Taiwan’s Nov. 26 local elections come a month after Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has stepped up military pressure on the democratically-ruled island to accept Beijing’s rule, secured a record-breaking third term as leader. While the vote for mayors and councilors is nominally about domestic issues, Tsai told thousands of cheering supporters at a rally in central Taipei that much more was at stake, the first time she has so explicitly gone after China in this campaign. Tsai said she had not “given in” to Xi’s “one country, two systems” proposal for autonomy under Chinese rule and that under her leadership more and more countries see Taiwan’s democracy and security as the key to peace. . “I want to tell everyone that Taiwan’s existence and the Taiwanese people’s insistence on freedom and democracy are not a challenge to anyone,” he told a rally for his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). “As president, my appeal is to make every effort to let Taiwan continue to be the Taiwan of the Taiwanese people.” China staged war games near Taiwan in August after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei and has since continued military activities nearby, including near-daily fighter jet crossings of the sensitive middle line in the narrow Taiwan Strait. US President Joe Biden will meet Xi next week, with Taiwan on the agenda, according to the White House.
ELECTORAL TEST OF PARTY SUPPORT
While Tsai and the DPP swept the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections, the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party made strong gains in the last local elections of 2018. The poll in two weeks will be a test for both parties ahead of Taiwan’s next presidential and parliamentary vote in early 2024. The KMT, which ruled China before fleeing to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, has traditionally favored close relations with Beijing, which has left it open to DPP attacks and will sell the island to the Chinese Communist Party. The KMT denies this, but has been unable to shake the accusations ahead of the 2020 election, leading to a DPP landslide. Speaking at a KMT election rally in neighboring New Taipei on Saturday, its chairman Eric Chu said their mission was to protect Taiwan’s freedom and democracy. “The most important goal is that everyone can have a peaceful and stable future,” he said. Report by Ben Blanchard. Edited by Andrew Cawthorne Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
