The race will also have significant implications for the United States, which acknowledges Beijing’s one-China policy, but supports Taiwan’s democracy and arms it with weapons.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping told President Biden in San Francisco in November that Taiwan remains “the most important and most sensitive issue in China-U.S. relations.” The Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan but claims the self-governed island of 23 million as its territory and regularly threatens to take charge by force if Taipei refuses to submit.
Experts on Taiwanese politics expect the presidential election race to hinge on who voters think is best placed to handle these Chinese threats and work with the United States and other partners to mitigate risks of war. The pivotal election is shaping up to be one of the most fractured in Taiwan’s democratic history as an insurgent third candidate party challenges a traditionally two-party system.
Here’s who’s running for president.
Lai Ching-te, 64, Democratic Progressive Party
Despite criticism over stagnant wages and a controversial phaseout of nuclear power, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party is leading in the polls. Beijing deeply mistrusts the party, which it views as supporting Taiwan’s independence, and has refused to talk to Tsai Ing-wen, who was elected president in 2016 and will step down in May, in line with term limits.
Their candidate, Lai Ching-te, also known as William Lai, is a former kidney doctor who has been vice president since 2020. He is trying to convince voters that Taiwan would be safer under his leadership. He claims his party has over the last eight years forged stronger ties with the United States, Japan and other democracies, and has stood its ground against growing Chinese pressure.
A Lai victory would anger China, which accuses him of being even more of a “separatist” than Tsai. For years Lai openly supported Taiwan’s independence. After he briefly visited New York and San Francisco in August, Beijing held large-scale drills around Taiwan as a warning. His running mate, Hsiao Bi-khim, a former envoy to the United States, has been sanctioned twice by Beijing.
Since becoming vice president, Lai has backed away from his pro-independence views. He now vows to maintain the status quo — where Taiwan enjoys de facto sovereignty without provoking Beijing by declaring independence. Taiwan and China can be “brothers” with a shared ancestry but neither should be subordinate to the other, he says.
When it comes to handling Xi, the Chinese leader, Lai says he is willing to work together to maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait, if Beijing lets him.
“I’ll advise him to take it easy, don’t be so stressed,” Lai said when asked what he would tell Xi in a meeting. “Peace is good for everyone.”
Hou Yu-ih, 66, Kuomintang
The Democratic Progressive Party’s main rival is the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang, which wants to resume trade and dialogue with China. After failing to reach a deal with another party that favors closer ties with China, the party must overcome split support in the opposition camp to win.
Their candidate is Hou Yu-ih, a former policeman of 30 years who vows to restore dialogue and strengthen business links with China to ease tensions. As the popular mayor of New Taipei City, he earned a reputation for efficiency but critics say he has little experience with China or foreign affairs.
Hou has condemned the current government for stoking tensions with China and has called for returning to a policy of engagement. He opposes Taiwanese independence and accepts that the island is part of “one China,” even though Taipei and Beijing disagree about what that means.
Hou is not a typical presidential choice for the Kuomintang. He is the party’s first native Taiwanese candidate: His family didn’t flee to the island following the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, a choice made to appeal to middle-ground voters.
But traditional Kuomintang voters appeared less than enthusiastic about Hou’s Taiwanese background, leading him to tap Jaw Shaw-kong, a famous television personality and fierce critic of Tsai and Lai, as his running mate to shore up support.
Ko Wen-je, 64, Taiwan People’s Party
Ko Wen-je has been the dark horse of this election. The populist appeal of the one-time trauma surgeon and former mayor of Taipei has upset a political system long dominated by two parties, the DPP and the KMT, and drawn support to his much smaller Taiwan People’s Party.
Plain-spoken to the brink of offensive, Ko’s unorthodox approach has endeared himself to young voters who share his disdain for Taiwan’s traditional political divide. If elected, he promises to reform the electoral system to better include other parties.
On China, Ko has said that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one family.” He promises dialogue with Beijing, but also emphasizes the need to build up Taiwan’s military to deter Beijing from attacking. It is unclear whether China would talk with Ko, however. He has avoided taking a stance on whether Taiwan is part of “one China,” something Beijing considers a precondition for engagement.
A Ko victory could complicate the U.S.-China tensions because of his tendency to go off script on sensitive parts of the relationship between Beijing, Washington and Taipei.
During a recent television appearance, Ko declared that various countries want to “dip their fingers in” Taiwan’s elections and claimed that the American Institute in Taiwan, the United States’ de facto embassy, called him to ask about Chinese influence. The institute responded by reaffirming that Washington will not take sides in the election.
How will China respond to a win by each of these candidates?
A Lai victory would almost certainly be met with more Chinese aggression, analysts say. China has called Lai a “troublemaker,” and warned the Taiwanese people to make a “rational decision.” If Lai loses, though, that could raise concerns in Taiwan about how to keep Chinese influence in check.
Either Hou or Ko would be preferable for Beijing. Both take a friendlier approach to China and will likely meet Beijing’s conditions to restart talks and revive trade. But even with that thaw, experts doubt the Chinese military will stop threatening activities around Taiwan.
“Even with a Kuomintang victory, we cannot tell people that there will be no more air incursions in the Taiwan Strait, because [China is] playing a chess game with the United States and its allies,” said Alexander Huang, the party’s director of international affairs.
However, Huang argued that a Hou presidency could “buy time” by calming China with dialogue at the same time as building up Taiwan’s defenses. “Deterrence without assurance is like walking on one leg,” he said.
Lai’s supporters, however, fear that cozying up to Beijing could create openings for Chinese influence operations. “China’s influence in Taiwan has faded in recent years due to the ruling party and covid,” said Wu Jieh-min, a sociologist at Academia Sinica, a Taiwanese research institute. “If the opposition camp is in power, China’s influence may return to all levels of Taiwan’s government.”
