-year Munk School student pursuing a Master of Global Affairs with a collaborative specialization in Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Studies. He has an extensive background in history, international relations, and comparative politics. His research interests lie in the interdisciplinary studies of modern and contemporary China, as well as China’s political relations with its surrounding countries.
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[1] Joshua Keating, “Taiwan elects Lai Ching-te, denying China’s hopes for reunification”, VOX, January 13, 2024, https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2024/1/6/24026992/taiwan-china-president-war-xi-jinping-asia-semiconductors-chips.
[2] Eric Cheung, Wayne Chang, Nectar Gan and Jerome Taylor, “Taiwan voters dismiss China warnings and hand ruling party a historic third consecutive presidential win”, CNN, January 13, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/13/asia/taiwan-presidential-election-results-intl-hnk/index.html.
[3] Yimou Lee and Sarah Wu, “Taiwan voters rebuff China, ruling party gets third presidential term”, Reuters, January 13, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/polls-open-taiwans-critical-elections-watched-closely-by-china-2024-01-13.
[4] Naiyu Kuo, “Taiwan’s Democracy Prevailed Despite China’s Election Interference”, United States Institute of Peace, January 24, 2024, https://www.usip.org/publications/2024/01/taiwans-democracy-prevailed-despite-chinas-election-interference.
[5] Paul Huang, “Taiwan’s Elections Aren’t All About China”, Foreign Policy, January 11, 2024, https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/11/taiwan-presidential-election-polling-china-tsai-lai-hou-ko.
[6] Alan Yu, Michael Clark and Megan Shahi, “Taiwan’s Election: PRC Interference and Its Implications for the 2024 Election Landscape”, Center for American Progress, February 1, 2024, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/taiwans-election-prc-interference-and-its-implications-for-the-2024-election-landscape.
[7] Hilton Yip, “Taiwan’s Government Can’t Blame Everything on Chinese Disinformation”, Foreign Policy, January 11, 2024, https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/11/taiwan-election-disinformation-china-influence-criticism.
[8] Brian Hart, Scott Kennedy, Jude Blanchette, and Bonny Lin, “Taiwan’s 2024 Elections: Results and Implications”, CSIS, January 19, 2024, https://www.csis.org/analysis/taiwans-2024-elections-results-and-implications.
[9] Clement Tan, “Taiwan’s political disrupter could be kingmaker in a split parliament. Here’s why it matters”, CNBC, January 25, 2024, https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/26/taiwan-2024-election-tpps-ko-wen-je-may-be-kingmaker-in-split-parliament.html.
[10] Joseph Wu, “Taiwan’s foreign minister on what’s at stake in the coming election”, The Economist, January 3, 2024, https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2024/01/03/taiwans-foreign-minister-on-whats-at-stake-in-the-coming-election.
[11] Jason Pan, “China endorses KMT ‘collaboration’ in Taiwan”, Taipei Times, September 1, 2023, https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/01/2003805598.
