The people of Taiwan should be proud of their success in consolidating democracy over recent decades. Taiwan enjoys a vibrant civil society, a flourishing media, individual liberties, and an independent judiciary that is capable of serving as a check on abuses of power. Taiwan voters have ushered in three peaceful transfers of power between major political parties in the past two decades. Nowadays, even as democracies in other parts of the world are bending under the weight of populist and nationalist surges, Taiwan steadily serves as a democratic beacon for the region and the world.
At the same time, Taiwan faces a unique challenge to its democratic form of governance from mainland China. Beijing uses a range of tools to influence attitudes in Taiwan. These include squeezing Taiwan’s international space through diplomatic isolation, coopting Taiwan’s companies and its best talents through incentives to relocate to the mainland, exercising military power along Taiwan’s periphery, and penetrating Taiwan’s political system with monetary, cyber, and media tools. The mainland is united in its efforts to pull Taiwan closer to the mainland, with the ultimate aim of peaceful integration.
In the face of Beijing’s persistent efforts, Taiwan’s main political parties remain divided on how to respond. There are strong disagreements over questions such as: whether the mainland poses more of an economic opportunity or security threat; whether closer economic integration with the mainland would put Taiwan on a slippery slope toward becoming subsumed politically by the mainland; whether Taiwan needs to go through the mainland to reach the outside world, or whether it should bypass the mainland and open its doors to other partners; and how much priority to place on defense spending. The divides between the Blue and Green camps over cross-Strait questions run deep, have been engrained over decades of debates, and are unlikely to be bridged in the remaining months leading up to the 2020 elections.
As presidential aspirants approach the 2020 election, they will face a choice. They can seek to play on divisions over cross-Strait issues to seek partisan advantage. Or, they can choose instead to concentrate on domestic challenges that most directly touch the lives of their voters, while also uniting in opposition to external interference in Taiwan’s electoral processes. The record of recent elections shows that stoking partisan passions over cross-Strait issues can have a powerful mobilizing effect.
As politically opportunistic as it might be for politicians to seek to play on cross-Strait issues to rally support, it also could come at a cost to Taiwan’s long-term public good. Stirring up public sentiment on cross-Strait relations will not unite the people of Taiwan behind a common approach, no matter how charismatic the politician. Such attempts could, however, crowd out much needed public debates around key domestic challenges, such as how best to increase youth employment, craft a sustainable energy policy, expand access to affordable housing, reduce inequality, and improve Taiwan’s ability to attract foreign investment, innovation, and expertise.
The durability of Taiwan’s democratic model ultimately will depend upon its ability to deliver results that matter to the people of Taiwan. That is why my Brookings Institution colleague Richard Bush and I recently wrote a report encouraging Taiwan’s leaders to exercise pragmatism, including by working to build a centrist consensus between both major political parties (and other parties if possible) on the need to make the political system more effective in addressing the internal challenges Taiwan faces. Moving in this direction would revitalize public confidence in the ability of Taiwan’s democratic system to deliver on the demands and expectations of its people.
If Taiwan’s political leaders are able to find a way to set down their swords for the next year from attacking each other over cross-Strait issues, and instead work in a constructive spirit to focus political debate around how best to deliver outcomes that strengthen Taiwan’s society and economy, they would bolster Taiwan’s ability to preserve the status quo. Sustaining the status quo is an outcome that is overwhelmingly supported by Taiwan’s voters.
If, on the other hand, Taiwan’s political leaders succumb to sowing divisions over cross-Strait issues, including through attempts to use referenda to gin up support for status quo-altering initiatives, they may enjoy short-term political gain, but will do so at the risk of sapping Taiwan’s long-term strength and stability.
The biggest beneficiary of a divided Taiwan is the mainland. The mainland benefits from polarization and political stagnation in Taiwan. A more fractured political system that is less able to meet the needs of its people makes for an easier target for Beijing to pull in its preferred direction.
President Tsai (蔡英文) has focused the world’s attention on Taiwan’s democracy, including by describing it as the first line of defense for the free world. Now she and other leaders in Taiwan have an opportunity to set an example for the democratic world of putting the long-term interests of society ahead of the short-term interests of an election. I hope they make the most of it.
Ryan Hass is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, where he holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies.
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
When it became clear that the world was entering a new era with a radical change in the US’ global stance in US President Donald Trump’s second term, many in Taiwan were concerned about what this meant for the nation’s defense against China. Instability and disruption are dangerous. Chaos introduces unknowns. There was a sense that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might have a point with its tendency not to trust the US. The world order is certainly changing, but concerns about the implications for Taiwan of this disruption left many blind to how the same forces might also weaken
As the new year dawns, Taiwan faces a range of external uncertainties that could impact the safety and prosperity of its people and reverberate in its politics. Here are a few key questions that could spill over into Taiwan in the year ahead. WILL THE AI BUBBLE POP? The global AI boom supported Taiwan’s significant economic expansion in 2025. Taiwan’s economy grew over 7 percent and set records for exports, imports, and trade surplus. There is a brewing debate among investors about whether the AI boom will carry forward into 2026. Skeptics warn that AI-led global equity markets are overvalued and overleveraged
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
RSS