Ruling party wins Taiwan’s election
Party, or TPP, had drawn the support particularly of young people wanting an alternative to the KMT and DPP, Taiwan’s traditional opposing parties, which have largely taken turns governing since the 1990s.
Ko said that dialogue between the sides was crucial, but that his bottom line would be that Taiwan needs to remain democratic and free.
Chen Binhua, spokesperson of the Chinese Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said that Beijing wouldn’t accept the election result as representing “the mainstream public opinion on the island,” without giving any evidence or justification.
“This election cannot change the basic situation and the direction of cross Strait relations, nor can it change the common desire of compatriots on both sides to get closer and closer, nor can it stop the general trend that the motherland will eventually and inevitably be reunified,” Chen said.
The United States, which is bound by its laws to provide Taiwan with the weapons needed to defend itself, had pledged support for whichever government emerges, reinforced by the Biden administration’s plans to send an unofficial delegation made up of former senior officials to the island shortly after the election.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken congratulated Lai on his victory.
“We also congratulate the Taiwan people for once again demonstrating the strength of their robust democratic system and electoral process,” Blinken said in a statement.
Besides the China tensions, domestic issues such as the dearth of affordable housing and stagnating wages have dominated the campaign.
For Tony Chen, a 74-yearold retiree who voted in Taipei in the hour before the polls closed, the election boiled down to a choice between communism and democracy.
“I hope democracy wins,” he said. He added that more Taiwanese were open to China’s model of governance decades ago, when the Chinese economy was growing by double digits annually, but are repulsed by the crackdown on civil liberties that has occurred under current Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Close ties with the United States will likely draw even closer under Lai’s administration.
“A continuation of the DPP into a third term will mean that the warming-up of U.S.-Taiwan ties that we saw in the last eight years will likely continue at pace under the next Lai Ching-te administration,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a fellow with the Washington-based Atlantic Council.
Beijing is likely to deploy a “maximum pressure campaign” to influence the new administration along military, economic and political lines, Sung told the AP.