Taiwan’s New President William Lai Represents Closeness to the West

As of: January 14, 2024, 4:19 p.m

By: Felix Lill

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Election winner William Lai (l.) celebrates his victory with incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen. © dpa

Taiwan’s future President Lai represents closeness to the West. China is correspondingly sniffy – but hardly surprised. The USA is now sending a delegation to Taipei.

On Saturday evening, the television stations and websites in Taiwan repeatedly show an image: William Lai standing there in a green jacket, smiling, putting his fist in the air. Even though he appeared on Saturday in a suit and tie, the 64-year-old styled himself as a baseball fan during the election campaign, and therefore as a man of the people. Baseball is the most popular sport in Taiwan. And on election day, his “Team Taiwan,” as he called his offer to voters, basically hit a home run. Lai will become Taiwan’s new president of the East Asian island nation.

In the race, which recently decided between three candidates, Lai from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was comfortably ahead in the end. The current vice president behind President Tsai Ing-wen, who is outgoing after eight years, will continue his predecessor’s foreign policy. This means: A clear demarcation from mainland China, which sees Taiwan as part of its own territory and has repeatedly threatened to bring Taiwan under its control by force if necessary.

Like Tsai before him, Lai will also seek proximity to the West. The reactions from there were correspondingly positive: The US State Department congratulated Lai, and a delegation sent by US President Joe Biden was scheduled to arrive in Taipei for talks on Sunday evening. The EU and the federal government also sent congratulations. Beijing said the election result does not change the fact that Taiwan is part of China.

The candidate favored in Beijing, Hou Yu-ih of the National People’s Party (KMT), which supported Taiwan’s military dictatorship until the mid-1980s, suffered a heavy defeat in the election. Hou had conducted his election campaign on the thesis that this election was between war and peace: whoever voted for the DPP would choose war, since their policy of demarcation from mainland China would risk an invasion by Beijing. The KMT has maintained better ties with Beijing for decades. The winner, Lai, in turn, spoke of a choice between democracy and authoritarianism.

The third candidate, Ko Wen-je, mayor of the capital Taipei until 2022, tried to draw attention to economic policy issues, which meant he came a distant third. However, Ko’s Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) won a majority of the vote in the general election, also held on Saturday, as did the KMT. The future President Lai will therefore face a parliament in which he lacks the majority of his own party. He will have to negotiate on various issues.

Burden of low wages

The China question is by no means the only issue that concerns people in Taiwan. There is, for example, the rather low income level, which has only increased slightly over the past few years despite solid economic growth. In a survey in mid-2023, three-quarters of people said their wages had not increased in the past year. The labor market is largely precarious and the influence of trade unions is low. Many of those who find jobs elsewhere have been leaving the country for years. Because the cost of living is rising in Taiwan’s cities.

In hardly any other country is the education of children as expensive as in Taiwan. Official statistics from 2018 show that families with the then average income of 50,000 Taiwan dollars – or 1,450 euros – invested a quarter of that in their children’s education. One reason for this is the sparse welfare state. The DPP, which has now at least won the presidency, wants to change this. “We know that the cost of education is a big challenge,” said Alysa Wen-li Chiu, who works in the political science department of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. “We want more welfare state. Our goal is above all to provide better financial support for students.” Because what is also known: Taiwan’s very low birth rate is also linked to the high costs of having children.

The possibility of same-sex marriage has been discussed in Taiwan for a long time. After the Constitutional Court ruled in 2017 that a ban on gay marriage constituted a form of discrimination, Parliament was called upon to resolve the issue. The DPP-led government then legalized same-sex marriage – the first country in Asia to do so. But this was done, particularly because of conservative resistance, through a simple law, not through a constitutional amendment.

While conservative forces want to get rid of the law, the majority of young people in Taiwan are in favor of it. However, they often have their own problem: according to the current legal situation, they are only allowed to vote after they are 20 years old. “We think this is discrimination,” says Alvin Chang. The 26-year-old is director of the Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy and his organization is calling for the voting age to be lowered. This has not yet been achieved for the current election, but for the next election, in four years, Chang wants to make it possible for 18-year-olds to vote.

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2024-01-14 15:29:21
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