Gordon G. Change
Gatestone Institute, Jan. 14, 2024
“I think the people here are accustomed to the endless threats coming from China. … They seem to take them in stride.”
The results are in. Taiwan’s voters stood up to China and all its war talk of recent weeks.
Vice President Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party won the presidency on Saturday in a three-way race with 40.1% of the vote. Hsiao Bi-khim, recently Taipei’s representative in Washington, was elected vice president. New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih, of the opposition Kuomintang received 33.5%, and Ko Wen-je of the new Taiwan People’s Party came in third with 26.5%.
The election was historic. For the first time since 1996, when the island republic held its first democratic presidential election, a party has won a third straight presidential term. Previously, the DPP, as the governing party is known, and the Kuomintang or KMT, traded the presidency every eight years.
Lai’s campaign was ailing a few weeks ago as voters were expressing dissatisfaction with DPP governance on bread-and-butter issues. Then Beijing decided to weigh in, calling the vice president a “separatist” and “destroyer of peace.” As a result, ethnic Taiwanese voters began to focus on their ethnicity and the China threat.
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