Election To Watch 2020: Taiwan

University of Nottingham
Taiwan Studies Programme
Date: 4 January 2020
By: Chun-yi Lee.

This article was originally published by ISPI and can be found here.

On 11 January 2020, Taiwanese voters will head to the ballot box and elect their next president. This short essay will explain why we should pay attention to this election and will particularly focus on Taiwan’s receding populism. My observation is that populism follows on from economic anxiety—a phenomenon that is faced by most democracies in Europe and the United States. Taiwan is no exception, but in January, Taiwan’s populist candidate will probably not be victorious. This is due to the immediate threat faced by Taiwan – in other words, the ‘China factor’.

There are three parties and candidates registered for the 2020 presidential election: the incumbent president Tsai Ing-wen (from the Democratic Progressive Party or DPP); Han Kuo-yu, from the Kuomintang (KMT); and James Soong, from the People First Party. But the ‘real’ competition is between Tsai (DPP) and Han (KMT), which I will examine here. Following this, I will explain why Han, as a populist figure in Taiwan, won a landslide victory in Kaohsiung’s 2018 mayoral election, and why, since joining the presidential election campaign in 2019, his popularity has not superseded that of Tsai.

Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan, and Han’s victory there in 2018 ended two decades of DPP governance. The main reasons Han won included his focus on boosting Kaohsiung’s economy, and speaking in a language that ‘people understood’. For example, he planned to build a Disneyland theme park, and pursued closer relations with China, selling goods and vegetables there and promoting his pineapple politics. Han indicated that he only sought to promote business with China and would not touch thorny political issues, strongly supporting the 1992 consensus. His approach was very much in tune with what Beijing wanted; so long as Taiwan’s leader acknowledged the 1992 consensus, China would warmly welcome Taiwanese products.    [FULL  STORY]