Taiwan crossroads in 2024

As discussed in my previous article last Monday, April 3, the forthcoming presidential elections in January, 2024could prove to be crossroads that could determine Xi Jin-ping’s next move on what he considers a “renegade province.”

The present leadership is held by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) under President Tsai Ing-wen. Its main rival is the National People’s Party, also referred to as the Nationalist Party, or Kuo-min-tang (KMT).

The KMT was brought into the island by Chiang Kai-shek after he lost to the CPP under Mao Tse-tung after the Second World War and was forced to flee the mainland.

Since 1949, Chiang held Taiwan under an iron grip with the support of the US of A, and, upon his death in 1975, he was succeeded by a transition leader until his son Chiang Ching-kuo, was elected in 1978 and whose regime slowly liberalized the authoritarian rule of his father.

When Chiang Ching-kuo died of a heart attack arising from diabetes complications in 1988, he was succeeded by his vice-president, Lee Teng-hui, a former mayor of Taipei, who, as president, proceeded to fully dismantle authoritarian rule into a democratic system, where the president was chosen by the population in direct vote, as well as lower positions.

It was during Chiang Ching-kuo and Lee Teng-hui’s terms that Taiwan progressed rapidly at a time when the mainland was likewise opening up its economy under the legendary Deng Xiaoping after the death of Mao.

Lee, an agriculturist, likewise spearheaded Taiwan’s farm modernization, establishing world-class agricultural research institutes side by side with the manufacturing growth began by Ching-kuo.

In the general elections of 2000, another Taipei mayor, this time from the opposition DPP, was elected president, Chen Sui-bian.

Hounded by corruption scandals, he was later imprisoned, during which the KMT in 2008 regained power with Ma Ying-jeou, another former Taipei City mayor as president.

There is a straight line between the Taipei City Hall and the presidential palace, through the wide, tree-lined Ren-ai Boulevard. Thus it was said that whoever becomes Taipei mayor ends up in the presidency.

This was broken in 2016, when the DPP fielded an economist who never held elective positions, and a lady at that, Tsai-Ing-wen, for president. This was her second try, after losing to re-electionist Ma in 2012.

Tsai won on a strong wave of anti-mainland sentiment, where Ma was perceived to be too submissive to the PRC.

Thus, KMT’s popular candidate, the charismatic Mayor Eric Chu of New Taipei City, and before that of Taoyuan, was defeated by an introvert single lady, Tsai.

Tsai however is on her last year in office, completing two four-year terms.

But on her last year in office, after the Honduras defection to Beijing, Tsai upped the ante by meeting with Speaker Kevin McCarthy and a bi-partisan group of legislators last Wednesday in the Ronald Reagan Library in California, where assurance that the US stands by Taiwan’s democracy was reiterated.

Thus, the January 13, 2024 elections is keenly watched not only by China but the major powers with geo-political and economic interests in Taiwan, most keenly by the US of A and Japan.

A KMT win would likely cool down the cross-strait tensions that began when Tsai became president, while another DPP president might continue Tsai’s arms-length relationship with the mainland, the repudiation of the 1992 Consensus, and draw Taiwan firmly into the side of the US and Japan against China’s determination to “re-unify.”

And in the face of the currently strong anti-mainland and pro-Western sentiment of voters, especially after the forceful quelling of Hong Kong activists and the establishment of a “puppet” government in the former British crown colony, KMT’s chosen candidate in 2024 will likely tiptoe carefully on the subject of independence versus the “One China-Two Systems” solution that Beijing proffers.

Since 1992, the Taiwan electorate had never given the two major parties, the “blue” KMT’s or the “green” DPP, a continuing mandate beyond two straight terms. If the trend continues, feng shui should give KMT an edge.

Then KMT’s Lee had two terms on top of his succession of Ching-kuo; DPP’s Chen had another two; KMT’s Ma had two; followed by DPP’s Tsai who will bow down in May 2024, after transitioning to her duly elected successor in January 2024, a scant nine months away.

So who are the likely presidential candidates?

In the DPP, current vice-president Lai Chien-jen, better known by his English name William, 64 years old by the time of elections, is a current favorite.

The former premier and two-term mayor of Tainan, Lai, the son of a coal miner, is quite charismatic, and fiercely pro-independence. He is a medical doctor specializing in physical rehabilitation.

Then there is the current premier, 72-year old Chen Chien-jen, the vice-president of Tsai on her first term (2016-2020), another doctor and renowned epidemiologist who specialized at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore and was former minister of health.

A devout Roman Catholic, the deeply religious and humble Chen walks from his house daily to attend mass in the Daan district parish.

Though DPP, he is not too vocal against the mainland and could be a default candidate acceptable to the mainland over the other doctor, William Lai.

There are dark horses in the DPP stable, such as Kaohsiung Mayor Chen-Chi-mai, young at 59, another physician, or even the former premier, Su Tseng-chang, 76 come July, this time a lawyer who graduated from the National Taiwan University, and a well-rounded politician.

On the Kuomintang side, its current chairman, Eric Chu, 61, who lost to Tsai in 2016 as the KMT’s reluctant candidate, is supporting his successor as New Taipei City mayor, Hou You-yi. Hou, who will turn 66 on June 7, was director-general of the National Police Agency before becoming deputy mayor of New Taipei under Mayor Chu.

The KMT under Eric Chu’s chairmanship has taken a prudent stance vis-à-vis the mainland, not espousing independence, but proposing the strengthening of mutually beneficial economic partnership.

His becoming chairman of KMT largely dismantled the “old guard” and invited younger blood into what has been derisively termed as a “jurassic” party controlled by political “dinosaurs.”

There is a former KMT stalwart who resigned in 2020 after an unsuccessful try for the party’s presidential nomination, billionaire Terry Gou, Hon Hai Precision (better known as Foxconn International) chairman, whose company is the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, counting Apple as its major customer.

A marine technologist turned successful businessman, Gou, 73 by January, has once again publicly announced his intention to run for the presidency, and would re-apply as KMT.

Still quite young at 45 come voting time is KMT’s newly elected Taipei City Mayor Chang Wan-an, popularly nicknamed Wayne, who is the great grandson of the dictator Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, a two-term legislator and a lawyer who finished at the University of Pennsylvania and thereafter became a corporate lawyer in California before returning to Taipei to establish his legal practice and enter politics.

Preceding Wayne Chiang as mayor of Taipei, Ko Wen-je, another medical doctor, who after serving two terms from 2014 till 2022, is touted to be interested in running for president come January under his Taiwan People’s Party, a third force.

Taipei City election results last November 26 were an embarrassment to outgoing mayor Ko, and could dampen support for his presidential plans. He is now in the US to test the waters.

Unless Foxconn billionaire Terry Go gets the nod of KMT as its official candidate, he would not proceed, and has vowed to support Mayor Hou or whoever the party chooses as standard bearer.

Polls show a close three-way race with Vice-president William Lai of the DPP getting about 32 percent of the vote; while KMT’s Hou and TPP’s Ko are even-steven with 21 percent each.

But it’s a long way to go, and the smoke has not cleared on who eventually will be in the running.

The main issue would be the future of the troubled island-nation of 23.4 million at a time of disquiet possibly leading to military conflict.

“Nobody wants war,” a prominent businessman told me, adding that “only the politicians use war as a means to spend more money, and for the West, to sell us more arms.”

A retired diplomat who I asked about the willingness of Taiwanese to fight their Chinese cousins vigorously said “I would fight!”

His wife who was with us over lunch calmly riposted, “But your sons will not.”

We should have a clearer picture of the mainland vis-à-vis Taiwan affairs after the 2024 elections. For now, the scenarios would be a series of what Filipinos call “girian.”

Meanwhile, our president has agreed to have the Americans put up transport, training, support facilities, and the pre-positioning of war materiel and supplies, as well as deploying these and personnel, in nine strategically locations in the country.

Incidentally, the modern Lal-lo Airport in Cagayan, some half an hour away by plane from Kaohsiung, was built during the time of Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III, completed just before Pres. Duterte won, yet was surprisingly never opened for commercial use, is now one of those sites the joint US-RP military troops will use as a new EDCA platform.

Full text at www.manilastandard.net

Thus did Pres. Duterte call the EDCA sites “platforms for war.”

It will be best for peace-loving nations especially in Asia to use their diplomatic skills and moral suasion to prevent hostilities, and seek a peaceful resolution of the issues that hound the Taiwan Strait and it is folly to allow itself to be used by the war-hungry “elephants” who in the end will come crushing over “ants”, be it in the name of liberation or deterrence.

Let us look at our experience in World War II: Our soldiers and civilians died; our women were raped; our people suffered hunger in a quarrel between the mighty.

We had scores of military installations all over our islands. They became immediate targets of the Japanese.

And when “liberation” by our colonial masters came, a bit too late at that, Manila became the most devastated city in Asia, and in the whole world, second only to Warsaw in Poland.

Liberation bombs from American planes did it.

When will we ever learn?