The Taiwanese presidential elections will be held in 2024, under ambiguous and turbulent circumstances, especially after the defeat suffered by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party during the local vote on Saturday, November 26, 2022, with Taiwanese President “Tsai Ing-wen” submitting her resignation from the presidency of this Democratic Progressive Party. The governor, after feeling embarrassed after the victory of the main opposition party, the Kuomintang, in the municipal and provincial mayoral elections, winning 13 seats out of 21 seats that were contested, including the capital, Taipei, which contradicted all expectations and led to the victory of the will of mainland China and its ruling Communist Party on members and loyalists of the Democratic Progressive Party who advocate Taiwan’s secession from Beijing, which is a fatal blow to them. Tsai’s resignation from the position of Chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party came after the worst defeat in the history of the Democratic Progressive Party, which now occupies the presidency of only five municipalities or provinces, after the opposition Kuomintang Party obtained the majority of seats in Taiwanese localities and municipalities.
I believe that during the 2024 Taiwanese presidential elections, both the Democratic Progressive Party and the Kuomintang Party will focus their campaign efforts on the densely populated northern Taiwan region, especially the capital, Taipei, whose mayor, who belongs to the small Taiwan People’s Party, was unable to run again, given that he has exhausted his maximum term in office.
Of course, the results of the upcoming Taiwanese presidential elections will depend on the trends in the relationship between the political parties competing with China, which by nature represent (the basic partisan and ideological lines of contact within the two largest parties in Taiwan), namely: the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the Nationalist Kuomintang Party. The Democratic Progressive Party is symbolized by the “General Green” coalition, which in turn is divided into two internal camps: the more hardline “Deep Green,” which demands Taiwan’s complete independence from China and defends Taiwanese identity, which puts it in a permanent clash with China and its ruling Communist Party, and the “Light Green” to which the current Taiwanese President, Tsai In-wen, belongs and an advocate of maintaining the status quo in relations with China.
Hence, these Taiwanese presidential elections are an implicit referendum on the future of Taiwan’s relations with China in light of Beijing’s escalation of its military maneuvers near the Taiwan Strait, which amounted to implementing a plan to blockade the island during the visit of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei in August 2022.
On the other hand, those in charge of the Progressive Democratic Party that opposes Beijing fear the strength of the Kuomintang Party, which is loyal to it, given its strong arms represented in local organizations and unions, capable of mobilizing large audiences to vote, which became clear after its victory in the local elections in November 2022. Compared to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which is opposed to Beijing’s policies. Here we find support from mainland China for the leaders of the Kuomintang Party in the upcoming presidential elections, given the control of the opposition Kuomintang Party over all agricultural union organizations that have widespread influence among farmers and landowners in Taiwan. China has already exploited this political power to target areas of local farmers who are part of the ruling party’s electoral base, to push them not to vote for it (and indirectly support the Kuomintang) by imposing a ban on the import of agricultural products after Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island, especially in provinces such as ” Yunlin and Kaohsiung in the southwest.
But the final outcome that the Kuomintang Party will have to overcome to win the presidential elections in 2024 over the current ruling Democratic Progressive Party remains the extent of its ability to (restore internal unity and end the divisions between its leaders and their allies).
As for how these Taiwanese elections will reflect on the Ukrainian-Russian war, it is noted that Washington supports the Taiwanese presidential candidate, “Lai Cheng-ti”, in the upcoming Taiwanese presidential elections on January 13, 2024, who is considered a dangerous separatist in Beijing. The United States of America fears that if the Taiwanese separatist candidate “Lai Ching-ai” wins, China will respond to his victory with threatening displays of military force, which could spark a new crisis on the Taiwanese island. There is an expected scenario that Beijing’s response to Qing Ti’s victory will initially focus on economic and political pressure. But later, it may move its military threat to Taiwan to new levels, especially if the United States appears preoccupied and exhausted by the events in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Here it must be realized that all the challenges in the Middle East and the Gaza and Ukraine wars will have an impact on all of China’s plans and tactics regarding Taiwan, as China will closely monitor all events in Ukraine and Gaza, given the strong interconnection between all these crises. The United States of America fears close cooperation between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, especially in light of the Russians’ current dependence on China’s economic support. They also engage in almost unlimited military cooperation with North Korea and Iran. Therefore, all of these global crises, with the US presidential elections coming in less than a year, affect American politics. US presidential candidate Donald Trump will seize every opportunity to accuse the administration of current US President Joe Biden of leading the country in an era of weakness and regression, and he will demonstrate this with Afghanistan, Ukraine, Gaza, and the Taiwan Strait.
China seeks to exploit the prolongation of the Russian-Ukrainian war to assert its sovereignty over democratically governed Taiwan, and to confirm the leadership of the ruling Communist Party in Beijing that it has jurisdiction over the Taiwanese Strait. At a time when the ruling and opposition Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan oppose this with its ally, the United States of America, by asserting that the Taiwan Strait is an international waterway.
Accordingly, Beijing is intensifying its military and political pressure on the Taiwanese island to accept its sovereignty, describing the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for January 13, 2024, as a choice between “peace and war” and the ruling party and its dangerous separatist representatives, urging the Taiwanese to make “the right choice.” Here, both China and the United States of America are trying to support candidates loyal to them in the upcoming Taiwanese presidential elections of 2024, at a time when Taiwanese law prohibits electoral campaigns from receiving money from “hostile foreign powers”, including China, and here prosecutors will be tried in the south. Taiwan More than 22 people, including grassroots politicians, have been charged with violating election and security laws and accepting electoral bribes from China, the United States and others.
As for how the United States of America can manage these Taiwanese elections, we find here that the upcoming Taiwanese presidential elections will witness a strong competition between the opposition Kuomintang Party, which is loyal to Beijing, and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which is opposed to China’s policies. Here, the Chinese government media and those close to the Communist Party are trying to focus on benefiting from and capitalizing on the success of the Kuomintang Party in the local elections in November 2022, by sending unified messages before holding those elections, which seeks to directly link their results to cross-Strait relations. The most important of these messages is the expected improvement in relations between Taiwanese and Chinese cities and provinces in the event of a Kuomintang victory, through restoring some exchange mechanisms between them and managing them better, such as the Taipei and Shanghai Forum.
The Chinese messages also included the claim that if Taiwanese citizens choose representatives and leaders of the KMT in the upcoming presidential elections, they will have chosen “peace and stability” in the region instead of hostility toward China. What is striking here is that Chinese messages at the present time avoid using the language of threatening to annex the island by force, and avoid using the word “sanctions” to describe the ban on the import of some Taiwanese agricultural products, and the repeated Chinese emphasis that it does not target the Taiwanese people, but rather its ruling class. In addition to the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s pledge to “properly handle” the differences with Washington over Taiwan.
Accordingly, the Kuomintang’s victory in the presidential elections in Taiwan gives the Chinese leadership the opportunity to convince the Chinese interior that the popular mood in Taiwan leans toward unity and rejects independence from mainland China. Time is a strategic element in the thinking of Chinese President Xi Jinping, as it enables him to continue pushing towards political and diplomatic methods to reach the goal of annexing the Taiwanese island without fighting, while the leaders of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which opposes Beijing, are working on building military capabilities and transforming the national economy for more, relying on the local market in preparation for the worst scenario, which is their victory in the upcoming Taiwanese presidential elections and China’s invasion of the Taiwanese island demanding secession from Beijing.
From China’s point of view, the upcoming Taiwanese presidential elections will represent a blow to the rhetoric of the United States of America and its efforts to undermine the “one China” principle. Washington relied on Tsai Wen’s support to achieve this, and the American discourse was based on the fact that the current Taiwanese President, Tsai, and the Democratic Progressive Party that she represents, are the popular representatives of Taiwanese “democracy” in the face of China’s aggression. Here we find that the upcoming Taiwanese presidential elections are directly linked to this major issue of the principle of secession or not from mainland China, and therefore the victory of the Kuomintang Party, in the event of that, will impose itself on Washington’s plans and agenda in Taiwan as a reflection of the popular mood and rejection of American interventionist policies in the affairs of Taiwan. Taiwan and its citizens.