Written by Michael Mo. This article explores the divergent prospect of polarisation of the Sunflower and Umbrella activists in the aftermath of the Movements. While the electoral system in Taiwan forced activists to abandon small parties and shift towards the main parties, Hong Kong’s system before the overhaul in 2021 encouraged small parties to compete.
Written by Mingke Ma. Unlike the nomination process for the General Election in 2020, the Chinese Nationalist Party (中國國民黨, KMT) decided to forgo a party primary election to nominate its presidential candidate for the upcoming General Election in 2024 to ‘avoid internal strife’. New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) and the founder of Foxconn, Terry Gou（郭台銘）, have publicly declared their interest in endeavouring for the KMT’s presidential nomination. In this piece, I will show that although Hou seems more likely to receive the KMT’s final nomination, Terry Gou remains an important asset for the KMT’s overall electoral prospects.
Written by Adrian Chiu. It was generally thought that political parties are either election-based or ideology-based, depending on the factions dominating the party. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), having lost two presidential elections in a row, are now at crossroads to decide which they are for. As a mainstream party in a two-party system, the KMT is generally assumed to be aimed at winning elections. But as a former authoritarian party, adapting to electoral politics has always been tricky for the party. The increasingly vocal ‘deep blue’ faction within the party also seemed to suggest otherwise. As the general elections draw near, the temperature is rising for the battle for the party.
Written by The Fengze Strategy. Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election is approaching. Although candidates from different major parties have yet to stand out representing their parties, economic development has been considered an essential issue in every campaign. Some political entrepreneurs thought that democratic values could not be sufficient for economic development; in other words, citizens who prefer economic development the most would consider the so-called democratic value to be “a castle in the sand”. In this article, we will examine the presidential elections in Taiwan from 1996 to 2020 through the basic factor of economic development, the gross domestic product (GDP).
Written by Raian Hossain. Despite such heightened tension in cross-strait relations across 2022, President Xi Jinping and Tsai Ing-wen have delivered their English and Lunar new year speeches, showing signs of certain tolerance and a softer tone toward each other. The message from both sides of the Taiwan Strait is not random but rather driven by political objectives and motives likely to determine the cross-Strait relations in the upcoming years. Although speeches by President Xi Jinping and Tsai Ing-wen cover numerous angles, this article uses some specific lenses of the Politics of Security, the local and presidential election of Taiwan, and pandemic politics while de-coding the Cross-strait relations for the near future.
Written by Brian Hioe. Perhaps ironically, the western new year’s and lunar new year’s speeches by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and Chinese President Xi Jinping touched on many of the same issues.
