US and China may prefer a joint Kuomintang-TPP presidential win in Taiwan
- With two wars distracting Washington and a faltering economy facing Beijing, both superpowers can live with a more conciliatory government in Taipei
Would Beijing and Washington welcome a joint “blue-white” win in Taiwan’s January presidential election over the current ruling party’s favoured candidate?
A few months ago, cynics would probably say no. The island’s government under President Tsai Ing-wen and her secessionist party, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has served the interests of the United States extremely well in the past eight years.
Tsai has made the island freely available to the Americans whenever they need to provoke Beijing militarily, diplomatically, and/or through sheer international propaganda. Mainland China has, time and again, been put on the defensive. Indeed, under Tsai, Taiwan has become a key instrument of Washington’s “pivot to Asia”, meaning containing the mainland.
Whether that serves the interests of the Taiwanese people – as cross-strait tensions become so high there have been constant warnings about a hot war – is a different matter.
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Now, though, the US may need calmer waters in the Taiwan Strait as the international situation in Ukraine and Palestine is getting out of hand.
Meanwhile, Beijing is struggling to revive a faltering economy, a policy priority in the immediate future unless there is a sudden threat of independence from Taiwan or a severe provocation from the West. Both Beijing and Washington may therefore want to take a break from going at each other’s throats.
That’s where a blue-white coalition comes in. A joint opposition ticket is emerging between Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang, or KMT (blue), and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party, or TPP (white). Hou is the mayor of New Taipei City, while Ko is a former Taipei mayor and the TPP’s presidential candidate and party chairman.
Time is of the essence as they must decide before November 24, the presidential election deadline for registration, whether they will run together and if so, who will lead the ticket.
Both Ko and Hou have been close at the polls, but are consistently behind the DPP front runner, Vice-President William Lai Ching-te. Lai is likely to join the ticket with Hsiao Bi-khim, the island’s de facto representative in the US, as his running mate.
The most recent poll shows that a joint blue-white ticket could get as much as 49.8 per cent of the votes, while the DPP pair would receive only 38 per cent of support.
That’s good news for Beijing, and at least acceptable to Washington, given their current predicaments.
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Of course, the joint blue-white ticket has yet to be finalised. The KMT will not want to play second fiddle to the TPP, an upstart that is only four years old. But it appears they are willing to forego a primary and let public opinion polls decide who will lead on the ticket.
However, should such a joint ticket not materialise, polls show, including the latest, that Lai of the DPP will likely win. He used to call himself a “worker for Taiwanese independence”, though now he claims he no longer seeks independence – because the island is already independent!
If he wins, expect four more years of high tensions across the strait.
In all these, there remains the wild card, Terry Gou, founder of Foxconn and one of the island’s richest men. It should be clear by now that Beijing doesn’t want him to run independently and steal tickets from Ko and Hou; nor does it want him to run on a Hou ticket, which will almost certainly perform poorly.
Last month, it was announced that some of Foxconn’s key subsidiaries on the mainland were the subject of tax audits. Is that a message for Gou from Beijing? Interestingly, the Taipei District Prosecutors Office has also initiated a probe into some cash payments involved in Gou’s presidential campaign. At 73, perhaps retirement presents an easier option for everyone.
But while the TPP and KMT are friendlier towards Beijing, their platforms on economic and political reforms, and livelihood issues diverge significantly. An unprecedented blue-white coalition government could be quite fractious. No one knows how that may work out.
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There is also the small matter of the same-time elections for the Legislative Yuan, which has been dominated by a DPP majority. While it will probably lose its current majority in a blue-white presidential win, it’s not a foregone conclusion. It may retain enough seats to make life difficult for an already uncooperative coalition government.
It will be fascinating to watch how Washington and Beijing will exploit such new political divisions. Come January, cross-strait geopolitics may enter uncharted territory.
Of course, all bets are off if Lai and the DPP do win. Lai is sounding a lot like a male version of Tsai. Can peace last four more years under Lai? Fingers crossed.
