Saturday’s general election (presidential and legislative) in Taiwan saw the re-election of an “independence” head of state (from the Democratic Progressive Party or DPP) for a third term in a row. An unprecedented event in the short history – barely three decades – of Taiwanese democracy. And this, even if the score of the “independentists” has fallen, and they will no longer have a majority in the Taipei Parliament.
During my stays in Taiwan, in 2002, in 2008 and in 2019, I was able to note the rapid evolution of the sense of identity of the inhabitants of this island (as large as Lebanon and Israel combined) stuck on the Chinese continental giant, threatened engulfed by the aggressive nationalism of the neighboring hyperpower. A trend accentuated by the end of freedoms in Hong Kong, perceived with fear in Taipei.
The idea, central to Beijing’s claims, that Taiwan is “Chinese”, is not totally absurd; a minority still believes it. In fact, Mandarin is spoken more than Taiwanese, and the impression that the main avenues of Taipei or Kaohsiung give to the visitor, when one has already seen Beijing or Shanghai, is inevitably “Chinese”.
However, saying as we repeat in Beijing that the island “has always been Chinese” is false. Taiwan has never been totally Chinese and is less and less so in the 21st centurye century.
Over the centuries, the island of Formosa, with its significant aboriginal population, has been governed (in whole or in part) by the Spanish, the Dutch, the Japanese… The latter, less brutal on the island than they were not elsewhere in the 20the century, left a deep mark there, between 1895 and 1945: in culture, public administration, infrastructure and even decoration. In this supposed “Chinese world”… tatamis, kimonos, sake and sushi are very present: Taiwan is basically “Sino-Japanese”.
For centuries, the Taiwanese “distinction” has been customary, cultural, linguistic… But since the “quiet revolution” (anjing geming) democratic of 1987, with the end of the Kuomintang dictatorship, the difference is also and above all political. The Taiwanese have once again shown this to the world, with exemplary pluralist elections, totally unimaginable in Beijing: proof that today it is another country, another world.
Questioned by pollsters, between 60% and 70% of island residents respond that they feel “first” or “exclusively” Taiwanese. This does not necessarily translate — and this is essential to understanding these elections — into an “independence” vote, that is to say for the DPP of the outgoing president, Tsai Ing-wen (57% in 2020), or the new president, Lai Ching-te (40% Saturday, single-round vote).
Moreover, even the word “independence” (used here with quotation marks) is questionable to designate the DPP in 2024, although it was created in 1986 as a vehicle for Taiwanese identity and independence.
Having fully understood that a formal declaration of independence — or even the organization of a referendum — would be a casus belli immediate for Beijing, leaders like Tsai or her successor Lai are now, supreme paradox, supporters of status quo politics: sovereignty de facto, motus and tight-lipped on the official status.
(Yet Tsai, whom I met in Taipei in 2008, told me that she was “independant”.)
Conversely, the Kuomintang vote (KMT, 33% for Hou Yu-ih), which over the years has become — another historical paradox — The “friend” of the Chinese does not amount to a vote of “sold” in Beijing. Not so simple: part of the KMT vote may have been aimed at reducing tension… while remaining “Taiwanese patriotic”.
Without forgetting Ko Wen-je’s third party, which won 26%, largely among young people, with a speech on non-identity subjects, focused on the economy and daily life.
We’ll come back to the geopolitics of the matter… but for now: honor to the courageous Taiwanese democracy!
François Brousseau is an international affairs columnist at Ici Radio-Canada. [email protected]