Daily Times

The 2020 Taiwanese general election was held on Jan 11, 2020. Tsai Ing-wen won a second term with a comfortable victory over Han Kuo-yu in an election that had been dubbed as a sort of a referendum on the island’s approach to Beijing. Tsai, from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), captured more than 8 million votes, defeating her major challenger, Han Kuo-yu, from the Kuomintang (KMT) by close to 3 million votes. Tsai opposes closer ties with China, whereas Han favours Beijing suggesting they would bring economic benefits.

Since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan. It says Taiwan must eventually be reunited with China-by force if necessary.

In her victory speech, Tsai told Beijing to abandon its threat to take back the island by force. She told a news conference, “Taiwan is showing the world how much we cherish our free democratic way of life and how much we cherish our nation.”

The tally of eight million votes is extraordinary for a Taiwanese President seeking a second term. The record-breaking win has delivered a comprehensive mandate to Tsai, and a major snub to Beijing. Taiwan’s relationship with China was the central issue in this election campaign that allowed her to revive her middling fortunes. Taiwan watchers believe the result would give Tsai a mandate to continue her current cross-strait policy-despite the Kuomintang’s disagreements and strong opposition from the mainland.

For Taiwan, the balancing act between Beijing and Washington is going to be a complex challenge and time will tell if the precarious status-quo is maintained or will Tsai take Taipei to unchartered territories

Tsai has refused to accept the one-China principle since she was first elected in 2016. In contrast, her rival Han, a populist figure, had called for closer ties with the mainland to ease tensions and boost Taiwan’s economy. It’s important to note that the KMT once ruled China, before fleeing to Taiwan in 1949 after losing to the communist forces in the civil war. Han made a high-profile visit to Hong Kong and China in March, and has reportedly said a formal declaration of Taiwanese independence would be “scarier than syphilis”.

Taiwan has its own elected government, constitution and military; however, China refuses to have diplomatic relations with any country that recognises Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Only a handful of countries don’t have relations with Beijing, but most maintain an ambiguous relationship with Taiwan through trade. The US is also legally bound to supply Taiwan with the means to defend itself. In a tweet, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulated Tsai on her re-election, saying she “demonstrates the strength of its robust democratic system. Thank you, President Tsai, for your leadership in developing a strong US partnership.”

Even though China was hoping for Tsai’s rival Han to claim victory, yet it wasn’t completely shocked at the result, though it was none too happy. In a rebuke against Tsai’s landslide re-election, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Taiwan’s reunification with mainland China was inevitable. Wang said that Tsai’s win would not change what he called the inevitable course of Taiwan’s reunification with the mainland. “[The one-China principle] will not change in any way because of a local election on the Taiwan island, nor will it shake despite erroneous words and actions by some Western politicians,” he said.

Moreover, Wang protested as senior officials from the US, Britain and Japan congratulated Tsai on her victory, urging the international community to stick to one-China and refrain from official communications with the Taiwanese leadership. “Going against the trend is bound to reach a dead end. Anyone separating the nation will stink for 10,000 years,” he added.

China will continue to oppose Taiwan independence resolutely while maintaining support for the “one country, two systems” model, the senior official in charge of cross-strait affairs said, a week after President Tsai Ing-wen’s landslide election victory. In the past couple of years, Beijing has unveiled a series of measures to give businesses and residents “equal status” with mainlanders in the hope of building ties among people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. However, relations between the two governments have worsened sharply since Tsai was elected in 2016 and refused to accept the “1992 consensus” – which states there is only one China, but the two sides may disagree about how to interpret that.

In January 2019, President Xi Jinping gave a speech in which he urged Taiwan to adopt Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” model as the basis for talks on reunification. But the call was rebuffed by Tsai, saying Taiwan would “never accept one country, two systems”. Following months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong in 2019, she used the slogan “Hong Kong today, Taiwan tomorrow” in her re-election campaign.

Despite Tsai’s rejection of the “one country, two systems” model for Taiwan, she is increasingly aware that provoking Beijing could be costly for the island. In her victory speech she hinted at that, saying that in the next four years, Taiwan would want to become “partners” and not “issues” for its neighbours.

Her re-election is more than likely to see a rise in cross-strait tensions, as official ties have been suspended since she assumed office in 2016. Taipei might face greater pressure from Beijing after the election, which might further complicate China’s already tense relationship with the United States.

However, the relationships between China, US and Taiwan would also depend on the outcome of the US presidential election later this year, along with the progress in China-US trade talks.

For Taiwan, the balancing act between Beijing and Washington is going to be a complex challenge and time will tell if the precarious status-quo is maintained or will Tsai take Taipei to unchartered territories.

The writer is a Deputy News Editor at a private news channel, with a focus on the Middle East and Asia Pacific