Taiwan, a shining testament to democracy, is worth preserving
2024 has been called by many as democracy’s biggest test, in which over four billion eligible voters get to participate in democratic elections across the globe, from the largest democracy, India, to the most consequential, the United States.
Last Saturday the first election of the year, held in Taiwan, passed the test with flying colors.
The election campaigns were carried out vigorously, turnout was robust at 71.86%, voting and counting went on smoothly. Shortly after the sitting Vice President from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Dr William Lai, was declared the winner with 40% of the votes in a three-way contest, the two opposition candidates, Mr Hou Yu-ih of the Nationalist Party (KMT), and Dr Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), both conceded defeat and congratulated the winner.
Perhaps the young democracy of twenty three million people could teach a thing or two about democracy and free and fair elections to the two superpowers most intimately linked to its fate, China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, and the United States, the main political and military backer of the island.
The incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen had to step down after eight years in office due to the constitutionally imposed term limit. Compare that to the situation across the Taiwan Strait: after the disaster of the life long rule and personality cult of Chairman Mao Zedong, his successor Deng Xiaoping decided to confine the tenure of Chinese leadership to two five-year terms. It lasted for only two cycles till 2018 when President Xi Jinping had China’s rubber stamp parliament amend the constitution and removed the restriction.
Reporting on the election result, the Chinese state media studiously avoided mention of the actual vote count or share for the three candidates, perhaps so as not to give its readers any reminder of the fact that the Chinese people don’t get to vote for their own leader. Beijing’s spokesman said Dr Lai did not represent “the mainstream opinion” of the Taiwanese people, conveniently omitting that support for the Chinese Government’s preferred party, KMT, stood at only 33%, and minority government is quite the norm in democracies with multiple contestants in the election. The Chinese propaganda apparatus could have gone one step further and declared that President Xi’s 100% vote as the single candidate at the National People’s Congress represents true democracy, but even their chutzpah has boundaries.
The immediate acknowledgement of the election result by the opposition parties drew stark contrast with Donald Trump and his many fellow Republicans in the US, who more than three years after their loss to Joe Biden, still won’t concede their defeat, and continue to peddle false conspiracy theories of “election fraud”. In another eerie parallel to Trump’s multiple felony indictments, the first DPP president, Chen Shuibian, was charged and convicted of corruption after leaving office. While Chen himself protested the verdict as “politically motivated persecution”, the DPP wisely let the independent judiciary process run its course, cut ties with its former leader and moved on. If only the Republican Party had the same respect for democratic institutions and norms.
Taiwan was rated first in Asia, and 12th out of 165 countries and territories in the latest Human Freedom Index report by Washington-based Cato Institute and Vancouver-based Fraser Institute.The success of Taiwan’s democratic experiment is remarkable, considering its first free election was only held in 1996. The achievement of the DPP is even more astonishing, having won five of the last eight elections, from its humble origin of jailed democracy activists, without a single bullet fired, or a single tank on the street. The often promoted position by Beijing’s propagandists that somehow the Chinese culture is incompatible with the universal value of freedom and democracy is thoroughly exposed as a self-serving lie.
Dr Lai’s victory, and the DPP’s unprecedented third consecutive term, dealt another blow to the Chinese Communist Party’s projection of soft power, despite its status as an economic and military superpower. It’s no coincidence that the DPP, Beijing’s public enemy number one, achieved its electoral success at the same time Xi consolidated his authoritarian rule in China and crushed Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protest. China tried every trick in its coercion book, from conducting missile drills over Taiwan’s sky and waters and partial blockade of its ports after US House Speaker’s visit, to raising tariffs on Taiwanese products or even outright banning, to disinformation campaigns on social media, to freezing official contact, and they all failed. The Taiwanese people saw political freedom being decimated across the strait and decided that they wanted no part of it.
Despite its radical pro-independence roots, the DPP has wisely moderated its rhetoric once in power, instead adopting a pragmatic approach to Taiwan’s status. As Dr Lai repeatedly acknowledged recently, there is no need to declare its independence, the one red line China has drawn, since by all intent and purpose, Taiwan is already independent. That is true: it has a permanent population; a defined territory; its own government, legislature, courts, military; it conducts diplomatic relations with a small number of countries and maintains de-facto embassies at major capitals around the world. Taiwan’s per capita GDP is almost three times China's. They have universal healthcare. The status quo has served them well.
More importantly, its people just participated in a free and fair election; they live in a free and open society. They deserve to determine their own fate. Forget about geopolitics. That alone is worth preserving.