William Lai has a tough job. Domestically, Taiwan’s new president will face a strengthened opposition dominating the parliament. If he wants to know how much fun coalition governments are, he can ask Germany’s current and former heads of government, who have plenty of experience with them. Michael Radunski analyzes Taiwan’s new domestic political situation.
Externally, Lai is up against a China that is holding the island in the grip of a hybrid strategy: military threats coupled with the development of dependencies. After the victory of China-critic Lai, Beijing no longer has any reason to put on a friendly face. Leonardo Pape explains how China is reacting and how relations between Taiwan and China could now develop.
Lai Ching-te (William Lai) becomes Taiwan’s new president. But Lai and his DPP also suffered a bitter defeat: In parliament, the Legislative Yuan, the ruling party, lost its former majority. The KMT is now the strongest force with 52 seats. The DPP follows with one seat less.
The two different results reflect a split among voters: With Lai as president, they want to maintain the status quo – especially toward China. Here, Lai focuses on cultural and economic independence, political sovereignty and military deterrence. On the other hand, the new majorities in parliament express the dissatisfaction of Taiwan’s citizens with domestic politics.
The consequence: things are getting complicated. Lai will have to make difficult compromises over the next four years. That holds risks: China will try to exploit this division. But there are also opportunities: Lai’s DPP focuses on Taiwan’s international ties – traditionally with the United States – but increasingly with the EU.
On election night, Lai already showed the balancing act ahead of him. “As president, I have an important responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” said the election winner. “At the same time, we are also determined to safeguard Taiwan from continuing threats and intimidation from China,” he said. “Most Taiwanese people want to protect our democratic lifestyle.” But democracy also means that you can lose your comfortable parliamentary majority if citizens are unhappy with current politics.
“From the outside, we see Taiwan’s relationship with China as a crucial issue. Rightly so, given its geopolitical importance,” said Josie-Marie Perkuhn, a sinologist specializing in Taiwan from the University of Trier. Perkuhn is currently in Taiwan and explains: “In Taiwan itself, however, domestic political problems are more important for the election decision.” And there are a number of problems here: low wages and a high cost of living. Housing that is too expensive and overly long working hours. In addition, there have been repeated corruption and “me-too” scandals.
Above all, this dissatisfaction is reflected in the success of the new third force in the country: the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). Under the leadership of former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je, the TPP, which was only founded in 2019, gained an impressive 26.5 percent of votes in the presidential election.
While the established parties DPP and KMT define themselves strongly through their stance on China, the TPP remains vague here and addresses more everyday concerns instead. “Domestically, it will be messy. There will be less predictability and more blockades,” says Perkuhn. “Lai and the DPP will have to negotiate hard for every bill and will certainly have to make concessions to the China-friendly KMT, especially in the economic sector.”
However, this division also shows how Taiwan’s democracy has matured in the meantime. In other countries, it is almost common practice for voters to express their dissatisfaction with their own government in a partial election after a few terms, thus creating political divisions between constitutional bodies. In Taiwan’s case, this is where foreign countries can come in – both positively and negatively.
The leadership in Beijing will try to exploit the split and exert more influence. “The divided Legislative Yuan offers Beijing the opportunity to expand its silent influence further,” says Perkuhn. This is particularly successful on two levels: in regional politics, by influencing local politicians, or via social media, where a certain mood can be quickly created.
The opportunity for Europe: Lai and the DPP continue to focus on Taiwan’s international integration. This applies above all to Taiwan’s strongest and traditionally closest partner, the United States. But there are also big opportunities here for the EU and Germany, says Perkuhn. “The DPP is clearly focusing on Europe as a partner.”
Partnership potentials:
Shortly before the election, Taiwan’s government passed two major programs: “Both initiatives are clearly aimed at Europe,” says Perkuhn.
The EU seems willing to expand cooperation. “We agree with Taiwan that the status quo in relations must not be changed unilaterally and certainly not by force,” says Michael Gahler, foreign policy spokesperson for the EPP Group and Chairman of the EU Parliament’s Taiwan Friendship Group. “As far as possible, we will pursue the expansion of relations. As the European Parliament, we have long called for the conclusion of a bilateral investment agreement.”
In a rather sober tone, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office commented on William Lai’s election victory shortly after the announcement of the Taiwanese presidential election results: “Taiwan is China’s Taiwan.” The “reunification of China” is inevitable.
Taiwan’s new President, William Lai, was not mentioned by name. The Office, which reports to the Chinese State Council, merely stated its rejection of “separatist activities aimed at ‘Taiwan independence.’” The statement was similar to earlier statements following the election victories of incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen. An escalation of tensions is not initially apparent here.
Following the elections, a delegation of former high-ranking US government officials arrived in Taiwan on Sunday evening. Together with Laura Rosenberger, Chair of the American Institute in Taiwan, they plan to meet several leading Taiwanese politicians. The delegation is not traveling on behalf of the US government.
On Saturday evening, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken congratulated William Lai on his election victory on X (formerly Twitter). The Chinese Foreign Ministry called this a “wrong signal” and a breach of the pledge not to establish official political relations with the Taiwanese government. It also criticized other countries, including Japan, for their positive reactions to the elections in Taiwan.
Germany also offered its congratulations but did not go as far as Blinken, who mentioned Lai by name and called the election a presidential election. The German Foreign Office, on the other hand, only congratulated “the elected,” avoiding the term “president” and thus possibly evading criticism from Beijing. “We congratulate all voters and candidates who participated in the elections, as well as those elected,” the Foreign Office said on Sunday.
This all has to do with a certain caution towards China, which is also reflected in the following sentence: “Germany has close and good relations with Taiwan in many sectors and wants to expand them within the framework of its One-China policy.” The one-China policy is mentioned immediately after the good relations.
On the other hand, a spokesperson on Sunday also emphasized the importance of democratic elections, calling Taiwan an “independent state,” and said Germany was committed to maintaining the status quo, building trust, and is interested in deepening cooperation with Taiwan. The French government expressed similar sentiments, as did the EU.
In recent months, the Chinese authorities have repeatedly referred to William Lai as a “dangerous separatist.” In all likelihood, the Communist Party will not engage in any dialogue with the Taiwanese government under President Lai either. There has been no explicit military response from China to the election results so far. Experts on the ground do not expect this either.
Instead of extensive military exercises, many observers expect China to continue and intensify its strategy of hybrid conflict management against Taiwan. Instead of one large military operation, the aggressor will carry out many small-scale operations. Increasingly frequent missions by the Air Force and Navy over Taiwanese-controlled territory are intended to demoralize the island’s population. Hacker attacks are just as much a part of this as disinformation campaigns on social media.
In recent weeks, China had already attempted to influence the outcome of the elections through the targeted dissemination of false information about politicians and anti-American conspiracy narratives on social networks. At the same time, there are also tempting offers of greater economic integration.
The DPP’s weakened position and political fragmentation in Taiwan could also become a breeding ground for political manipulation. In its statement on the election results, the Taiwan Affairs Office also pointed out that the DPP “does not represent majority public opinion.” Coming from a country where no elections are held, this sounds almost ironic, but it is meant seriously.
China’s actions also come in the context of its relations with the US. According to Lin Ying-yu from the Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University in Taipei, China does not want to tempt the leadership in Washington to support Taiwan even more through open aggression. In particular, China wants to avoid military assurances towards Taiwan becoming a US election campaign issue this year.
China’s hidden influence in Taiwan could be particularly successful at a local political level. After the parliamentary elections, the majority of the 52 members of parliament from the more China-friendly Kuomintang party will come from the constituencies and not from the party list decided by the KMT leadership.
China tends to try to influence MPs and local politicians who are more distant from the party leadership. Before the elections, Chinese state-controlled organizations invited hundreds of district spokespersons from all over Taiwan to sponsored trips to China.
The DPP has brought Puma Shen into parliament via the party list to counter Chinese influence. Shen chairs Doublethink Lab, which aims to strengthen Taiwan’s digital security. He also founded the Kuma Academy, which prepares the Taiwanese civilian population for a conflict with China.
For the KMT, Admiral Chen Yeong-kang, former general commander of the navy, has been elected to parliament. He could play a key role for the KMT in formulating a military strategy towards China. Leonardo Pape, collaboration: fin
Liu Zhenmin is China’s new special envoy for climate change. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment in Beijing made the announcement on Friday. Liu succeeds Xie Zhenhua, who is internationally known as the “climate czar.” At 74, he is now retiring from office after many years. 68-year-old Liu was Xie’s closest advisor at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai and has many years of experience in climate diplomacy. He was involved in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in 1997 and in talks for the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015.
Unlike his predecessor, Xie, Liu Zhenmin is fluent in English. He also has international experience. Between 2017 and 2022, he was UN Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Head of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), where he was also responsible for climate issues, among other things. Before that, he most recently served as China’s Vice Foreign Minister. “The final outcome of the climate conference shows that there is a realization that tackling climate change cannot be a rhetorical exercise, but requires a real response from all countries,” Liu said at the end of COP28.
Xie’s many years of contact with his US counterparts – currently Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and former Secretary of State John Kerry – have played an essential role in reaching consensus at the climate conferences. According to the Ministry of the Environment, Xie is stepping down for health reasons. It was already rumored before COP28 that Xie would step down after the conference.
According to China’s Fourth National Communication on Climate Change, the country will have to spend around 324 trillion yuan (about 42 trillion euros) between 2021 and 2060 to achieve its climate targets, as the China Daily reported last week. This is equivalent to 2.7 times its GDP in 2022. Countries must submit such a communication every four years; China’s most recent one dates back to 2019. ck
The spectacle of the national elections is over. The outcome is largely in line with forecasts, but there are also a few surprises: Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DFP) lived up to his role as favorite and won the presidential election, albeit with only 40.5 percent of votes – over 17 percent less than his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen achieved four years earlier. But it is enough for a ruling party to secure a third term in the Presidential Office for the first time. KMT candidate Hou You-yi clearly lost the elections with 33.5 percent, while Ko Wen-je, the Taiwan People Party (TPP) candidate, which he founded in 2019, secured 26.5 percent of the votes, a figure most observers had not expected.
The KMT narrowly won the concurrent parliamentary elections: It gained 14 seats, but fell well short of the absolute majority it aimed for in the 113-seat Legislative Yuan (LY) with 52 seats. The DFP lost this majority just as clearly with ten fewer seats and now only holds 51 seats in the new LY. The TPP is undoubtedly the big winner of the parliamentary elections: While it only gained three seats and now has eight seats, this will allow it to distinguish itself as the “tip of the scales” when it comes to passing legislation in the coming years. The ruling DFP’s heavy loss of votes mainly benefited the TPP. During the election campaign, the TPP presented itself as an alternative to the “blue” and “green” camps, i.e., to the established and perceived rigid confrontation between the KMT and DFP. This found favor with younger voters, in particular, who have become very critical of the political establishment in Taiwan and backed the “fresh” and popular Ko Wen-je and his “white” camp.
The new President, Lai, will lead a government without a parliamentary majority in the coming years. As Taiwan has no tradition of forming coalitions or tolerating minority governments, such as the French cohabitation model, there is now a risk of political paralysis – as was the case between 2000 and 2008, when then-President Chen Shui-bian had to deal with an absolute majority of the KMT in the Legislative Yuan. However, with three parties now in the Legislative Yuan, the situation will be somewhat different over the next four years.
What can be expected from the outcome of these national elections for Taiwan’s foreign and China policy, as well as in terms of domestic politics? As far as Beijing is concerned, tensions are unlikely to ease, but bilateral relations are unlikely to deteriorate significantly either. Since Xi Jinping’s speech in January 2019 at the latest, China’s Taiwan policy has decoupled itself from the domestic Taiwanese dynamic and is circling in its own orbit. At the time, Xi narrowed Taiwan’s future down to the formula of “one country, two systems” in line with the Hong Kong model, implicitly rejecting the Taiwanese interpretation of the “1992 Consensus” – the formulaic compromise that the KMT continues to use as the basis for negotiations between Beijing and Taipei: Both sides acknowledge that Taiwan belongs to a single “China,” but accept that there are different ideas as to which state represents this “China.”
For Xi Jinping, Taiwan’s incorporation into the People’s Republic of China is not a question, only the date of implementation, and he suggests that this is not far in the future. Whether a DFP or KMT politician sits in Taiwan’s presidential palace is, therefore, largely irrelevant. The KMT knowingly ignored this fact in its election campaign and tried to convince the Taiwanese population that it could still manage to talk to Beijing and thus reduce tensions. Perhaps – but that is not going to happen now. On the evening of the election, the Chinese State Council published a short statement with the reality-denying message that these elections could not change the course of history and the will of the Taiwanese people that Taiwan would return to China – a statement without surprises, but also without any particular harshness.
In any case, the dynamics of Sino-Taiwanese relations are hardly determined by internal Taiwanese events anymore, but rather by the relationship between Washington or the “West” and Beijing. Portraying the presidential election on the island as a “fateful national election,” a popular phrase in the international media landscape over the past few weeks, misses the point. If there is a “fateful election” for Taiwan at all, it will be the US presidential election this November.
The most interesting aspect of these elections lies in the future work in Parliament: How will the new president address the KMT and TPP to get his legislative initiatives passed? How will the TPP act? Will it play the role of a “flexible majority procurer” or will it agree to tolerate a DFP minority government? Will the KMT and DFP try to cooperate on substantive issues – and thus not let the TPP play the role of “tipping the scales?” The future of Taiwan’s democracy and political system depends on the answers to these questions.
In the meantime, this system has ossified into a ritualized, pseudo-ideological opposition between the KMT and DFP and prevents a substantive political discourse on solutions to problems that are of direct interest to the population – especially in economic, housing and energy policy. Without developing a clear political profile, the established parties will continue to lose young voters in particular and thus contribute to the risk of populist tendencies, which can undoubtedly be seen in Taiwan.
The next four years will be exciting. In any case, Taiwan has once again demonstrated the vitality of its democracy and has not allowed Chinese pressure to divert it from its path. It is still up to those in power in Beijing to decide whether the situation in the Taiwan Strait will escalate further or whether the conflict can be “frozen,” at least.
Professor Dr. Gunter Schubert is Chair of Greater China Studies at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies of the Eberhard Karls University of Tuebingen and heads the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan (ERCCT), a central institution of the university.
When you think of brushes, do you mostly think of toothbrushes, hairbrushes and shoebrushes? Or all kinds of other bristly instruments that make your surroundings shiny and smooth? Then, a look at everyday Chinese jargon could give your metaphorical gear a good brushing over. Because when you’re browsing on your smartphone in China, you occasionally come across “screen brushes.” But neat freaks should not rush into ecstasy. After all, these “screen scrubbers” only brush virtually, and they usually rub their fellow human beings the wrong way.
In Mandarin, “screen brushing” (刷屏 shuāpíng from 刷 shuā “brushing” and 屏 píng or 屏幕 píngmù “screen, monitor, canvas,” in English “flooding the screen”) describes someone who quickly dumps a huge (and usually redundant) amount of unwanted posts on other people’s screens.
Want to test yourself? Here we go: You can’t help but post a new photo nuance of the sunset in your status every few minutes while on holiday? Are you a proud start-up founder who posts daily on all your social media channels to draw attention to your latest successes? Do you like to let your emotions and thoughts flow freely in the form of long text messages in other people’s chat windows, forcing your contacts to scroll for ages until they reach the end of the message? Or – worst case scenario: You run an online shop and spend the whole day flooding WeChat moments or Facebook timelines of your private contacts with offers and deals to the point that all other status messages are lost in a sea of products? Have you answered “yes” to at least one of these questions? Then congratulations! From a Chinese perspective, you are a real screenbrusher.
Those who carefully comb through everyday Chinese language will also notice that in addition to teeth (刷牙 shuāyá), shoes (刷鞋 shuāxié), floors (刷地板 shuā dìbǎn) and pots and pans (刷锅 shuāguō), many other things are brushed and scrubbed that one would not have expected. For instance, when using credit cards (刷卡 shuākǎ / 刷信用卡 shuā xìnyòngkǎ – “to pay with a card/credit card,” or also “to swipe a card/credit card / pull it over the scanner”). Another example of brushing: faces during face scanning (刷脸 shuāliǎn – “to scan the face,” literally “to brush the face”), for instance, during cashless payment (刷脸支付 shuāliǎn zhīfù – “to pay via face scan”). Incidentally, fans of card payment are lovingly called 刷卡族 shuākǎzú – “card brushing people” in China.
If, on the other hand, a credit card scammer rips you off and secretly drains your account, you have been “brush-robbed,” as the Chinese would say (盗刷信用卡 dàoshuā xìnyòngkǎ – “committing credit card fraud”). However, if you go on an excessive shopping spree, you run the risk of brushing your credit card till the “limit explodes” (刷爆信用卡 shuābào xìnyòngkǎ – “to max out a credit card”). In the long term, this will probably bankrupt you. But in the short term, you may stylize yourself as a hot consumerist, i.e., attract a lot of attention (in Chinese: 刷存在感 shuā cúnzàigǎn – “to make yourself important / crave attention”).
The much cheaper alternative is to simply brush your smartphone all day long (刷手机 shuā shǒujī – “swipe/scroll around on your smartphone; hang on to your mobile phone”). For example, by brushing from one short video to the next (刷短视频 shuā duǎnshìpín – “to watch short videos”) or non-stop binge brush TV or streaming series (刷剧 shuājù.)
If someone in China points a finger at your hands and tells you that you have “two brushes,” please don’t feel offended! You’ve just had your ego stroked. Having two brushes (有两把刷子 yǒu liǎng bǎ shuāzi) does not mean that you have two left hands. On the contrary, in Chinese, it is a synonym for being skilled with one’s hands.
Verena Menzel runs the online language school New Chinese in Beijing.
William Lai has a tough job. Domestically, Taiwan’s new president will face a strengthened opposition dominating the parliament. If he wants to know how much fun coalition governments are, he can ask Germany’s current and former heads of government, who have plenty of experience with them. Michael Radunski analyzes Taiwan’s new domestic political situation.
Externally, Lai is up against a China that is holding the island in the grip of a hybrid strategy: military threats coupled with the development of dependencies. After the victory of China-critic Lai, Beijing no longer has any reason to put on a friendly face. Leonardo Pape explains how China is reacting and how relations between Taiwan and China could now develop.
Lai Ching-te (William Lai) becomes Taiwan’s new president. But Lai and his DPP also suffered a bitter defeat: In parliament, the Legislative Yuan, the ruling party, lost its former majority. The KMT is now the strongest force with 52 seats. The DPP follows with one seat less.
The two different results reflect a split among voters: With Lai as president, they want to maintain the status quo – especially toward China. Here, Lai focuses on cultural and economic independence, political sovereignty and military deterrence. On the other hand, the new majorities in parliament express the dissatisfaction of Taiwan’s citizens with domestic politics.
The consequence: things are getting complicated. Lai will have to make difficult compromises over the next four years. That holds risks: China will try to exploit this division. But there are also opportunities: Lai’s DPP focuses on Taiwan’s international ties – traditionally with the United States – but increasingly with the EU.
On election night, Lai already showed the balancing act ahead of him. “As president, I have an important responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” said the election winner. “At the same time, we are also determined to safeguard Taiwan from continuing threats and intimidation from China,” he said. “Most Taiwanese people want to protect our democratic lifestyle.” But democracy also means that you can lose your comfortable parliamentary majority if citizens are unhappy with current politics.
“From the outside, we see Taiwan’s relationship with China as a crucial issue. Rightly so, given its geopolitical importance,” said Josie-Marie Perkuhn, a sinologist specializing in Taiwan from the University of Trier. Perkuhn is currently in Taiwan and explains: “In Taiwan itself, however, domestic political problems are more important for the election decision.” And there are a number of problems here: low wages and a high cost of living. Housing that is too expensive and overly long working hours. In addition, there have been repeated corruption and “me-too” scandals.
Above all, this dissatisfaction is reflected in the success of the new third force in the country: the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). Under the leadership of former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je, the TPP, which was only founded in 2019, gained an impressive 26.5 percent of votes in the presidential election.
While the established parties DPP and KMT define themselves strongly through their stance on China, the TPP remains vague here and addresses more everyday concerns instead. “Domestically, it will be messy. There will be less predictability and more blockades,” says Perkuhn. “Lai and the DPP will have to negotiate hard for every bill and will certainly have to make concessions to the China-friendly KMT, especially in the economic sector.”
However, this division also shows how Taiwan’s democracy has matured in the meantime. In other countries, it is almost common practice for voters to express their dissatisfaction with their own government in a partial election after a few terms, thus creating political divisions between constitutional bodies. In Taiwan’s case, this is where foreign countries can come in – both positively and negatively.
The leadership in Beijing will try to exploit the split and exert more influence. “The divided Legislative Yuan offers Beijing the opportunity to expand its silent influence further,” says Perkuhn. This is particularly successful on two levels: in regional politics, by influencing local politicians, or via social media, where a certain mood can be quickly created.
The opportunity for Europe: Lai and the DPP continue to focus on Taiwan’s international integration. This applies above all to Taiwan’s strongest and traditionally closest partner, the United States. But there are also big opportunities here for the EU and Germany, says Perkuhn. “The DPP is clearly focusing on Europe as a partner.”
Partnership potentials:
Shortly before the election, Taiwan’s government passed two major programs: “Both initiatives are clearly aimed at Europe,” says Perkuhn.
The EU seems willing to expand cooperation. “We agree with Taiwan that the status quo in relations must not be changed unilaterally and certainly not by force,” says Michael Gahler, foreign policy spokesperson for the EPP Group and Chairman of the EU Parliament’s Taiwan Friendship Group. “As far as possible, we will pursue the expansion of relations. As the European Parliament, we have long called for the conclusion of a bilateral investment agreement.”
In a rather sober tone, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office commented on William Lai’s election victory shortly after the announcement of the Taiwanese presidential election results: “Taiwan is China’s Taiwan.” The “reunification of China” is inevitable.
Taiwan’s new President, William Lai, was not mentioned by name. The Office, which reports to the Chinese State Council, merely stated its rejection of “separatist activities aimed at ‘Taiwan independence.’” The statement was similar to earlier statements following the election victories of incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen. An escalation of tensions is not initially apparent here.
Following the elections, a delegation of former high-ranking US government officials arrived in Taiwan on Sunday evening. Together with Laura Rosenberger, Chair of the American Institute in Taiwan, they plan to meet several leading Taiwanese politicians. The delegation is not traveling on behalf of the US government.
On Saturday evening, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken congratulated William Lai on his election victory on X (formerly Twitter). The Chinese Foreign Ministry called this a “wrong signal” and a breach of the pledge not to establish official political relations with the Taiwanese government. It also criticized other countries, including Japan, for their positive reactions to the elections in Taiwan.
Germany also offered its congratulations but did not go as far as Blinken, who mentioned Lai by name and called the election a presidential election. The German Foreign Office, on the other hand, only congratulated “the elected,” avoiding the term “president” and thus possibly evading criticism from Beijing. “We congratulate all voters and candidates who participated in the elections, as well as those elected,” the Foreign Office said on Sunday.
This all has to do with a certain caution towards China, which is also reflected in the following sentence: “Germany has close and good relations with Taiwan in many sectors and wants to expand them within the framework of its One-China policy.” The one-China policy is mentioned immediately after the good relations.
On the other hand, a spokesperson on Sunday also emphasized the importance of democratic elections, calling Taiwan an “independent state,” and said Germany was committed to maintaining the status quo, building trust, and is interested in deepening cooperation with Taiwan. The French government expressed similar sentiments, as did the EU.
In recent months, the Chinese authorities have repeatedly referred to William Lai as a “dangerous separatist.” In all likelihood, the Communist Party will not engage in any dialogue with the Taiwanese government under President Lai either. There has been no explicit military response from China to the election results so far. Experts on the ground do not expect this either.
Instead of extensive military exercises, many observers expect China to continue and intensify its strategy of hybrid conflict management against Taiwan. Instead of one large military operation, the aggressor will carry out many small-scale operations. Increasingly frequent missions by the Air Force and Navy over Taiwanese-controlled territory are intended to demoralize the island’s population. Hacker attacks are just as much a part of this as disinformation campaigns on social media.
In recent weeks, China had already attempted to influence the outcome of the elections through the targeted dissemination of false information about politicians and anti-American conspiracy narratives on social networks. At the same time, there are also tempting offers of greater economic integration.
The DPP’s weakened position and political fragmentation in Taiwan could also become a breeding ground for political manipulation. In its statement on the election results, the Taiwan Affairs Office also pointed out that the DPP “does not represent majority public opinion.” Coming from a country where no elections are held, this sounds almost ironic, but it is meant seriously.
China’s actions also come in the context of its relations with the US. According to Lin Ying-yu from the Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University in Taipei, China does not want to tempt the leadership in Washington to support Taiwan even more through open aggression. In particular, China wants to avoid military assurances towards Taiwan becoming a US election campaign issue this year.
China’s hidden influence in Taiwan could be particularly successful at a local political level. After the parliamentary elections, the majority of the 52 members of parliament from the more China-friendly Kuomintang party will come from the constituencies and not from the party list decided by the KMT leadership.
China tends to try to influence MPs and local politicians who are more distant from the party leadership. Before the elections, Chinese state-controlled organizations invited hundreds of district spokespersons from all over Taiwan to sponsored trips to China.
The DPP has brought Puma Shen into parliament via the party list to counter Chinese influence. Shen chairs Doublethink Lab, which aims to strengthen Taiwan’s digital security. He also founded the Kuma Academy, which prepares the Taiwanese civilian population for a conflict with China.
For the KMT, Admiral Chen Yeong-kang, former general commander of the navy, has been elected to parliament. He could play a key role for the KMT in formulating a military strategy towards China. Leonardo Pape, collaboration: fin
Liu Zhenmin is China’s new special envoy for climate change. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment in Beijing made the announcement on Friday. Liu succeeds Xie Zhenhua, who is internationally known as the “climate czar.” At 74, he is now retiring from office after many years. 68-year-old Liu was Xie’s closest advisor at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai and has many years of experience in climate diplomacy. He was involved in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in 1997 and in talks for the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015.
Unlike his predecessor, Xie, Liu Zhenmin is fluent in English. He also has international experience. Between 2017 and 2022, he was UN Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Head of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), where he was also responsible for climate issues, among other things. Before that, he most recently served as China’s Vice Foreign Minister. “The final outcome of the climate conference shows that there is a realization that tackling climate change cannot be a rhetorical exercise, but requires a real response from all countries,” Liu said at the end of COP28.
Xie’s many years of contact with his US counterparts – currently Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and former Secretary of State John Kerry – have played an essential role in reaching consensus at the climate conferences. According to the Ministry of the Environment, Xie is stepping down for health reasons. It was already rumored before COP28 that Xie would step down after the conference.
According to China’s Fourth National Communication on Climate Change, the country will have to spend around 324 trillion yuan (about 42 trillion euros) between 2021 and 2060 to achieve its climate targets, as the China Daily reported last week. This is equivalent to 2.7 times its GDP in 2022. Countries must submit such a communication every four years; China’s most recent one dates back to 2019. ck
The spectacle of the national elections is over. The outcome is largely in line with forecasts, but there are also a few surprises: Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DFP) lived up to his role as favorite and won the presidential election, albeit with only 40.5 percent of votes – over 17 percent less than his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen achieved four years earlier. But it is enough for a ruling party to secure a third term in the Presidential Office for the first time. KMT candidate Hou You-yi clearly lost the elections with 33.5 percent, while Ko Wen-je, the Taiwan People Party (TPP) candidate, which he founded in 2019, secured 26.5 percent of the votes, a figure most observers had not expected.
The KMT narrowly won the concurrent parliamentary elections: It gained 14 seats, but fell well short of the absolute majority it aimed for in the 113-seat Legislative Yuan (LY) with 52 seats. The DFP lost this majority just as clearly with ten fewer seats and now only holds 51 seats in the new LY. The TPP is undoubtedly the big winner of the parliamentary elections: While it only gained three seats and now has eight seats, this will allow it to distinguish itself as the “tip of the scales” when it comes to passing legislation in the coming years. The ruling DFP’s heavy loss of votes mainly benefited the TPP. During the election campaign, the TPP presented itself as an alternative to the “blue” and “green” camps, i.e., to the established and perceived rigid confrontation between the KMT and DFP. This found favor with younger voters, in particular, who have become very critical of the political establishment in Taiwan and backed the “fresh” and popular Ko Wen-je and his “white” camp.
The new President, Lai, will lead a government without a parliamentary majority in the coming years. As Taiwan has no tradition of forming coalitions or tolerating minority governments, such as the French cohabitation model, there is now a risk of political paralysis – as was the case between 2000 and 2008, when then-President Chen Shui-bian had to deal with an absolute majority of the KMT in the Legislative Yuan. However, with three parties now in the Legislative Yuan, the situation will be somewhat different over the next four years.
What can be expected from the outcome of these national elections for Taiwan’s foreign and China policy, as well as in terms of domestic politics? As far as Beijing is concerned, tensions are unlikely to ease, but bilateral relations are unlikely to deteriorate significantly either. Since Xi Jinping’s speech in January 2019 at the latest, China’s Taiwan policy has decoupled itself from the domestic Taiwanese dynamic and is circling in its own orbit. At the time, Xi narrowed Taiwan’s future down to the formula of “one country, two systems” in line with the Hong Kong model, implicitly rejecting the Taiwanese interpretation of the “1992 Consensus” – the formulaic compromise that the KMT continues to use as the basis for negotiations between Beijing and Taipei: Both sides acknowledge that Taiwan belongs to a single “China,” but accept that there are different ideas as to which state represents this “China.”
For Xi Jinping, Taiwan’s incorporation into the People’s Republic of China is not a question, only the date of implementation, and he suggests that this is not far in the future. Whether a DFP or KMT politician sits in Taiwan’s presidential palace is, therefore, largely irrelevant. The KMT knowingly ignored this fact in its election campaign and tried to convince the Taiwanese population that it could still manage to talk to Beijing and thus reduce tensions. Perhaps – but that is not going to happen now. On the evening of the election, the Chinese State Council published a short statement with the reality-denying message that these elections could not change the course of history and the will of the Taiwanese people that Taiwan would return to China – a statement without surprises, but also without any particular harshness.
In any case, the dynamics of Sino-Taiwanese relations are hardly determined by internal Taiwanese events anymore, but rather by the relationship between Washington or the “West” and Beijing. Portraying the presidential election on the island as a “fateful national election,” a popular phrase in the international media landscape over the past few weeks, misses the point. If there is a “fateful election” for Taiwan at all, it will be the US presidential election this November.
The most interesting aspect of these elections lies in the future work in Parliament: How will the new president address the KMT and TPP to get his legislative initiatives passed? How will the TPP act? Will it play the role of a “flexible majority procurer” or will it agree to tolerate a DFP minority government? Will the KMT and DFP try to cooperate on substantive issues – and thus not let the TPP play the role of “tipping the scales?” The future of Taiwan’s democracy and political system depends on the answers to these questions.
In the meantime, this system has ossified into a ritualized, pseudo-ideological opposition between the KMT and DFP and prevents a substantive political discourse on solutions to problems that are of direct interest to the population – especially in economic, housing and energy policy. Without developing a clear political profile, the established parties will continue to lose young voters in particular and thus contribute to the risk of populist tendencies, which can undoubtedly be seen in Taiwan.
The next four years will be exciting. In any case, Taiwan has once again demonstrated the vitality of its democracy and has not allowed Chinese pressure to divert it from its path. It is still up to those in power in Beijing to decide whether the situation in the Taiwan Strait will escalate further or whether the conflict can be “frozen,” at least.
Professor Dr. Gunter Schubert is Chair of Greater China Studies at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies of the Eberhard Karls University of Tuebingen and heads the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan (ERCCT), a central institution of the university.
When you think of brushes, do you mostly think of toothbrushes, hairbrushes and shoebrushes? Or all kinds of other bristly instruments that make your surroundings shiny and smooth? Then, a look at everyday Chinese jargon could give your metaphorical gear a good brushing over. Because when you’re browsing on your smartphone in China, you occasionally come across “screen brushes.” But neat freaks should not rush into ecstasy. After all, these “screen scrubbers” only brush virtually, and they usually rub their fellow human beings the wrong way.
In Mandarin, “screen brushing” (刷屏 shuāpíng from 刷 shuā “brushing” and 屏 píng or 屏幕 píngmù “screen, monitor, canvas,” in English “flooding the screen”) describes someone who quickly dumps a huge (and usually redundant) amount of unwanted posts on other people’s screens.
Want to test yourself? Here we go: You can’t help but post a new photo nuance of the sunset in your status every few minutes while on holiday? Are you a proud start-up founder who posts daily on all your social media channels to draw attention to your latest successes? Do you like to let your emotions and thoughts flow freely in the form of long text messages in other people’s chat windows, forcing your contacts to scroll for ages until they reach the end of the message? Or – worst case scenario: You run an online shop and spend the whole day flooding WeChat moments or Facebook timelines of your private contacts with offers and deals to the point that all other status messages are lost in a sea of products? Have you answered “yes” to at least one of these questions? Then congratulations! From a Chinese perspective, you are a real screenbrusher.
Those who carefully comb through everyday Chinese language will also notice that in addition to teeth (刷牙 shuāyá), shoes (刷鞋 shuāxié), floors (刷地板 shuā dìbǎn) and pots and pans (刷锅 shuāguō), many other things are brushed and scrubbed that one would not have expected. For instance, when using credit cards (刷卡 shuākǎ / 刷信用卡 shuā xìnyòngkǎ – “to pay with a card/credit card,” or also “to swipe a card/credit card / pull it over the scanner”). Another example of brushing: faces during face scanning (刷脸 shuāliǎn – “to scan the face,” literally “to brush the face”), for instance, during cashless payment (刷脸支付 shuāliǎn zhīfù – “to pay via face scan”). Incidentally, fans of card payment are lovingly called 刷卡族 shuākǎzú – “card brushing people” in China.
If, on the other hand, a credit card scammer rips you off and secretly drains your account, you have been “brush-robbed,” as the Chinese would say (盗刷信用卡 dàoshuā xìnyòngkǎ – “committing credit card fraud”). However, if you go on an excessive shopping spree, you run the risk of brushing your credit card till the “limit explodes” (刷爆信用卡 shuābào xìnyòngkǎ – “to max out a credit card”). In the long term, this will probably bankrupt you. But in the short term, you may stylize yourself as a hot consumerist, i.e., attract a lot of attention (in Chinese: 刷存在感 shuā cúnzàigǎn – “to make yourself important / crave attention”).
The much cheaper alternative is to simply brush your smartphone all day long (刷手机 shuā shǒujī – “swipe/scroll around on your smartphone; hang on to your mobile phone”). For example, by brushing from one short video to the next (刷短视频 shuā duǎnshìpín – “to watch short videos”) or non-stop binge brush TV or streaming series (刷剧 shuājù.)
If someone in China points a finger at your hands and tells you that you have “two brushes,” please don’t feel offended! You’ve just had your ego stroked. Having two brushes (有两把刷子 yǒu liǎng bǎ shuāzi) does not mean that you have two left hands. On the contrary, in Chinese, it is a synonym for being skilled with one’s hands.
Verena Menzel runs the online language school New Chinese in Beijing.
