The presidential and legislative elections are over and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was re-elected in a landslide, with more than 8 million votes, the highest in any presidential election since Taiwan’s first direct presidential election in 1996. What is more worth mentioning is that this came after the Tsai administration introduced controversial policies during her first term and the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) drubbing in the November 2018 nine-in-one local elections, less than a year and a half ago. How did this incredible result come about?
Although Taiwan does not allow exit polls to provide age information about voters, most post-election analyses show that the DPP’s greatest advantage was with voters under the age of 40. Why did this demographic not vote for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)? Some of the reasons of course have to do with the individual candidates, but considering Tsai’s hard-to-beat 8 million votes, who among the pan-blue camp would dare claim to have been able to defeat her had they been the KMT presidential candidate in this election?
We thus come back to the unavoidable question: Why is it that the KMT cannot gain the trust of young voters? In other words, given the protests dragging on in Hong Kong and the DPP’s manipulation of public fear that the nation is facing impending doom, is there anything the KMT can do?
The KMT constantly tries to persuade voters that supporting the so-called “1992 consensus” and strengthening cross-strait economic ties does not mean that Taiwan would fall into China’s “united front” trap or that Beijing would use business relations to force political talks, but it is clear that the public is not buying it.
The fundamental solution to this trust problem is to promote the development of democracy and human rights in China.
The sense of impending doom that many Taiwanese have comes from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) continuing efforts to suppress democracy, freedom and human rights in its own nation, and this is one of the reasons that the DPP, which tries to resist China, has remained in power.
If the KMT still hopes to return to the executive branch and keep cross-strait unification as an option for Taiwan, it must address how its biggest teammate, the CCP, is assisting its biggest opponent, the DPP.
Regrettably, the KMT has made no indication whatsoever in this regard. Just imagine if China could be democratized, abandon its threat of military invasion of Taiwan, allow direct elections of Hong Kong’s chief executive, close the concentration camps in Xinjiang and allow the Dalai Lama to return to Tibet — would Taiwanese then have any reason to fear China?
Many people obviously think there is no way that would happen. After all, the painful case of democracy advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲) is still ongoing. However, Lee is a member of the DPP. If even the DPP, which advocates Taiwanese independence, has members with lofty ideals trying to cultivate the seedlings of democracy in China, is there any reason that the pro-unification KMT should not be doing the same thing?
Pu Yi-hao is an automotive engineer in the UK.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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