With Taiwan’s presidential election fast approaching, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) released a campaign advertisement for its presidential candidate Vice President William Lai (賴清德) and his running mate Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴). The ad, on the theme of “On the Road,” has been viewed and “liked” by a huge number of people across various social media platforms.
The video starts with Lai and outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) traveling in a car, with Tsai at the wheel, talking about their cooperation in government over the past few years. After a while the car stops, Tsai gets out and in steps Hsiao, as Lai takes the wheel. After Tsai bids them farewell, Lai and Hsiao drive off, while talking about what direction they should take from now on.
In an atmosphere of strictly one-or-the-other ideologies generating various kinds of political hate speech, the campaign video presents a contrasting ambience. The lighting, composition and imagery are all gentle, as is the tone of the conversations, in which the main points are made.
“Recruit outstanding talents from various fields to join the legislature,” “do not be careless about choosing a deputy,” “the most important thing is to safeguard Taiwan’s democracy.” “We will follow the path of democracy forever.” These excerpts from the dialogue all typify the DPP’s consistent style of governance.
A couple of days ago I had a conversation with an elder figure in the field of politics. Regarding the prospects for Taiwan’s presidential election during the final countdown to election day, he was of the opinion that Taiwan People’s Party presidential candidate Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) lack of core principles might cause voters who were originally inclined to vote for him to cast their ballots for the “blue” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) or the “green” DPP instead. He said that the way those votes go will be the key factor that decides which of those two parties wins the elections. He also said that some unexpected incident might cause the votes to go one way or another.
That might be true, but I would also say that we must not overlook the trends among Taiwan’s swing voters. At the same time, among those voters who are defined as “deep blue” or “deep green,” the key question is whether they can exercise independent critical thinking in choosing how to cast their votes, and especially whether the fans of former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who stood unsuccessfully as the KMT’s presidential candidate in 2020, could realize how they have been turned into electoral tools by the KMT.
Another statement made in the DPP ad is: “If you go abroad, you will see how far ahead Taiwan really is among countries.”
Taiwan is also a real model of democracy for the world’s ethnic Chinese. This country has plenty of room for diversity and it strives for peace, democracy and progress. That is something that cannot be achieved by the Chinese Communist Party, which worships dictators and autocrats, and has often engaged in violent internal struggles.
Knight Chang is a political worker and doctor of education.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past