Staff writer, with CNA
As foreign media descend upon Taiwan ahead of the presidential and legislative elections, overseas coverage is likely to remain tightly focused on the country’s dealings with an increasingly bellicose China.
Taiwan Foreign Correspondents’ Club (TFCC) chairman Thompson Chau (周浩霖) in a recent interview said that international media would be most interested in knowing how the contenders for president plan to navigate the relationship with Beijing and Washington.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Vice President William Lai (賴清德) has pledged to continue President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) policy of emphasizing Taiwan’s sovereignty and seeking support from Washington and other democracies.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜) is looking to adopt the approach of Tsai’s predecessor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), including promoting greater economic integration between Taiwan and China.
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has said that while he would reference Tsai’s US and national defense policies, his policies on domestic affairs and cross-strait relations would be more moderate and rational if elected.
Chau said correspondents were paying close attention to the candidates’ proposals to boost the country’s defense capabilities as well as economic and energy security.
Many are also trying to grasp China’s disinformation operations, election meddling tactics and other coercive measures and how they might play out in Taiwan, said Chau, who covers Taiwan’s politics and defense for Nikkei Asia.
Kyodo News’ Taipei bureau chief Yasuhito Watanabe said he was watching closely if there would be a change in government, especially after eight years of DPP governance.
A victory for Lai would bring a third consecutive four-year term of a DPP president in office, unprecedented for any party in the Republic of China since the country held its first direct presidential election in 1996.
Jana Vaclavikova, a correspondent with Czech news Web site Aktualne, said that most voters she spoke to seemed more concerned with how the next president would tackle salary stagnation and spiraling rents than relations with China.
In contrast to the foreign media’s focus on cross-strait affairs, several correspondents noted that the Taiwanese public’s discontent with the DPP appeared driven more by domestic issues such as low wages, high house prices and a rising cost of living.
Bruno Kaufmann, a correspondent with Swiss public broadcaster SWI swissinfo.ch, said that these local issues, while certainly not unique to Taiwan, had become voters’ primary concern.
Danish reporter Alexander Sjoberg said that young people in Taiwan viewed the DPP government as having failed to adequately address these issues, despite crediting Tsai’s administration for progressive changes such as legalizing same-sex marriage in 2019.
A Hong Kong journalist who identified himself as “Paklam” said that the Taiwanese public pays more attention to the “day-to-day” problems of inflation and anemic wage growth than partisan political enmity between the DPP, KMT and TPP.
One topic that has gained attention among many Southeast Asian reporters has been the issues facing Taiwan’s about 740,000 migrant workers.
Aubrey Fanani, an Indonesian reporter working with IndosuarA, expressed hope for the candidates to propose solutions to the brokerage system problem in Taiwan, under which migrant workers are not allowed to change employers freely and are often burdened with exorbitant debts.
Amiel Reyes Pascual, a correspondent for the Philippines’ UNTV News and Rescue, said that viewers of the television network were interested in knowing how the next president would deal with issues related to migrant workers in Taiwan.
Hong Kong Journalists Association head Ronson Chan (陳朗昇) in October told Radio Free Asia that the journalist group might not arrange a delegation to Taiwan next month as it had done for past elections, citing concerns over tensions across the Taiwan Strait and the National Security Law in Hong Kong.
The legislation renders acts deemed by authorities as secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion punishable with a life sentence at the maximum, and has since its imposition in June 2020 led to the closure of several Hong Kong media firms critical of Beijing’s grip on the city.
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