World polticial bigwigs have congratulated Lai Ching-te for winning Taiwan’s presidential election.They appluad the high voting turnout and democratic process – and facing heat from Beijing, which desired to see Taiwan’s ruling party ousted.
Lai secured an unprecedented third term in power for the pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive party (DPP) in Saturday’s election, obtaining over 40% of the total polled vote. Lai is succeeding the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen, who has been in power since 2016, vowing to uphold her foreign policy efforts in resisting China’s plans to annex Taiwan.
A spokesperson for the US state department congratulated the Taiwanese people “for once again demonstrating the strength of their robust democratic system and electoral process”.
Briefing the reporters just after the result, US president Joe Biden, who intends to dispatch an unofficial delegation to Taiwan next week, reiterated that the US does not endorse Taiwanese independence.
However, China’s foreign ministry said on Sunday that the US state department statement “seriously deplores” US promises that it would only maintain cultural, economic and other non-official ties with Taiwan”. The Chinese ministry said it had lodged “solemn representations” with the US over the comments.
The US, the UK, the European Union and Canada also congratulated to the DPP. The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, said the result was “testament to Taiwan’s vibrant democracy”.
However the Chinese embassy in the UK said it “firmly opposed the wrong actions of the British side”, and urged the UK government to “stop any words or deeds that interfere in China’s internal affairs”.
A congratulatory statement by Japan’s foreign minister, Yoko Kamikawa, calling Taiwan as “an extremely crucial partner and an important friend,” was also criticised by Beijing’s embassy in Tokyo as “a serious interference in China’s internal affairs”.
Beijing said it had made “solemn representations” to Tokyo over the statement, which highly reiterated Japan’s previous statements.
Japan “shares fundamental values and enjoys close economic relations and people-to-people exchanges [with Taiwan],” Kamikawa had also stated.
The well documented hostile response to Lai’s victory from China has been widely known. The ruling Chinese Communist party regards Taiwan as part of its territory, despite never having governed the island. Xi Jinping, China’s autocratic president, has made his mind clear that “re-unifying” China and Taiwan is a priority, and he will not hesitate to use force to achieve this purpose. It despises the DPP, which it views as separatists, and launched rhetorical and cognitive warfare efforts in an ultimately failed attempt to influence voters into ousting the party.
Speaking after the result on Saturday, Chen Binhua, the spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) repeated its stance that “Taiwan is China’s Taiwan”, and reiterated its commitment to the “inevitable trend” of annexation.
“This election cannot alter the fundamental pattern and direction of development of cross-strait relations … that the motherland will eventually be reunified.”
On Sunday Taiwan’s foreign ministry condemned the comments as “fallacious”, “absurd”, and “not worthy of rebuttal”.
It said that Taiwan was an “internal Chinese matter” was “totally inconsistent with the international perception and the cross-strait situation, and goes against the expectation of the global democratic community, and the will of the people of Taiwan in insisting on the value of democracy”.
Dali Yang, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, said the TAO also faced criticism from nationalists in China who felt that efforts to influence public sentiment in Taiwan to become more pro-China had failed.
In recent years, Beijing has intensified military and economic pressure on Taiwan, rising concerns among international observers that a conflict could be imminent. The CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said on Friday it was on “high alert” and ready to “smash” plots of Taiwanese independence, although its activity remained subdued on the actual election day.
Amanda Hsiao, a Taipei-based senior China analyst with the International Crisis Group, said Beijing was likely to react to Lai’s victory with heightened pressure, particularly in the period leading up to his inauguration in May. However , the activity was obviously going to be less overtly aggressive than the large-scale military drills seen in recent years.
“They labelled Lai as a troublemaker, so there is some expectation that they respond,” she said.
China urges its allies to back its territorial claim over Taiwan. On Saturday, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that Moscow continued to view Taiwan as an integral part of China.
In response, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said Russia had “willingly become a thug of the Chinese Communist regime” deliberately promoting its “One China policy”, Beijing’s domestic policy claiming Taiwan as a Chinese province.
Lai has called his win a “victory for the community of democracies” around the world. Almost 72% of eligible voters turned out on Saturday to give the DPP a third term, but it came without a majority mandate.
The entry of a third party – the Taiwan People’s party (TPP) and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je – divided the opposition vote, with the TPP securing 26.4% and the Kuomintang (KMT) 33.5%.
The TPP also won eight legislative yuan seats, giving Ko extraordinary power in the 113-seat parliament where neither the DPP nor the KMT won a majority of seats, taking 51 and 52 respectively.
“Taiwan has finally officially entered into a three-party system, which further complicates consensus-building specially for major legislations,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a China expert at the Australian National University.
Yang, the University of Chicago professor, said: “each contesting party got less than they desired, but a little bit more than they prepared for”. Yang said the same applied to China: Beijing was opposed to a Lai victory, but welcomed the fact that the DPP lost control of parliament, which will harm Lai’s policymaking.
