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• Says relations with China still lovely
By Emma Emeozor
The world stood still for Taiwan on Saturday, January 13, 2024. It was the day it held its general election. The rumour mill was buzzing with tension-filled stories fuelled by the fierce campaign that trailed the election.
More worrisome were unconfirmed reports that the Island may be invaded by Beijing if the people chose to vote for the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has remained opposed to unification with China.
But despite the anxiety, the election held peacefully and the defeated candidates and their parties accepted the results unconditionally. Three presidential candidates contested the elections: Current Vice President Lai William Ching-te, 64, who is also the Chairman DPP. His running mate was former Ambassador to the United States, Hsiao Bi-khim (also known as Louise Hsiao); Hou Yu-Ih, 66, of the main opposition party, Kuomintang (KMT) which traditionally favours closer ties with China. Hou’s running mate was Jaw Shaw-kong and Ko We-je, 64, of Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). Ko’s running mate was Cynthia Wu, a lawmaker and business executive.
Undoubtedly, Taiwanese have used the occasion of the election to affirm their commitment to the sustainability of political harmony and peaceful environment for socio-economic development and growth more than ever before.
And as the Island looks forward to inaugurating the new government in May, 2024, the Representative and Chief of Taiwan Mission in Nigeria, Andy Yiping Liu, in this post-election chat with Daily Sun, explains how the South East Asia Island was able to conduct a violent-free election. He also commented on what to expect from the new government, gender equality and the Island’s relations with China as well as the role of foreign allies:
What the poll result meant for Taiwan
The election of a new government meant quite a lot for Taiwan citizens because it brought to a successful and peaceful end the process of campaign in the last several months and the ballot casting to determine which of the political parties will govern Taiwan for the next four years.
The result have two different meaning: who will become the new president because the incumbent president Tsai would be finishing her tenure in May 2024 after two terms (eight years) in line with our constitution which allows the president only two terms in office after which he or she was no longer eligible for election. The result of the election has demonstrated that the ruling party, DPP, has won the people s’ trust to continue ruling.
Message to Nigerians, others
So, my message to the world or to our good friends in Nigeria is that democracy has become a way of life for Taiwanese people. We have practiced it well enough to conduct very open, peaceful, free and fair elections.
The ballots were counted and the results were broadcasted in all the television stations and YouTube live. The media was well represented and allowed to do its work without any molestation or intimidation from any quarters. The presidential candidates that lost openly conceded defeat and congratulated the winner who is the current Vice President in the current government.
DPP, first party to win three consecutive terms
This will be the first time in our democratic history that the ruling party has successfully run for two consecutive terms and then, winning a third straight term. The people have shown confidence in the ruling DPP by willingly giving it a third term.
But on the other hand, the parliamentary election result has shown that the opposition party, KMT won with a slight majority which makes both the ruling party and the opposition party to have a fair competition in the parliament. This is good because it shows how voters would like to give mandate to both the ruling party and the opposition party not only to represent them in the parliament but at the same time give a fair chance to both parties to do a good job on behalf of their constituencies. This also helps to promote good legislation and policies in the near future that will bring benefits to the people.
Taiwan democracy getting more matured
Taiwanese way of practicing democracy is getting a bit more matured than before. This is because in some way, it shows that they favour the ruling party to continuously retain the presidency while giving chance to politicians of both the ruling party and the opposition party to represent their respective constituencies and cooperate and compete to achieve whatever they consider good of the people.
The constitution has granted the people full democratic right to vote and the political parties a fair chance to contest and perform in government both at the presidency and the legislature.
Madam President, symbol of gender equality
The issue of gender equality in Taiwan politics is getting less and less discussed or debated because we already have Madam President, Tsai Ing-wen in office for eight years and the incoming Vice President-elect is also a woman, a very popular politician who will assist the President-elect to form a new government.
Of course the new government will include women as ministers, though I can’t tell now what percentage will be appointed. Probably, we will see a new parliament come up with a new ratio of female to male legislators. We have about 43 to 44 percent of female legislators in the outgoing parliament.
But for us, it might not be much of the issue of gender equality because the political parties have demonstrated their willingness to have female politicians who will exercise equal rights with their male colleagues at all levels of political participation.
For example, one of the three political parties that lost the election had a female Vice Presidential candidate and the winning party also had a female Vice Presidential candidate.
So, gender equality is not an issue in our politics. As long as people trust a person to represent their constituency in the parliament, whoever it is – male or female, it doesn’t matter. So for now, we don’t see much difference in whoever is running for the office(s) either in the parliament or the presidency.
We want to continue to see that gender equality is encouraged and not made an issue in our political environment, because it is a very good example for the generation to come. Whoever is qualified and wants to represent his or her community or constituency, it is really a matter for the people’s choice that determine.
Taiwan-China relations still lovely
As for what might come up for Taiwan-China relations following the outcome of the election, I think it is still a lovely relation. Traditionally and cultural, both sides speak the same language: Mandarin. Although we still have our own Taiwanese dialect, the official language or publicly spoken language is still Mandarin, not to mention about the food. Taiwanese society has kept the best of Chinese cooking or the best way of Chinese cuisine has been kept. Because we operate a free society and free economy, the varieties of Chinese food in Taiwan have been greatly large. We have merged a lot of Chinese ingredients with ours. So, we think of ourselves, culturally and language-wise as being the same family.
. . . What makes Taiwan different from China?
But in mentality and ideology, there is so much difference because we have been practicing democracy for four to five decades now. But the situation in China is exactly opposite. The ruling party in China, the Chinese Communist Party, has been ‘shrinking’ the people to impress themselves; there is tight control of the Internet, the government heavily controls free press (journalism), even the content of their You Tube or Internet influencer(s).
We cannot imagine why the Chinese government should continuously say to the world that they own Taiwan . . . which is the problem. We are not! We have never been under China’s jurisdiction or sovereignty. They have never governed us; they have never stepped into Taiwan, never!
They established themselves in Beijing on 1 October 1949 as Peoples Republic of China (PRC). But our republic (Taiwan) has been established long before the PRC and has continuously existed for 112 years. This year we are going to celebrate the 113th anniversary of our republic.
Interestingly, we have never had any kind of war between us over for half a century because we (Taiwanese) are practical, we want to do business, we want to make money together, so, the rhetoric of the Beijing government on the status of Taiwan that it keep on repeating all over again is not acceptable to us at all. We do not trust them that they can represent Taiwan, that they are can do anything good enough to give Taiwanese the benefits of well being.
Taiwan will continue to defend, protect democratic values
The more we practice our way of life and the more we have our regular four-year election, it simply demonstrates that we treasure democratic values. So, we will do whatever we can to protect and defend the system that we have established by ourselves through the free will of the people.
Like I said earlier, we have no trust in Beijing, not even their own people (Chinese) trust their government. The people cannot express their free will democratically; they cannot cast their ballot to elect their own president. The people did not elect their president. May be they conducted some kind of election but it was not directly by the Chinese people.
In Taiwan, we (the people) vote directly for the president, the vice president and the parliamentarians. We did not vote for President Xi Jinping of China, which means he is not our president. The Chinese Communist Party is not a Taiwan political party; they have nothing to do with us, whatever they want to do with Hong Kong that is their own issue.
Rather, we want to mind our own business in Taiwan. We vote for our president and our representatives according to our constitution. We feel sorry for the Chinese people, we feel sorry about the people of Hong Kong. But for the time being, we can only protect ourselves, we can only perform our constitutional right, and for the Chinese people, we give them our best wishes, we hope one day they will vote for their president directly.
Whoever is their president is resident in China and whoever had been the president and the chairman of the ruling Communist Party have been repeating the same rhetoric for 70 years.
But during this seven decades, they have never succeed to convince us, they have been saying that they would attack us, they will invade us, they would like to liberate us and try to use force to get us unite with them, we don’t simply buy their story, it is not our way of life, we don’t believe in that, they may chose to do it peacefully or by force, that is their own choice.
But we don’t want to poke them; we don’t want to irritate them. We do not want to give them a chance to raise their armed forces and invade us, we practice democracy to choose our leaders, and we do not want to change our constitution.
Rather, we want to be guided by our constitution. We remain under the Republic of China (ROC), the same flag, the same form of government, same form of parliament; it has nothing to do with change in the status quo that means Taiwan is part of the Republic of China under our current government and according to our constitution.
On Taiwan independence
We did not go to the poll to decide whether to have Taiwan independence or not. People might have the appeal, people might voice their opinion to say Taiwan should be separated from China and we should change our constitution. But this cannot be done without a referendum, without a parliamentary act, but this is not the issue we went to the poll to decide, it has nothing to do with constitutional amendment even though certain political parties may come with up the idea of abolishing our current constitution or we should amend the constitution, change our name, change our flag. Before anything can be done, we must have a consensus, appealing for . . . or strong enough to demonstrate a kind of majority acceptance.
But without due process of constitutional procedure like a referendum or a constitutional amendment passed by the parliament, nothing can be done. I do not know whether it will become an issue in the near future.
Focus of the incoming govt
The new government will be inaugurated in May but I don’t think Taiwan independence or the issue of China will be the most urgent issue for it to consider. Regarding the China issue, maintaining status quo is the main concern of Taiwanese. This is irrespective of which political party is in power. I think the most urgent issue would be how to improve on the lives of the people, the infrastructure, the economy, what will benefit the people, this is going to be the area of concentration for the new government.
China may put pressure on our allies
Following the outcome of the election, China may put pressure on some of our foreign allies from supporting us.
Sometimes we are worried that Taiwan could lose the trust and confidence of important nations like the United States, Australia, Japan, some Asiatic countries, European Union countries, etc. But at the same time we are inspired because we have witnessed so far the strongest support and also very extensive military support coming from the U.S. and also collaboration among our non-diplomatic allies apart from the U.S. I am thinking of countries like Japan, Vietnam, India, etc.
They have all shown strong interest in the exchange of military cooperation with Taiwan or paramilitary cooperation with Taiwan because they have seen that Taiwan had been a very important stakeholder in the region, chatting her own way of life and her own way of democracy.
Of course, the collaboration is successfully deterring China from making funny moves to invade Taiwan. And like I have said earlier, we do not provide the Chinese any excuse to raise any kind of military adventure or action against us because maintaining the status quo is the most important and the biggest consensus in Taiwan.
Why Taiwan, China must maintain the status quo
How to maintain the status quo might be quite different for the different political parties. Over 75 percent of opinion poll supports the maintaining of the status quo that is Taiwan and China remaining where they are now without taking any unilateral decision to attack each other.
The Chinese are sending their jets or naval fleet around us but we do not want to shoot them. However, if they cross over to our territory, flying over our airspace, we might shoot them. But they have never done that. They try to terrify us but they have never taken any step militarily to invade Taiwan.
We do not want to shoot them first and we certainly do not want them to shoot us, this is something like self-constraint by both sides. Unlike the situation between North Korea and South Korea after the war, when the United Nations intervened, there had been no dialogue between Taiwan and China for many years now.
But that does not mean that Taiwan do not want to have dialogue with Beijing. The Chinese Communist Party in Beijing cut off the communication channels for over 10 years now. They do not want to talk with our ruling party, but that does not mean that our ruling party does not want to talk with them. It may take some more years to have this kind of dialogue. But as I mentioned earlier, majority of opinion poll in Taiwan believe that maintaining the status quo is the safest way to deal with the current situation.
Future of Taiwan economy bright
Despite the present state of our economy, let me assure you that there hope for the people. The economy will be improved by the incoming government just as their worries will be addressed. Taiwan is an island, it has no natural resources but the more we put efforts to improve our employment rate, our manufacturing sector industrial strength, the better for the economy.
Though Taiwan is world famous for its high advanced technology in Semiconductors, we still have so many areas to explore that are important for our overall survival and economic advancement.
Therefore, we want to have more trading and investment opportunities in Taiwan that will enable our business community to engage in worldwide business ventures. Putting our economy in a better shape after the COVID-19 pandemic will be a major focus of the government. And whether or not the current government has done a good job, we will see if the new president is going to continue with the legacy of his predecessor or improve on it.
Responsibility of the opposition in new parliament
But at the same time we expect the same mandate for the opposition party in the parliament to pass or to cooperate or even to compete with the ruling party to put up a good legislature. We expect the opposition party in the parliament to promote a check and balance system for our ministries, a development that will make the ministries to do a good job and see Taiwan achieving better economic development.
Good legislature will help to lower the unemployment rate and give the new generation (young people) a good chance to better their lives. We also expect the new parliament to address the current cost of living in Taiwan as it is of concern for raising children for the younger generation.
Why opposition parties accepted defeat
The opposition parties accepted defeat because we have a very transparent electoral commission, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC). The Commission has been doing a good job. Here, in Nigeria, it is called the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). But it is not just because the CEC has performed perfectly, but also because we have a very open and free media.
In every polling point or unit, where people cast their ballot, there was a police force, monitoring the situation as to whether somebody was trying to do something unusual or illegal. The police worked alongside the media, the television stations covering the exercise live, in addition to the overseeing of the election by internet influencers.
Though the television camera crews were not allowed to enter the polling booths, they were allowed to film what was happening around the stations. The voting stopped at exactly 4 pm, the official time to end the exercise and there was no extension of time for whatever reason.
Also, the collation of the results was done in the open with TV cameras filming. It was compulsory for the party agents to be present and every person was monitoring each other. Within four or five hours, everybody already knew the result. Nobody waited for the Commission’s official announcement before accepting the outcome of the election because they had seen the results via the televisions. It will interest you to know that the results were collated manually; we don’t use Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS). Though we do not see our system as perfect but this is our model and nobody thinks of making trouble over election results.
