2024 Year of Elections: A Deeper Dive into the Politics of the Taiwan Strait
Backbench writer and researcher, Rachel Barlow, takes a closer look at the elections in Taiwan as an extension of Episode 1, which covers elections that took place in 2024.
In January 2024, Taiwanese people went to the polls to elect a new President and representatives in the Yuan legislature. This election was seminal in Taiwan’s future governance and position on the world stage, prompting ripple effects beyond its small territory. 2024 has become known as the ‘year of elections’ due to an immense number of significant elections across the globe, but the Taiwanese election was particularly impactful - this blog will contextualise the situation, explaining how Taiwan got here and providing further depth on its domestic and international position entering 2025.
I. Results Breakdown
The Presidency, Parliament and Public Opinion
There are two key takeaways from the way this election has unfolded: Firstly, Taiwan is another in the sweeping trend of anti-incumbency election results across the world in 2024. Secondly, contemporary Taiwan is characterised by instability in its political climate, legislative affairs and regional position.
Democratic Progressive Party candidate William Lai was elected with 40% of the vote. Of all possible results, this was the one that had the most significant foreign and domestic implications. Lai was a controversial candidate, with Chinese President Xi Jinping branding him a “troublemaker” and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office warning Taiwanese to make the “right choice” by not voting for Lai. China has taken several steps in recent years to prevent “independence plots” and the People’s Liberation Army made a record number of incursions into Taiwanese territory in 2023, in what many interpret as further attempts to deter the pro-independence candidate and those who planned to vote for him. His government is therefore very unpopular in Beijing, and among Chinese nationalists within Taiwan - more on this in sections III and IV.
The DPP continues its tenure as the governing party in Taiwan, receiving 40% of the public vote, and as a result, 51 of 113 seats. However, being the governing party doesn’t guarantee a majority, and Lai’s government will likely have difficulty pursuing a controversial pro-independence agenda with only 45% of parliamentary seats. In the previous 2020 election, the DPP received 57% of the public vote, suggesting they too have suffered from a global trend of anti-incumbent outcomes. While the DPP was not unseated, a decrease of 17% in public vote has significant implications, especially the growth in power of the Kuomintang. Taiwan’s second largest party gained 14 Yuan seats compared to the 2020 election, increasing its share to 52. The near-equal support for completely opposing parties and inability of the government to secure a majority illustrate that Taiwanese politics is becoming increasingly fractured.
II. The DPP
Taiwanese Identity and Independence
Identity is a defining factor in the DPP’s success, driving their voting traffic. After all, voting in a pro-independence party indicates that Taiwanese people support democracy and independence. These are not minor concerns for the party, given they make up the majority of its manifesto and media coverage. Independence is no small issue, either, given it concerns China and is deeply controversial. A useful comparison here is the Scottish National Party - its platform is united on the basis of independence, with Scottish nationalism representing the backbone of its political identity, and it campaigns almost exclusively on this issue. Policies surrounding the economy or social welfare might stir up controversy domestically, but do not have the same potential to trigger armed conflict or lose key international allies.
The DPP’s policy toward China, as outlined by Chairman of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, Mintong Chen, is to seek “peaceful development, equality, mutual benefits, and mutual trust.” Taiwan seeks a relationship modelled on the EU’s system of regional integration, and one that regards both countries as equals, rather than the People’s Republic of China dominating it in a more hierarchical one - the party is nationalist, but not isolationist. Despite this placative tone and vision of a positive future for cross-strait relations, the DPP’s policy platform is a non-starter - accompanying claims that Taiwan is an “independent sovereign nation” ensure Beijing refuses to acknowledge or consider it.
The previously dominant Kuomintang, the Chinese nationalist party in Taiwan’s parliament, have maintained close ties with the government in Beijing. The party has historically suppressed calls for democracy and independence, jailing several DPP leaders for their (then-radical) political views during its reign. The KMT’s role as opposition and the sheer narrowness of their seat distribution (discussed earlier) illustrate how divisive this issue still is, and the extent to which it dominates Taiwanese politics, similarly to something like Brexit in the UK, or migration and border control in the US. A year on from the election, as of February 2025, the PLA has made no major incursion into Taiwanese territory and Xi’s government has not followed through with the military threats it made to discourage Lai’s election. This could be interpreted as a signal that Beijing is not worried, and this regional intensity has cooled.
III. Domestic Tensions
Fractured parliament, the Kuomintang’s “Power Grab” and Public Unrest
At this juncture, the DPP and Lai are experiencing great difficulty governing, due to parliamentary opposition and a reduced power base. Friction when passing the national budget, in particular, has affected the party’s credibility and perceived strength. This exemplifies how the rest of the DPP legislative agenda, focused around social welfare and economic development, has suffered as a result of its strong position on independence. Because the conflict between the two parties is decades-long and even generational, the Kuomintang will likely do everything in its power to stall the independence agenda, and so far, the DPP’s apparent lack of political capital suggests it is not on the immediate horizon.
A clear attempt from the KMT to destabilise the DPP government is found in the “Contempt of Legislature” constitutional amendment in collaboration with the TPP (Taiwanese People’s Party), which increases the power of the legislature (dominated by the KMT) relative to the executive (President Lai). New powers granted to the legislature include issuing summons, access to sensitive materials, issuing fines and even imprisoning officials who “disrespect parliament.” The legislation is vague, and many in the government and wider society agree it is very open to misuse. It is interpreted as a power grab rather than a genuine push for accountability or increased checks and balances. This indicates that the DPP is not controlling Taiwan’s legislative direction or policy program, and a successful power grab has further weakened its image, but it has not happened without friction.
Citizens in particular were extremely unhappy with this legislation, and its passage culminated in the “Bluebird” protest movement organised by the Taiwan Citizen Front and the Economic Democracy Union. Thousands of citizens - including smaller parties such as the New Power Party (NPP), Taiwan Statebuilding Party, and Green Party - gathered outside the Yuan demanding the bill be scrapped because it was unconstitutional and “dismantling” Taiwan’s democracy. Mass domestic unrest could be read as yet another signal the DPP does not have the control over Taiwan it should as the ruling party, however it is also a demonstration of the public support it still enjoys, despite its difficulties in the Yuan.
Therefore, the domestic fallout from this election alone has changed the way Taiwan is governed permanently, re-distributing the balance of power between the legislature and executive, and opening the executive up to politically motivated prosecution. This will in turn change the way the governing party interacts with others in parliament, and has already affected inter-party trust and co-operative governance.
IV. The Question of China
Re-Unification, Tensions with Beijing and US Influence in East-Asia
Despite Taiwan holding democratic elections, having its own separate parliament and often operating as its own diplomatic entity, its status as a self-governing territory is heavily contested by China.
Beijing refuses to recognise the government at all, with its official government position as follows: “Whatever changes take place in Taiwan, the basic fact that there is only one China in the world and Taiwan is part of China will not change; the Chinese government’s position of upholding the one-China principle and opposing ‘Taiwan independence’ separatism, ‘two Chinas’ and ‘one China, one Taiwan’ will not change.” This argument, similar to that of Russia on the topic of Ukraine, uses culture and history to argue Taiwan should never have been independent in the first place.
However, there is another reason China would benefit from re-unification, and it is much more strategic in nature - Taiwan forms the centerpiece in the struggle for regional dominance between it and the US. Over the last few decades, Taiwan has been building an increasingly secure trade and diplomatic relationship with the United States, China’s main adversary on the world stage. According to the US State Department in 2022 the US and Taiwan enjoy a “robust unofficial relationship,” and Taiwan is “a key U.S. partner in the Indo-Pacific,” with the two states sharing “similar values, deep commercial and economic links, and strong people-to-people ties.” It is also important to mention that Taiwan has received billions of dollars worth of new weapons from Washington in the last decade, which Beijing could view as direct military provocation. A visit from US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in 2022 ignited tensions, and Beijing responded by carrying out military drills in the strait and near-blockading Taiwan, expressing Xi and the CCP’s unhappiness with this bond.
Since Lai’s election, Beijing has severed diplomatic ties with the Taiwanese government entirely, and taken further actions to “poach” potential international allies from Taiwan, by requiring nations to choose between the two, where they invariably pick China given its status as an economic giant and long-theorised position as a threat to the “Western” or “Liberal” world order. Xi’s government has also significantly intensified its military threats toward Taiwan - toward the end of 2024, China was directing warships and planes toward Taiwan almost daily. Many Taiwanese officials suspect this is a strategy designed to “normalise” People’s Liberation Army presence. This is supported by 2023 analysis from then-CIA director William Burns suggesting President Xi had ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to stage a full-scale invasion of Taiwan by 2027.
These events make it clear that Beijing takes re-unification seriously, and it is a significant foreign policy priority, given the resources and attention being directed toward it. Another key takeaway from these developments is how much influence Taiwan - and the Taiwanese government - have over global affairs, especially for such a small territory. China and the US are two of the most significant global powers, and how Taiwan will influence their relationship under the new Trump administration remains to be seen.
You can hear my commentary on this election, and enjoy around-the-world election analyses from the Backbench team, by listening to our ‘Year of Elections’ episode on Substack or Spotify.
Sources:
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2024/12/21/2003828879
https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202409020021
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd118zly349o
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-67871587
https://www.csis.org/analysis/taiwans-2024-elections-results-and-implications