The Daily Signal - Taiwan Elected a New President. He Faces Big China Challenges

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Taiwan’s new president has his work cut out for him, Michael Cunningham says. “He’s not in an easy position,” Cunningham, a research fellow in the Asian Studies Center of The Heritage Foundation, says of President-elect Lai Ching-te. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.) “Beijing deeply distrusts” the political party Lai is a member of because China’s leaders think that party is “intent on seeking formal independence from China,” Cunningham says. While it’s likely Lai will maintain the status quo and not seek formal independence from China, Cunningham predicts China will continue applying pressure to Taiwan. During his presidency, Lai, 64, is “probably going to have to constantly be responding to provocations by Beijing,” he said. Lai, currently vice president, takes office May 20. Cunningham was in Taiwan during the election on Jan. 13 and joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain why Taiwan’s freedom directly affects America. He also explains why he thinks it’s unlikely China will launch a full-scale invasion of Taiwan anytime in the near future. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, January 23rd. I'm Virginia Allen. Taiwan recently held a presidential election and chose Li Qing Ta as their new president. Heritage Foundation Research Fellow in the Asian Studies Center, Michael Cunningham, was in Taiwan for the election and says that America could learn a thing or two from Taiwan's very transparent election process. He joins us on the show today to explain the challenges that President Lai has in front of him. as China continues to pose a threat to Taiwan. He also explains why Taiwan's freedom from China is critical to America's interest. Stay tuned for our conversation, but first, if you are someone you know works in higher education, listen up. We all know that the academic environment is particularly challenging for faculty who research, publish, teach, or develop programs in areas that explore things like economic freedom,

the dignity of the person, human flourishing, constitutional governance, national sovereignty, and other areas that are related to freedom and opportunity and traditional American values. And funding opportunities for such programs are scarce. That's why the Heritage Foundation established the Freedom and Opportunity Academic Prizes to recognize and provide financial awards to faculty at higher education institutions. The deadline to apply is February 1st. Winners will receive a financial award of $15,000 in recognition of their past accomplishments, the importance of their current work, and their future promise in the academy,

especially in relation to public policy. Again, the application deadline is February 1st. For more information and to apply, visit heritage.org slash innovation prize. Again, that website is heritage.org slash innovation prize. Eyes. Heritage Foundation Research Fellow, who researches and writes on China in the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation. Michael Cunningham joins us now. Michael, welcome back to the show and welcome back to the United States from Taiwan. Thank you. It's great to be here. Well, you were in Taiwan during their elections. These were elections that were watched very, very closely, given the implications that they have. Explain if you would what it was like in Taiwan on Election Day. What was the atmosphere like? Well, it was, on the one hand, just like any other day, I mean, it only takes people a few minutes to vote in Taiwan, so it's a very quick process. It's on a Saturday, and so it doesn't disrupt their work too much. But it was, you know, there was a lot of energy. We usually don't see so many foreign observers in Taiwan. And it seems the international community is even more. interested in the election than the locals were, although they did have, you know, about 70, I believe it was 71% turnout. Wow.

But it's fascinating, actually, just to see how it works. You know, the quick voting process, they wait in a very short line, show their ID, get their ballots, go in a little booth, and they're pretty much done. And it's all paper ballots, correct? It's all paper ballots, that's correct. And that helps, especially if there's any question about legitimacy of the results, then they're able to go back and they have the papers there to show. They also collect a copy of the ID of everyone who's voted. And so they also have that additional check as well. If there's more than one copy of someone's ID, then they know that it wasn't supposed to have happened.

But, you know, I was able to watch the count as soon as the polls closed at four. In about 30, 40 minutes after that, they started counting the votes. And it's just a very smooth process. The count is open to the public. Anyone can go into their polling station or into any polling station and watch them count the vote. So I really think there's a lot we can learn there, or at least reference as we try to make our elections. maybe more transparent or maybe less subject to accusations. Certainly.

Yeah, to accusations. Certainly. Well, and given Taiwan situation with China, there was great concern that there was great emphasis put on this needs for there to beat transparency with this election, making sure that China wasn't interfering in any way. Share with us if you would who the Taiwanese people have chosen as their new president. What do we know about it? Yeah, so Lai Qingda, he's the current vice president. He was the candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party, which is portrayed sort of in media as being a pro-independence party. And it officially is based on the party's platform. But in practice, they do not advocate changing the status quo. President-elect Lai is very much disliked by Beijing because he has a history of overtly advertising.

for formal independence. But on the campaign trail, he really went back to the more mainstream position, which is the position of the current president's Hai Yingwan, which is that Taiwan is already a sovereign state and has no need to declare formal independence. That's a good thing because a declaration of formal independence, Beijing has consistently said that it would respond with military force if that were to occur. And so, yeah, just to emphasize, President-elect lie would not be able to declare independence, even if he wanted to. It's just institutionally nearly impossible to do so. And at the same time, he does not seem, based on all he's been saying over the past year or so, that is not on his agenda. But,

Beijing deeply distrusts him, dislikes him, and is going to try its hardest to ensure that he's a one-term president. Well, and I watched some of his remarks in his acceptance speech after he won the election, and he was very clear and very pointed that he is going to be a president who is ready to stand against China and who is very concerned about maintaining freedom for the people of Taiwan. If you would, Michael, talk us through just a little bit of the history between China and Taiwan. Why is there so much controversy there? China and Taiwan have at one point, they were part of the same country. Well, at a couple points in their history, they were. And they most recently split at the end of the civil war between Mao Zedong's communes. and the what is, you know, the nationalist government, which was led by the KMT, the Guaming

Dong, which is one of the parties, one of the opposition parties in Taiwan today. Prior to that, you know, Taiwan had a long history also of being colonized by various countries, most recently Japan, during, well, before and during World War II. And so it was really only at the end of World War II that Taiwan was handed back to China. Taiwan never belonged to the People's Republic of China. It was the Republic of China. And when Mao Zedong and the communists gained power in the mainland towards the end of the Civil War, that's when Jiang Kai Shack, who was the leader of the nationalist government at the time fled to Taiwan.

And so there's sort of been that feud ever since where it's sort of seen both as sort of a relic of the or unfinished business of the civil war. At the same time, Taiwan has immense geopolitical value for whoever controls it. And so the CCP in Beijing would love to have. access or to have control of Taiwan. But overall, you know, it's just a very, it's a subject of a lot of nationalistic fervor in China, thanks primarily to the propaganda that the CCP has used around Taiwan over the past several decades. For President Lai then, what are his challenges looking at his presidency and navigating that quite tense relationship with China?

Yeah, so he's not in an easy position. In a way, it's actually easier for someone from the KMT to deal with these threats because Beijing is deeply distrusts the DPP, the party that Lai is a part of. It believes that the DPP is intent on seeking formal independent. from China. And because of that, it is going to keep the pressure on Lai, especially, you know, according to Beijing, Tsai Inuan, the current president who's been very moderate, is actually an extremist and a separatist, according to Beijing. And so Lai, even more so, if one of his opponents would have been elected, there would have been a greater chance that Beijing would have taken its foot off the gas pedal as far as as the pressure tactics it uses against

Taiwan. It would have been more willing to come to the bargaining table and talk about de-escalation, whereas with lion power, he's having to strengthen Taiwan's deterrence and its defense, while at the same time probably going to have to constantly be responding to provocations by Beijing. So that's very difficult. Taiwan has very significant socioeconomic problems that it's trying to deal with and that Lai is expected by the voters to address. And as long as he's constantly having to respond to provocations by Beijing, his job is just going to be that much harder. How likely is it that under Lyme's presidency, we would see China move forward in force and actually try to invade Taiwan? Very unlikely, actually.

Now, it was very unlikely before he was elected, and it remains very unlikely. Now, the threat here is that China's military provocations are not going to. to cease. They're not going to become less prevalent with lie as president. Beijing very much distrusts him and is going to keep the pressure on him as much as possible. Now, what that means is there is constantly going to be the risk that the military tension is going to escalate to the point of armed conflict that nobody wants, including Beijing. The only thing that would make it more likely for Beijing to attack Taiwan would be if Taiwan declared independence formally, if the U.S. established diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which Beijing would view as pretty much being akin to

a de facto permanent separation of the two sides of the strait. None of those are in the cards right now, just as an idea, if Lai wanted to declare formal independence of Taiwan, it would almost definitely require a constitutional amendment, which is almost impossible to push through the political process in Tai Bay. Very smart policies have been made to make it essentially impossible that Taiwan can either unify willingly with China or. declare independence, which would result in an armed attack. So Lai and everyone in the mainstream in Taiwan is very much in support of the status quo. And even if he's not, he will not be able to move in that direction.

Here in the United States, what have we seen from the Biden administration? Are they in support of maintaining the status quo? Are they wanting to see changes? What have we been hearing? They're in support of the status quo as well. That's basically across the board. You do see sometimes campaign rhetoric from one politician or another or sometimes on Capitol Hill, where people do not have, you know, as they and their staff might not be as keyed into what's at stake.

Every now and then you hear a statement in support of changing the status quo. But by and large, the entire political community here in the United States is in terms. favor of keeping the status quo. When President Biden was asked what he thinks about Lai's election victory, he made it very clear that we, meaning the United States, do not support de facto independence. And it's, you know, it's not that we do not support the fact that Taiwan functions as an independent state. It's just that we do not want to go to war over Taiwan. And we recognize that. We recognize that the vast majority of Taiwan's public also favors maintaining the status quo. Okay, fascinating.

Why is it in America's interest for Taiwan to remain out of China's control? Yeah, that's a very good question and one that politicians are increasingly having to grapple with as China becomes increasingly strong and assertive. Just the thought of ending up in a war with China over Taiwan or over anything should frighten every American. Taiwan is actually a core interest of the United States, both because of its geopolitical or frankly its geographic position. It is very important to keeping China sort of restrained within its own sphere of influence to keep it first. from exerting its influence throughout Asia, throughout the Pacific, and ensuring that it's stealing, ensuring that it's not able to threaten the United States and our allies.

Just as an example, we are treaty bound to come to Japan's defense, should it ever be attacked. well, from Japan's perspective, the fall of Taiwan to mainland China would actually be an existential threat because China would then have control of the waters around Taiwan and would be able to prevent Japan from getting essentially any energy resources. That's just one reason, but ultimately China would like to push the United States out of Asia. would like to have more free reign around the world. It would make it much harder for us to avoid getting into a conflict with China. If China had access to Taiwan and was able to break through that first island chain that really pins it in close to its own borders.

The other issue is we are very much reliant on Taiwan economically. And that's very little understood by most people, actually. But not only do we rely on Taiwan for our semiconductors, which it took Taiwan 40 years to develop its semiconductor, almost you could say semiconductor hegemony. But at the same time, it's not only semiconductors. It's basically consumer goods generally, anything that's manufactured. Taiwan plays a central role in manufacturing. We don't see things come with a made-in-Taiwan label because they're made in China and in other countries,

but they're made by Taiwanese companies. And should Taiwan ever find itself at war and its companies be unable to sustain or to continue directing the factories that they have in China and elsewhere, much of global manufacturing would just come to a state. standstill. The way the Financial Times put it last year in one article was they said that even if the United States could move semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S., if war occurred in Taiwan, what we would have then would be made in America chips and nothing to put them in.

Wow. Well, it sounds like President Lai does not have an easy job ahead. Definitely not. Any president-elect would have a difficult job. ahead. And for him, with as much as Beijing dislikes him, his job is just that much harder. Oh, yeah. And he only got 40% of the votes. And so he doesn't really have a popular mandate either. He does not have a legislative majority. So he has work, his work cut out for him. Well, we certainly wish him and the people of Taiwan all the best in this new chapter of their nation. Michael, thank you for going to Taiwan, for being there, being able to report back about what you saw. We really appreciate it, and we appreciate your analysis today.

Well, thank you. It's always great to be here. And I encourage all of our listeners, check out Michael Cunningham's work at heritage.org. You can find all of his reporting there, his research there, and also make sure, Michael, you're on social media as well, correct? I am. Can folks follow your work at there? They can. I'm not the most prolific social media user.

You know, I think that's a good thing, you know. Well, Michael, we appreciate your time. Thanks so much. Thank you. Bye-bye. That's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for being with us here on the Daily Signal podcast. If you have not had the chance, make sure that you check out our evening show.

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