British newspaper the Observer said recently that of the more than 40 countries holding national elections next year, Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections are the tensest. It is hardly surprising that Taiwan has been underscored by international media.
In the past few years, Taiwan, once a marginalized country, has attracted a lot of attention. The Observer’s report was concerned with elections next year in democratic countries. One of its purposes was to investigate whether they would consolidate authoritarianism and dictatorship or revitalize democratic systems.
The article said that every presidential and legislative candidate, as well as voters, should consider how a post-election Taiwan might be perceived by the world. What could happen if a certain party wins the presidency? Which political parties are considered to be in alignment with authoritarianism and dictatorship, and which are considered capable of revitalizing the democratic system?
The result of a national election certainly affects the development and direction of a country. In that sense, elections are domestic affairs.
However, it is important to consider the international community and ask why some political parties are categorized as being detrimental to democracy and to global democratic forces.
Some politicians and their supporters have accused their rivals of “red-bashing,” but the Western media have already identified who the friends of the “reds” are.
Countries in the free world have reviewed Taiwan’s political parties and judged them accordingly. Before this year’s APEC summit in San Francisco, US President Joe Biden arranged a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), telling Xi directly and in person that China should not interfere in Taiwan’s presidential and legislative elections. Biden’s message could not have been clearer, and he implied that some of Taiwan’s political parties and the Chinese government communicate.
As Biden suggested, the political party supported by Beijing will certainly be affected by Beijing, and that political party will not be appreciated by the US.
Every presidential candidate in Taiwan must be asked if it is okay to offend the US and hence damage Taiwan’s national interest.
As the Observer article said, in a democracy like Taiwan, “determined people are allowed a real choice amid fierce external pressures.”
The pressures, of course, come from China, including cultural and military tactics, cognitive warfare and economic coercion. At this critical moment, how could a political party in Taiwan still be an ally of China?
The presidential and legislative elections are held every four years, and the campaigns are intense.
However, no matter how ferocious the rhetoric is, it arises from domestic contradictions, which should be mediated within a democratic system.
Elections are meant to be a display of Taiwan’s democratic vibrancy, but Taiwanese and other democracies worry that outsiders are intervening. The vote has become a struggle involving the “enemy.”
In other words, some domestic forces have worked with foreign groups and their collaboration has been recognized by the international community.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) must be singled out. The global democratic camp considers the KMT to be in opposition to democracy.
With Taiwan under great pressure from Beijing in the run-up to Jan. 13, KMT elites have further erased the distinction between their own party and the Chinese Communist Party.
After Beijing announced that it would suspend tariff cuts on imports of 12 product categories from Taiwan, the KMT took it lightly. It has blurred the division between “communication” and “collaboration with the enemy,” acting in an arbitrary manner, keeping everything secret and refusing to report to the people.
On Dec. 13, KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) visited China. The Taiwanese public still does not know what the visit was about or what the KMT was planning. Perhaps it does not care about the elections and voters.
Is the KMT backing authoritarianism and dictatorship? Has it ever tried to revitalize the democratic system?
This time, the KMT has clearly crossed the line.
Tzou Jiing-wen is editor-in-chief of the Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times).
Translated by Emma Liu
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