Taiwanese, like Hong Kongers, pin hopes to a future of liberty

The crushing electoral victory of President Tsai Ing-wen doubles the trouble for the Chinese leader.

Tsai Ing-Wen waves after addressing supporters in Taipei following her re-election as president. Picture: Getty Images

The crushing electoral victory of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party doubles the trouble for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with Hong Kong still in turmoil.

It also underlines in spades the unflinching commitment to liberal democracy of a generation of young Taiwanese — as well as Hong Kongers – who overwhelmingly insist on drawing their identity from their homelands, rejecting Beijing’s portrayal of them as “Chinese”.

This was underlined by Ms Tsai’s raucous reception from the mostly young crowd at her victory celebration outside DPP headquarters in Taipei late on Saturday.

More than 75 per cent of eligible voters turned out on Saturday, up from 66 per cent at the last election, in 2016. They delivered her a margin of almost 20 percentage points over her Kuomintang (KMT) challenger Han Kuo-yu.

All voting takes place on the day, in the constituency where electors are registered — triggering massive movements late last week around Taiwan, and from overseas.

About 1.8 million of Taiwan’s 19.3 million electorate, in a population of 23 million, were first-time voters, having turned 20. A poll last year found 93 per cent of Taiwanese aged between 20 and 34 would reject unification with the People’s Republic of China even if it reaches the same level of economic and political development as Taiwan, whose gross domestic product per person is about 250 per cent of China’s.

Six weeks ago at local elections, a record 71 per cent of Hong Kongers turned out to hand pro-democracy parties control of 17 of 18 local councils, winning 388 seats against the pro-Beijing parties’ 62. Dozens of new pro-democracy councillors from Hong kong took the 90-minute flight to Taiwan to observe the elections.

Mr Xi has called unification of Taiwan with the PRC as “the great trend of history”. But the extent of the troubles across China’s borderlands – including Xinjiang, where more than a million people have been detained in camps, and Tibet, where defiance seems inevitable when the Chinese government identifies the next Dalai Lama, as it vows to do – raises questions about the communist mainland’s capacity to complete, after 70 years of focused effort, its project of fully incorporating such disparate regions within a unitary ethno-centric nation state.

Ms Tsai, 63, a cool intellectual, appeared to be facing defeat following a severe setback at local elections in 2018, when Han emerged to win the Kaohsiung mayoral race with a rambunctious, populist style that inspired comparisons with Donald Trump.

But then a year ago Mr Xi delivered a pugnacious speech about Taiwan that equated the “1992 consensus” that the KMT supports — with Taiwan and Beijing agreeing there is only one China but defining it differently — with the now tarnished “one country, two systems” formula used for administering Hong Kong.

Mr Xi has also vowed that “not a single inch of our land” – which the PRC insists includes Taiwan – could be lost, that Beijing is “ready to fight bloody battles,” and that Taiwan’s fate should not be left for later generations to resolve.

These messages from Beijing — reinforced by its grabbing of diplomatic allies, its stepped-up military activities, and its barring of individual Chinese tourists from visiting Taiwan — and then the massive, persistent protests in Hong Kong, turned around Ms Tsai’s fortunes.

The DPP also at the weekend importantly regained the control of the 113-seat parliament it first won in 2016, losing seven seats but retaining 61.

Ms Tsai had said at New Year: “Democracy and authoritarianism cannot coexist within the same country. Hong Kong’s people have shown us that ‘one country, two systems’ is absolutely not viable.”

She succeeded last year in pushing through legislation reducing the state’s unsustainably generous pension provisions, introducing same-sex marriage, and creating “anti-infiltration” defences to guard against Beijing’s massive influence campaigns.

The latter has inspired growing resentment, reinforced by the stories swirling around the roles and the relationships of Wang Liqiang, who is seeking asylum in Australia.

Also last year, Ms Tsai succeeded in turning around perceptions of the DPP as too focused on cross-strait relations, progressive social policy and the environment to manage effectively the economy — which has been growing at 2.6 per cent, faster than the other “Asian tigers”.

Taiwan, which is Australia’s sixth-largest export market, in 2019 attracted, through a new incentive scheme, about $30bn in fresh investment, especially in hi-tech, from companies that had long preferred to invest in China.

But it faces economic challenges as new trade arrangements solidify, since its restricted diplomatic status has caused it to be locked out of groupings such as the TPP and RCEP.

Mark Harrison, senior lecturer in Chinese studies at Tasmania University, who is in Taiwan to observe the election, told The Australian: “There is no doubt that President Tsai has positioned herself very skilfully as the safe pair of hands in cross-strait relations, and in international capitals, including Canberra.”

He added “that has been noted and appreciated”, especially by Washington.

And what do Taiwanese themselves make of the result?

Bosco Wu, 28, told The Australian that “in recent years, China’s silent invasion into Taiwan has raised much attention”.

“Many Taiwanese have a sense of crisis,” he said. “This outcome perfectly shows that people in Taiwan are trying very hard to maintain their own way of living. That is, democracy and liberty.”

Hsiao En-Chia, 26, said: “The most important thing in this election was the active participation of the younger generation. Millions of them travelled a long distance to go back to their hometown for voting for fear that Han would win the presidency and get closer to China.”