Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a Web site belonging to the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, projected on Nov. 5 that US President Barack Obama was likely to win 290 electoral votes, while his main rival, Republican candidate Mitt Romney, would get 248 electoral votes. It also predicted that the Democrats would maintain a Senate majority of 53 seats compared with the Republicans’ 47, and that the Republicans would maintain a House majority of 239 seats compared with the Democrats’ 196 seats. The projections were very close to the final election results and the site’s credibility has increased.
Before the election, Obama was leading Romney in most public polls. Indeed, many thought that the presidential debates would not affect the election results, but after Romney was considered to have won the first debate in Denver, Colorado, his support ratings improved. In the second and third debates in New York and Boca Raton, Florida, Obama took full advantage of the incumbent’s complete access to information and used Facebook, Twitter and other channels to reach out to voters and supporters with this information. The presidential debates, and the use of television advertisements and Facebook could serve as a good reference for Taiwan.
The so-called “October surprise” is usually the biggest variable before a US presidential election in November. In October 1948, when then-Democratic president Harry Truman was running for re-election against the Republicans’ Thomas Dewey, he sent then-chief justice Fred Vinson to meet with Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin, thus creating the false impression that the Cold War was about to end.
In October 1972, then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger announced at a press conference that the Vietnam War was about to end and that peace was expected, although three years later, the US lost the war. In October 2004, then-president George W. Bush released a video in which Osama bin Laden said he planned the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Last month, Hurricane Sandy forced the two parties’ candidates to put their presidential campaigns on hold. Still, as the incumbent, Obama’s role in the rescue and relief work won the praise of Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, making it yet another “October surprise.” At the last moment, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the UK’s Financial Times ran editorials endorsing Obama, and their endorsements were partly related to his performance during the hurricane crisis.
Aside from the US presidential election, China, Japan and South Korea are also facing leadership changes or elections. The ongoing islands dispute involving these three countries might affect Obama’s strategic pivot to Asia. Had Romney been elected, he would have cited China as a “currency manipulator” and sold F-16C/D jets to Taiwan, thus possibly causing confrontation between the new Chinese and US leaders. With Romney’s defeat, this pessimistic scenario was likely avoided.
On the other hand, the Obama administration has always been overcautious when it comes to selling arms to Taiwan and Obama has failed to keep his 2008 campaign pledge that he would send members of his Cabinet to visit the country. Although US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said that Taiwan is “an important security and economic partner,” she has expressed reservations in private regarding President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policies in the South and East China seas. Still, like other northeastern Asian countries, the Ma administration welcomed Obama’s re-election.
Challenged by Romney, Obama has now adopted a tougher stance toward China. On Sept. 28, he cited the US Defense Production Act to block Chinese-controlled Ralls Corp from building four wind farms close to a naval base in Oregon due to national security concerns. He has also repeatedly brought China to the WTO’s Solution Mechanism for Disputes for engaging in unfair trade practices. Moreover, he is gradually moving the US toward a containment of China as he shifts the center of US global strategy toward Asia.
During Obama’s second term, it will be easier for his administration to deal with the challenges posed by China’s rise and the new administration led by its next president, Xi Jinping (習近平). If Beijing and Washington want to promote regional coexistence and mutual prosperity in the face of Obama’s strategic shift toward the Asia-Pacific region, they will have to find their way forward through the friction as they go.
Lin Cheng-yi is a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies.
Translated By Eddy Chang
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
US President Donald Trump has announced his eagerness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while in South Korea for the APEC summit. That implies a possible revival of US-North Korea talks, frozen since 2019. While some would dismiss such a move as appeasement, renewed US engagement with North Korea could benefit Taiwan’s security interests. The long-standing stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang has allowed Beijing to entrench its dominance in the region, creating a myth that only China can “manage” Kim’s rogue nation. That dynamic has allowed Beijing to present itself as an indispensable power broker: extracting concessions from Washington, Seoul
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
Taiwan’s labor force participation rate among people aged 65 or older was only 9.9 percent for 2023 — far lower than in other advanced countries, Ministry of Labor data showed. The rate is 38.3 percent in South Korea, 25.7 percent in Japan and 31.5 percent in Singapore. On the surface, it might look good that more older adults in Taiwan can retire, but in reality, it reflects policies that make it difficult for elderly people to participate in the labor market. Most workplaces lack age-friendly environments, and few offer retraining programs or flexible job arrangements for employees older than 55. As
RSS