GARY J. SCHMITT
On the ground, among the remarkable crowds, there was nevertheless a sense of foreboding among some Taiwanese about how these elections would turn out.
It was only a year ago that Taiwan’s incumbent President, Tsai Ing-wen, was down in the polls by double-digit margins to the prospective Kuomintang (KMT) candidate, Han Kuo-yu, the recently elected Mayor of the southern port city Kaohsiung. Even as late as May, she was behind by 15 points. Yet, on Saturday night, President Tsai was re-elected in a landslide, totaling up a record presidential vote count of more than eight million and with a margin of nearly 20 points over Han. It was an unprecedented swing.
Arriving Friday morning from an overnight flight from the United States, I was taken aback by how nervous friends in Taiwan were about the election itself. Tsai, after all, was ahead in the polls, and by a good margin in most cases. Even on the streets, the KMT’s final rally in Taipei on Thursday evening drew at most 300,000, while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rally on Friday evening was probably closer to half a million.
Yet the uncertainty was palpable: How successful had Chinese interference in the electoral process been? What would the turnout be? So much of Tsai’s popularity in the polls appeared to rest on the support of younger Taiwanese—an age group notoriously noisy and active, but less likely to vote. Confusing things further, Han had told his supporters to stop answering their phones and the pollsters’ questions in the weeks headed into the election. How accurate, then, were the late polls showing Tsai with her double-digit lead? Would there be, as many expected, the normal closing of the gap as Election Day neared? And how would you know whether that was actually happening given Han’s directive?
Given the actual result, one might be inclined to dismiss the worries as just “ghosts in the closet.” But that would be a bit unfair. For one, Chinese interference was real. And from a historical point of view, it would be rare for an incumbent whose policy track record was not seen as wildly popular to sweep to reelection, let alone keep the existing majority in the Legislative Yuan (LY), Taiwan’s national assembly. But the real and underlying reason for the nervousness had less to do with everyday politics and more to do what the majority of Taiwan’s citizens saw as the real issue at hand: preserving Taiwan’s democracy and effective independence from the People’s Republic.
© Gary Schmitt
The KMT, of course, wants to argue that its loss was due to its candidate’s poor performance and ineffective messaging, rather than its position on cross-Strait relations. But after events in Hong Kong, Xi’s less than subtle bullying of Taiwan, and a greater appreciation for the overt and covert efforts by the mainland to influence political opinion and races on the island, most Taiwanese were not willing to take the chance that a candidate of a party still mouthing versions of “one China” would be given the land’s highest office. These concerns were also broadly reflected in various polls on Taiwanese identity and cross-Strait relations. Over the past year, there had been a jump in the percentage of the island’s citizens who identified as “Taiwanese,” as opposed to the steady decline in the number who see themselves as “Chinese.” And there had been an increase in the percentage of those who, while still temporarily in favor of the “status quo” when it comes to cross-Strait relations, in the long term would like the future end state to be the island’s “independence.”
In retrospect, given these trends and factors, perhaps Tsai’s victory should not have come as a surprise. But the size of victory was nevertheless impressive: She took 57 percent of the vote to Han’s 38 percent, with perennial candidate James Soong left with just over 4 percent. And not only was Tsai’s margin large, it rested on a turnout of over 74 percent of eligible voters, a jump of some 8 percent from 2016. As one can see from pictures and videos, the intensity of support for Tsai, who is far from the most charismatic of politicians, was high.
Two other thoughts come to mind as the reality of the election results settle in here in Taipei.
First, Tsai’s margin of victory probably was a decisive factor in the DPP keeping a majority in the Legislative Yuan. But that sweeping victory did not keep the DPP from losing seats, dropping from 68 to 61. Moreover, in the party balloting (where Taiwanese vote a party list in addition to their vote for President and their district representative) the percentage that went to the DPP was 33.9 percent—only slightly more than the 33.3 percent that voted for the KMT, with the rest of the votes going to minor parties. For both the KMT and the DPP, this percentage is only a bit higher than what recent polls show party identification to be.
This suggests a not insubstantial number of voters split their ballots, perhaps hedging about what they would like to see more of in day-to-day politics. If the presidential race was one about Taiwan’s fundamental future, then, arguably, the lower vote for the DPP in party ballots might suggest the DPP should worry about being seen as better in actual governing these next four years while the KMT has room to recapture a majority if it can turn itself into a truly “Taiwanese” party whose loyalties and focus is on the island rather than cross-Strait ties. There is a significant portion of the Taiwanese electorate that is independent and would probably welcome a choice between two major parties in which the political disputes are more about taxes, energy, social welfare, and the like, rather than unification or independence.
Second, not to be overlooked is the remarkable note of congratulations issued by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on both Tsai’s reelection and Taiwan’s “once again demonstrating the strength of its robust democratic system.” Taiwan, according to the Secretary, is “a model for the Indo-Pacific region and a force for good in the world.” He also said, “The American people and the people on Taiwan are not just partners—we are members of the same community of democracies, bonded by our shared political, economic and international values.” Applauding President Tsai for “her commitment to cross-Strait stability in the face of unrelenting pressure,” Secretary Pompeo came as close to recognizing the country of Taiwan as a diplomatic and political ally as any in recent memory.
Given Taiwan’s growth as a democracy, it’s a recognition well deserved. Given Taiwan’s strategic importance in the geo-strategic competition with China, it’s also in America’s interest to see it as such.
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