Elections are cominG up this month both in the US and Taiwan. In the US, voters go to the polls today, while voters in Taiwan will have an opportunity to vote for the mayors of five special municipalities on Nov. 27.
In both countries the elections are likely to change the political landscape significantly: In the US, the continuing high unemployment rate and dissatisfaction with US President Barack Obama’s stimulus packages have led to the “Tea Party” revolt and a resurgence of the Republican opposition. The Republicans seem set to regain a majority in the House of Representatives and may even gain a majority in the Senate.
In Taiwan, the political atmosphere is similarly affected by the continuing high joblessness rate, but voter dissatisfaction is also driven by concerns that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration’s opening to China is leaving Taiwan vulnerable to political pressure from Beijing, which seems determined to push Taipei into an economic embrace leading to eventual unification.
The pushback against these policies, as well as a strong emphasis on good governance and local concerns, may lead to a victory for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in three or four of the five races, a significant comeback after its severe losses in the 2008 legislative and presidential elections.
These elections will thus lead to major changes in the balance of power in both countries: In the US, the Obama administration will have to deal with a Congress that is likely to assert its positions much more strongly than the Congress as presently composed. Past experience has actually shown that it is good for Taiwan if Congress is controlled by a party that is different from the party in power in the administration.
In the present situation, if the Republicans win a majority in the House, this means that Representative Illeana Ros-Lehtinen is likely to become chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee if she is re-elected in her Florida district. She has been a staunch supporter of Taiwan, urging the US government to move forward with the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan and criticizing the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed between the Ma administration and China as a “Trojan Horse.”
On the Taiwan side, a significant victory by the DPP will mean that the Ma administration will have to slow down its overtures toward China. It will mean that the government will have to be more in tune with public opinion on sensitive issues such as trade and other relations with its giant neighbor. It will also mean that it needs to take a firmer position in countering China’s coercive measures, whether it is the continuing missile buildup by China or brazen moves to force Taiwan to attend the Tokyo International Film Festival under names that imply that Taiwan is subjugate to China.
So, in the short and medium term the upcoming elections look to benefit US-Taiwan relations. However, on both sides a lot more needs to be done to bring all major political forces to work in the direction of the longer-term goal of normalizing relations between Taiwan and the outside world.
The present policies came into being in the 1970s and do not reflect the present-day reality that Taiwan is a free and democratic country that deserves a better deal. Instead of perpetuating the nation’s political isolation, we need to bring it into the fold, so that Taiwan and its people can play their rightful role as a member of the international community.
Nat Bellocchi is a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan and a special adviser to the Liberty Times Group. The views expressed in this article are his own.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS