Written by Jasper Roctus.
Image credit: Chee-Hann Wu.
The polls have closed, and Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has won the Taiwanese presidency, beating Hou Yu-ih of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Ko Wen-je of the upstart Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). With Lai’s victory, 2024 became the first (post-democratisation) Taiwanese presidential election, where the same party’s nominee was elected three times in succession.
Different from its triumphs of 2016 and 2020, the DPP did not emerge from the elections scot-free. Lai ‘only’ obtained forty per cent of the vote compared to Tsai Ing-wen’s two majority landslides, and the DPP lost the legislative majority it had enjoyed since 2016. Although this result aligned with earlier predictions, there is still a lot that merits further discussion.
The First Ever Truly Split Legislative Yuan
The elections for the 113 seats of the Legislative Yuan culminated in a narrow KMT victory (52 seats plus two Blue independents) over the DPP (51 seats), which also lost its deep Green ally, the New Power Party (NPP), to the five per cent electoral threshold. This outcome can be related to the rise of Ko Wen-je’s TPP, which captured eight seats. The fact that this election cycle was much less China-centric than four years ago when many Taiwanese felt sympathetic to the struggles of the Hong Kong protestors, evidently served the TPP’s domestic-focused agenda well. Although one could make a fair argument that the TPP also underperformed by only capturing eight seats, this could largely be related to its absence in most of the 79 constituency seats. Its strong party list performance (22 per cent) that allocated the other 34 seats nevertheless cemented the TPP as a future force to be reckoned with, especially if it manages to establish itself in some constituencies before the 2028 election cycle.
As Ko can employ his eight seats to either hand the KMT or the DPP a majority, we are faced with the first split legislation since the Chen Shui-bian administration (2000–2008) and the first ‘actual three-way divide’ as James Soong’s People’s First Party (PFP), a KMT breakaway force, was then part of a fairly united pan-Blue majority. While Ko (27 per cent) as a presidential candidate failed to reach Soong’s levels in 2000 (37 per cent), the 22 per cent of the TPP is an outperformance of any previous third party. Soong’s PFP garnered only nineteen per cent in 2001 before gradually losing support and eventually reintegrating with the KMT. Besides the PFP, only the New Party – equally part of the pan-Blue camp – once broke the 10 per cent barrier (1995) before equally fading into irrelevance when most of its supporters returned to the KMT.
After the farcical KMT-TPP negotiations on a joint presidential ticket in November 2023, it would be easy to frame the TPP as the latest coming of another minor Blue party destined to eventually decline. However, as the outcome of said negotiations showed, Ko is clearly not as easily swayed to go Blue as some assume(d). It will remain to be seen how Ko’s extremely ideologically diverse legislative faction – no. 1 Huang Shan-shan has a past in both the New Party and PFP; no. 2 Huang Kuo-chang was, until recently, part of the deep Green NPP, etc. – will reach consensus when deciding between either Blue or Green. Also, personally, Ko remains ideologically fluid. After his short fling with Blue in November 2023, Ko suddenly proclaimed he was still deep Green at heart in December.
The only legislative solution to Ko’s fluidness and the TPP’s considerable internal ideological rifts seems to be case-by-case cooperation. This is not necessarily unworkable, considering the relatively limited agenda of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan. If, however, Ko decides to join hands with the KMT and obstructs whatever he can, things could get very difficult for Lai. This would likely also assign the TPP to a fate of future irrelevance, alike the New Party and PFP. Ko can thus be expected to stay clear of a permanent choice for Blue.
Lai 2.0 and Upholding New Internationalism
Lai, in turn, will likely stay clear of controversial agenda points that might invoke Ko’s ire and focus on continuity instead. This intention was reflected in Lai’s victory speech, where he pledged to govern “in accordance with the constitutional system of the Republic of China” (依照中華民國憲政體制) and “neither humbly nor arrogantly maintain the status quo” (不卑不亢維持現狀). Lai’s embrace of the ROC’s constitution and the cross-Strait status quo generally echoes his moderate predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, and is considerably more restrained than his rhetoric during a challenge to Tsai in the 2019 DPP presidential primary. Lai then positioned himself as tougher on China than Tsai by, among others, stating that only the democratisation of China could bring enduring cross-Strait peace, comments he has not repeated recently. Ties between Tsai and Lai have been mended as well, with Tsai featuring extensively in the DPP’s viral On the Road (在路上) campaign ad – although Tsai’s playful jab that she once found Lai “fierce” (兇) clearly reflects their different personalities.
Lai’s “fierceness” is still occasionally on display despite his recent moderation. Lai does not back away from proclaiming himself a “pragmatic worker for Taiwanese independence” (務實的台獨工作者). However, he has recently connected this claim (more) prominently to a definition that Taiwan is already de facto-independent. China, in turn, has already signalled its dissatisfaction with its election by poaching Nauru, one of Taiwan’s few (twelve as of January 2024) remaining diplomatic allies. This move would likely have called off if Hou or (perhaps even if) Ko had won, and resembles the end of the ‘diplomatic truce’ (外交休兵) shortly after Tsai’s 2016 victory when China established relations with the Gambia. Besides this, China’s reaction has been relatively subdued, however. State media discourse on the election was limited, like the minuscule summary in a small corner of the People’s Daily, while social media was censored.
The loss of Nauru is not a major blow to Lai as the DPP – in comparison to the KMT at least – does not attach high importance to retaining Taiwan’s remaining official diplomatic allies. In 1999, a year before Chen Shui-bian took power, the DPP proposed New Internationalism (新國際主義) as a foreign policy guideline for Taiwan in the 21st century. New Internationalism essentially pertains to obtaining goodwill through voluntary adherence to global norms and standards that Taiwan is technically not bound by due to its exclusion from most international organisations and treaties. New Internationalism also advocates bolstering informal ties. As unofficial ties with – especially – the West have recently grown warmer, a continuation of Tsai’s foreign policy imbued by the spirit of New Internationalism that skirted the boundaries of sympathetic nations’ one-China policies and boasted Taiwan’s increasingly strong brand abroad can be expected.
What about the Big Two?
Above all, Lai will keep looking to the US for support and will definitely be pleased to have received congratulatory messages from both sides of the aisle. The American elections in November 2024 will obviously be an event to watch for Lai’s administration during its first year. However, as long as the absolute worst – American civil unrest – does not materialise, the election outcome is not very relevant from the perspective of Taipei. Ongoing debates in Washington primarily centre around American commitments to Ukraine, while enduring bipartisan support to Taiwan seems considerably more certain.
Much later, during Lai’s first term (likely October 2027), the 21st Congress of the CCP will decide whether Xi Jinping’s rule extends into the 2030s. With or without Xi, escalation toward Taiwan is extremely unlikely as the price is simply too steep for the CCP. Even if one disregards military consequences, any unprovoked – here to be understood as “anything short of a unilateral Taiwanese declaration of independence” – military move by China would cause an irreparable rift with the West and the materialisation of its dreaded economic decoupling. As the CCP is currently pursuing a thaw with the West as China’s economy is slowing down, heating up the Taiwan issue to unprecedented levels would be an irrational choice.
Onward to 2028
As the DPP has lost its legislative majority, Lai awaits a herculean task. Beyond safeguarding an absolute minimum of cross-Strait stability, the success or failure of Lai’s presidency will likely be decided by bread-and-butter issues unrelated to Taiwan’s antagonistic neighbour across the Strait. Regaining the younger voting demographic who deserted the DPP for Ko’s TPP will prove especially challenging. Stagnating wages, soaring housing prices, lacklustre energy transition, plummeting birth rates, etc., are all themes that Lai will be judged on in 2028. The rise of Ko, who has no coherent cross-Strait policy but addresses a lot of these qualms, attests to a growing demand to step over the traditional Blue-Green polarisation to achieve necessary domestic reforms. The difficulty level will be high for Lai, as this all needs to be pursued while dealing with the inevitable public fatigue that any long-term ruling party faces.
The DPP has made history by achieving an unprecedented third consecutive term, albeit with a significantly reduced mandate. Four rocky years loom before the Taiwanese public decides whether it will get a fourth. Regardless of the outcome, the democratic reality that the Taiwanese people will again have the final say in 2028 merits celebration from Taipei to Kaohsiung.
Jasper Roctus is a PhD researcher affiliated with Ghent University, where he is presently working on evolutions in modern narratives surrounding Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925). His “PhD Fellowship fundamental research” is funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO). He is also an Associate Fellow at the Egmont Institute, where he works on domestic Chinese politics and cross-Strait relations.
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