The result in Taiwan’s presidential and parliamentary election will chart the trajectory of relations with China over the next four years.
The DPP won the presidentship, but I can’t help but feel like they had higher expectations. Under Tsai, they had a majority in the Yuan.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Apart from tensions with China, the election largely hinged on domestic issues, such as a slowed economy, housing affordability, a yawning gap between rich and poor, and unemployment.
Beijing strongly opposes the front-runner in the presidential race, current Vice President Lai Ching-te, of the governing Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP.
Lai and incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen reject China’s sovereignty claims over Taiwan, a former Japanese colony that split from the mainland amid civil war in 1949.
The United States, which is bound by its laws to provide Taiwan with the weapons needed to defend itself, has pledged support for whichever government emerges, reinforced by the Biden administration’s plans to send an unofficial delegation made up of former senior officials to the island shortly after the election.
Taiwan’s election is seen as having “real and lasting influence on the geopolitical landscape,” said Gabrielle Reid, associate director with the global intelligence consultancy S-RM.
That partly reflects inevitable cycles in demand for computer chips and other exports from the high-tech, heavily trade-dependent manufacturing base, and a slowing of the Chinese economy.
The original article contains 935 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Taiwan is very mountainous and urban, and has few good beaches for landings. It is also wealthy, and high population. Could probably take a page from the Swiss method for staving off aggression in the early-mid 20th century.
