Elections in Taiwan are just around the corner—an election between war and peace? Here’s what you need to know.
Since the East Asian island’s first elections in 1996, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan’s two major political parties, have pitted themselves against one another.
The KMT, which used to rule mainland China, is remembered mainly for its US-backed military dictatorship of the island from 1949 to 1987.
However, the KMT, now the main opposition party, has since shifted towards favoring close ties and dialogue with Beijing.
The neoliberal DPP, on the other hand, pursues a much more hawkish stance towards Beijing, promoting Taiwan as a country separate from China while aiming to expand Taiwan’s military and its already strong ties with the US.
While Western media and the DPP love to hype up a “threat from the mainland,” only 53% of Taiwanese consider the Chinese government’s attitude towards them to be unfriendly.
For many, China isn’t the biggest concern, unlike the US like to put it. Low confidence levels in the US as a stable partner for Taiwan were recently revealed, with only 34% agreeing that the US was a trustworthy country, a drop of more than 11% since 2021.
The DPP has held a slim majority over the past eight years. However, with much of Taiwan’s population evenly divided between the KMT and the DPP, the island’s future remains uncertain as the US keeps driving a wedge through the Taiwan Strait.
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