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Taiwan is redh hot on the 13th of
January the Democratic Progressive Party
with its new candidate Le Ching T won
the presidential elections in Taiwan for
the third consecutive time but why is
this so important well because it is a
major setback for China of all the
possible options this was by far the
least desired by XI jingping but it is
done and dusted neither military threats
nor political pressure have changed the
majority sentiment in Taiwan Taiwan
voters dismissed China warnings and hand
ruling party a historic third
consecutive presidential win China
threatened Taiwan again after Li chinga
victory in the Island's presidential
election reunification is inevitable
this new stage comes at an absolutely
crucial
moment you see within the US military
there are senior officers who warn that
between 2025 and 2027 China could try to
invade the island and yes other voices
delay this scenario by a few years but
that does not change the reality because
if there is one thing that seems clear
today it is that the geopolitical and
Military risk is growing as the Chinese
military continues to arm itself to the
teeth but if the most pessimistic us
officials are right and the conflict
occurs between 2025 and 2027 this means
that the lying T government will be
responsible for guaranteeing the defense
of the island that is why these latest
elections have been absolutely key and
in the end the result has been a blow to
Beijing which had hoped that taiwan's
political line would shift substantially
so with all that we are telling you a
few questions arise who is Ling T and
what will his victory mean for Taiwan
China relations why did the Taiwanese
vote again for the party that most
rejects ties with China well we're going
to tell you all this and much more so
let's get
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started
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as in other East Asian countries such as
South Korea taiwan's democracy is also
very young the island has held just
eight Democratic elections since the mid
1990s and visual politic Community these
most recent ones have been a bit special
take a look at this chart for a moment
what you see are the results of the
presidential election of a few days ago
and I'm sure you are already noticing
one detail lie did not win with an
absolute majority and this although not
so rare is important because in the
previous elections of 2020 saing Wen did
sweep the field with more than 57% of
the votes in other words the ruling
party has lost 17 points of support in
only 4 years if in 2020 sing W could be
said to have caused a few Roar among
Taiwanese in 2024 we cannot say exactly
the same about
lie and it's not just about the
presidential elections in Parliament the
ruling party has also lost 10 seats and
thus its absolute majority in fact the
quing Tang nationalists have outnumbered
them by one seat due to the geographic
distribution of the vote now what
exactly does this mean well in a
nutshell that the political situation in
Taiwan far from simplifying is getting
much more complicated visual politic
viewers you can take it for granted that
China will take advantage of a
legislature without legislative
majorities in which the political forces
will have to negotiate in a dog fight to
have more influence on the country's
policy but first of all I think there is
one question we need to answer what
differentiates these major political
parties from each other what kind of
relationship do they Advocate having
with China and perhaps the most
important question of all are the time
when shifting towards more Pro Beijing
positions well listen
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up traditionally since the Advent of
democracy Taiwan has been characterized
by a two- party system on the one hand
there was the Chinese nationalist party
or King tang and on the other the
Democratic Progressive Party however in
this latest election the two-party
system has disappeared to make way for a
third option for the presidency but
since most of you are not familiar with
Taiwanese politics let's take it one
step at a time only then will we be able
to understand beijing's influence on the
island in the coming years to begin with
we have the qu Ming Tang the so to speak
traditional Party The Party of a
country's Nationalist and Military Elite
which nevertheless surprisingly in
recent years has been turning to more
prob Beijing positions and yes the quing
Tang is the party of Chang kek the
founder of Taiwan who held power on the
island with an iron fist for a quarter
of a century Chang kek lost the war
against the Communists in mainland China
after which he went into Exile on the
island of Formosa in 1949 there Chang
ensured the survival of the Republic of
China or at at least what was left of it
in this way he established an
authoritarian and militaristic regime in
Taiwan the fact is that for the quing
tank for many decades the state of the
Republic of China which is still the
official name of Taiwan has been the
legitimate China from their perspective
the People's Republic of China founded
by Ma dong on the mainland is a state
born out of an illegitimate violent
Rebellion supported by foreign powers
knowing this you would expect the king
Tang to be the party with the hardest
positions against the Chinese r regime
wouldn't you think well nothing could be
further from the truth the guing Tang
used to consider the Republic of China
as the only China and that implies
something important Taiwan is not the
People's Republic of China but it is the
true China and the Taiwanese are
therefore also Chinese the point is that
over time the Chinese sentiment of the
Taiwanese has
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evaporated to give you an idea according
to a survey conducted at the end of 2023
by the Pew Research Center 67% of
Taiwanese feel exclusively Taiwanese 28%
feel Taiwanese and Chinese and only 3%
feel Chinese obviously this has been a
brutal social change so the quing Tang
has had to shift its positions and the
party has been forced to maintain a
delicate balance between synergies with
China and the country's Independence and
as we were saying this has resulted in
the strange situation that what was once
the anti-communist party par excellance
is now the time when party that most
advocates for smooth relations with the
Beijing regime but do you want some
concrete examples well keep in mind that
between 2018 and 2016 the quing Tang
ruled the island during that time
relations with Beijing improved so much
that air and direct links with China
were established while at the same time
many investment restrictions were lifted
in both territories for Chinese and
Taiwanese investors and companies in
other words the quing Tang sought first
and foremost to normalize its relations
with Beijing and in the end that cost
the party dearly 2014 saw the emergence
of the sunflower movement a series of
student protests in public buildings
that erupted in the wake of the free
trade agreement that the quing Tang
promoted between Taipei and Beijing you
were to become taiwan's president would
you seek a meeting with she the most
important thing at this stage is that we
in Taiwan still have to stabilize this
area in the thawan straight therefore we
must first improve our own National
Defense armaments and our own
self-defense capabilities of course in
the process of improvement we will start
with dialogue with the current
situations in Taiwan in fact we still
have a long way to go dialogue dialogue
dialogue the quing Tang wants to improve
relations with Beijing at all costs in
contrast its great rival the Democratic
Progressive Party which governs the
island is much more Pro
sovereignty the Democratic Progressive
Party was founded in 1986 just when the
political opening up allowed the
formation of parties other than the
quing tank well this basically argues
that Taiwan and China are different
things that Taiwan is an independent
state and that the histories of the two
countries have long since slid down
completely different paths they are not
in favor of declaring full Independence
just because Beijing has said over and
over again that such an action would be
considered an act of War were it not for
that the Democratic Progressive Party
would seek to have Taiwan declare its
independence in order to become a normal
country but how does all this translate
into action well first of all the
governments of this party make China
very angry and it tends to raise the
tone of its provocations and threats
every time it wins an election for
example during the Chen Shuan government
which ruled from 2000 to 2008 an
official Declaration was promoted that
affirmed the existence of a national
identity different from that of the
Mainland the sort of light Declaration
of Independence at the same time they
advocated the enacting of a new
constitution in line with these new
expectations of autonomy and
Independence in the end a corruption
case swept it all away and opened the
door to the quing Tang's return to power
of course that would not last
long in 2016 Sai inwent became the first
woman to head the Taiwanese executive
and she did so largely thanks to her
determination to separate the Island's
political identity from that of the
Mainland and to do so to such an extent
that the rest of the world take dour
future independence from Beijing for
granted this by the way is also
advocated by her disciple and future
president Ling it is that Taiwan is
already a sovereign independent country
called the Republic of China it's not
part of the People's Republic of China
The Roc and PRC are not subordinate to
one another it is not necessary to
declare
independence however in the latest
elections a new formation has managed to
break the two party system system we're
talking about the Taiwan people's party
it's a party that emerged very recently
in 2019 and that in these latest
elections has already won more than 22%
of the votes a meteoric rise now who are
they well the Taiwan People's Party
slaps the face of both the quing tang
and the Democratic Progressive Party
regarding Beijing they believe that the
current status quo should be maintained
although their campaign avoided talking
much about this issue as unnecessary
basically let things stay as they are so
in short Taiwan has two political polls
one that Advocates normalizing relations
with China and one that Advocates
maintaining or strengthening the
Island's autonomy now however other
questions arise why is the outcome of
this latest election terrible news for
the Beijing regime well pay attention
because I think you're going to be very
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surprised the end of the Chinese tall
tale in Taiwan a perod es can be very
deceiving and as we've just seen those
who today call themselves nationalists
are precisely those who want to get
closer to Beijing the quing Tang seeks
to keep the 1992 consensus alive as the
basis for cross straight relations but
wait a minute what on Earth is that well
in 1992 representatives of communist
China and the quing tank which at that
time ruled Taiwan recognized the
existence of a single China but under
the premise that both sides had a
different interpretation of their
identity however the Taiwanese
opposition to the quing tan has always
argued that this consensus cannot be
understood as a state policy but as a
party policy what's more for citing when
this consensus is nothing more than the
one country two systems policy which by
the way was already betrayed by Beijing
in Hong Kong in 2019 so why repeat
mistakes well that's just it the result
of so much ambiguity and so much
collegiality with China has led to the
collapse of the quing tank at least in
terms of being able to govern three
legislatures out of power is not
something that happens frequently for
them with the results of the latest
elections almost seven out of 10
Taiwanese voted for an option contrary
to the 1992 consensus and therefore
contrary to the idea that there is only
one
China of course this is not taken
Beijing by surprise after all the polls
had already predicted it the problem is
that the crumbling of quing Tang power
also means the displacement of the only
party with which XI jingping could
consider a peaceful annexation a Hong
Kong style solution for Taiwan which has
always been beijing's big dream is now
completely unfeasible it is out of the
question and what can I say let's not
fool ourselves Taiwan is a free country
a solid democracy and a developed
economy the Taiwanese will never accept
to become the new Hong kongers who were
promised so much and in the end got
nothing but visual politic community on
on top of this huge sociological and
political change we have to add the
profile of the president elect Li Ching
T who comes to the role from being prime
minister between 2017 and 2019 and vice
president from 2020 lie has been seen by
voters as a continuist profile of the
pro autonomy stance maintained by siing
W since 2016 to top it off his vice
president comes from being taiwan's
representative in the United States and
is very pro-american in other words this
government looks like it's going to have
even closer ties with Washington and I
guess Xi Jinping is not at all amused by
this either listen
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up Taiwan no more no
less in the 1990s when taiwan's
democratization was taking off the
majority of the population considered
themselves both Taiwanese and Chinese
however three decades later the picture
is totally different as we have already
told you two out of three Taiwanese feel
only Taiwan
while those who feel only Chinese are
disappearing from the map this situation
not only helps to understand the debacle
of the nationalists but also puts in
check the logic of a single China in
other words the Taiwanese are not only
rejecting being part of the People's
Republic of China but also the idea that
Taiwan is the Republic of China in other
words Taiwan is Taiwan now does this
mean that the majority will support full
Independence well no it certainly does
not we have already told you that
Beijing has repeated ad nauseum that it
would never tolerate such a possibility
and would consider it an act of war and
for that reason the preferred option of
the Taiwanese is to stay as they are at
least for now independence is almost as
unpopular as unification with the
mainland and that is precisely the
reason for the strong growth of the
Taiwan people's party which as we have
said before defends looking the other
way and keeping things as they are with
China while focusing its discourse on
other issues taiwan's young voters fret
over material and existential issues for
one key constituency elections it's as
much about more material issues such as
wages inflation energy security equality
and social justice the problem is that
this clashes head on with beijing's
aspirations it's not the worst case
scenario for them but it doesn't take
the stone out of their shoe so the new
government will have to start thinking
about how to defend Taiwan the question
is what do you think they should do
leave us your opinion down in the
comments and let's start and as always
very important if you like this video
don't forget to like it and subscribe to
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news thank you very much for watching
all the best see you next
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time