{"id":84539,"date":"2024-01-12T14:30:07","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T03:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=84539"},"modified":"2024-01-12T14:12:21","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T03:12:21","slug":"beijing-watches-from-across-the-strait-as-taiwan-heads-to-the-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/beijing-watches-from-across-the-strait-as-taiwan-heads-to-the-polls\/","title":{"rendered":"Beijing watches from across the strait as Taiwan heads to the polls"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Tomorrow, the 24 million citizens of Taiwan will vote in an election with implications extending far beyond the Indo-Pacific. Beijing will be watching closely from across the strait as the election unfolds against a recent history of intense military brinkmanship and tensions.<\/p>\n

Wielding its considerable economic and political heft, the Chinese Communist Party has sought to isolate Taiwan on the international stage, not least by preventing Taiwanese participation in international organisations. Since 2016, Beijing has influenced the attrition in states that have diplomatic relations with Taipei\u2014from 22 to 13. The aim is to convince the Taiwanese population that global integration is achievable only after \u2018reunification\u2019 with the People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n

Taiwan has four-year general and local election cycles. Voters cast three votes: one for the president, one for their district representative (73 in total), and one for party-list representatives (34) in the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n

A further six seats in the Legislative Yuan are reserved for Taiwan\u2019s indigenous population, bringing the total to 113 legislators. A first-past-the-post system is used to elect both the president and parliament.<\/p>\n

Thus, the executive and legislative branches can be controlled by opposing parties, complicating the crafting of long-term policy and fostering partisan polarisation. The traditional bifurcation of Taiwan\u2019s politics between the two major parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has ended with the emergence of the Taiwan People\u2019s Party (TPP).<\/p>\n

Since the early 1990s, there has been a significant increase in the percentage of Taiwan\u2019s population who identify as \u2018Taiwanese\u2019 (now 60%), and a corresponding decrease of those who consider themselves to be \u2018Chinese\u2019 (2.3%) or hybrid Chinese-Taiwanese (32.3%).<\/p>\n

The latest polls show that less than 6% of Taiwanese support independence or unification, and that over 88% would like to maintain the status quo.<\/p>\n

So, Taiwan\u2019s political parties are divided not by familiar left\u2013right distinctions but by their approach to relations with the PRC. The KMT is seen as more pro-engagement with Beijing (characterised as \u2018blue\u2019), while the DPP is more PRC-sceptic (\u2018green\u2019). The TPP, associated with cyan and white, attempts to straddle both positions.<\/p>\n

Beijing\u2019s efforts to influence the Taiwanese electorate stretch back to the island\u2019s inaugural presidential election in 1996, when the People\u2019s Liberation Army launched ballistic missiles near Taiwan to deter voters from supporting former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui.<\/p>\n

This time, the PRC has employed a multi-pronged strategy of grey-zone aggression.<\/p>\n

Known in the PRC military lexicon as \u2018political warfare\u2019, grey-zone activities fall within the Chinese doctrine of the \u2018three warfares\u2019.<\/p>\n

The first, public opinion warfare, moulds favourable public perceptions of the PRC and the benefits of unification, while discrediting independence narratives. Beijing co-opts social media influencers and traditional pro-PRC media conglomerates, or \u2018red media\u2019, to disseminate PRC-friendly content and bolster its favoured political candidates. PRC agents flood Taiwan\u2019s media ecosystem with disinformation, and bots artificially amplify journalism that promotes scepticism over US security commitments to Taiwan.<\/p>\n

Throughout October 2023, for example, disinformation purporting to show the conflict in Gaza was circulated to highlight the horrors of war and promote a KMT narrative that peace can only be sustained through closer ties with the PRC.<\/p>\n

In the same month, the PRC extended a trade barrier investigation against Taiwan to the eve of Taiwan\u2019s presidential and legislative elections\u2014a pointed reminder of the mainland\u2019s importance to Taiwan as its dominant trading partner.<\/p>\n

An example of the PRC\u2019s ongoing legal warfare against Taiwan is its 2005 Anti-Secession Law, which mandates Beijing\u2019s desire to bring Taiwan under its own jurisdiction, and, if nonviolent avenues to \u2018reunification\u2019 fail, sanctions the use of force.<\/p>\n

Psychological warfare includes invasive military exercises by the PLA around Taiwan\u2019s periphery, ballistic missile overflights, and incursions into Taiwan\u2019s air defence identification zone (ADIZ), all of which have increased markedly in frequency since 2022. PLA sorties into Taiwan\u2019s ADIZ now take place on a near-daily basis. Psychological warfare aims to sap the Taiwanese people\u2019s will to resist, sow societal confusion and discord, and instil a perpetual sense of crisis.<\/p>\n

The battlefield of these three warfares is Taiwanese hearts and minds. The ideal, to \u2018win without fighting\u2019, would be for \u2018Taiwanese compatriots\u2019 to concede willingly to annexation. For the 2024 election, this translates to \u2018anyone but the DPP\u2019.<\/p>\n

As of 3 January 2024, an aggregate of nationwide polls shows the DPP\u2019s presidential nominee and current vice president, William Lai, leading the presidential race at 38.9%. Lai is a Harvard-educated former physician. His ratings have increased since the announcement as his running partner of Hsiao Bi-khim, whose \u2018cat warrior\u2019 diplomacy\u2014developed in response to the CCP\u2019s aggressive \u2018wolf warrior\u2019 diplomats\u2014emphasises Taiwan\u2019s commitment to human rights and democratic values, and distinguishes its international identity as separate from the PRC.<\/p>\n

Beijing has labelled the DPP ticket a \u2018union of separatists\u2019 and has threatened that an administration under Lai may \u2018bring war to Taiwan\u2019. If Lai becomes president, Beijing will continue as it has since 2016: official channels of communication will remain frozen, and it will pursue a carrot-and-stick approach combining economically preferential policies to attract young Taiwanese talent to the PRC with punitive sanctions to target Taiwanese industry and individuals.<\/p>\n

The PLA will likely intensify military activities around the island to signal Beijing\u2019s displeasure.<\/p>\n

A KMT administration would see Taiwan return to the \u20181992 Consensus\u2019, likely taking the spotlight off the independence issue and leading to a temporary thawing in cross-strait relations. Cross-strait trade and tourism might experience a temporary flourishing. It would also afford the PRC greater economic leverage and cultural influence in Taiwan.<\/p>\n

Any possible rapprochement, however, would be constrained by a fundamentally irreconcilable conflict: that the Taiwanese public do not wish to cede autonomy to Beijing, and the CCP\u2019s singular interest in friendly relations with Taiwan lies in its ambitions to annex it.<\/p>\n

A TPP victory appears unlikely. But, if the party\u2019s leader, Ko Wen-je, were able to find a mutually acceptable framework for resuming dialogue with Beijing, the countries may be able to open channels of trade and cooperation, leading to a cooling of cross-strait tensions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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