Unkotare should know better than to push the rather misleading and oversimplified headline for this OP: “Taiwan Votes for Independence.” I have no objection to the content of his comment, however, as it is clear the vast majority of Taiwanese do not want to fall under the dictatorial control of XiJinping’s “cult of personality” or of the Communist Party of China.
The Bloomberg link said no such thing about “voting for independence.” In truth all three parties are more or less all for trying to
preserve the status quo, which has allowed Taiwan to thrive economically, develop its own democracy, remain politically self-governing, trade with China and the world … without internationally recognized “independent” status.
All this diplomatic fancy dancing may seem unimportant, but Taiwan’s real independence depends in large part on the support of the U.S., which in my view correctly maintains a strategic ambiguity about what it would actually do in case of a kinetic conflict over Taiwan.
I believe that Taiwan’s political independence is best maintained by the U.S. continuing to
refrain from recognizing Taiwan as formally independent, as it has for many decades. The U.S. has long supported and supposedly still supports the “One China” policy negotiated between the U.S. and China, and those “cowboys” in Congress who favor changing this policy are, imo, truly begging for war.
The DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) is a liberal, essentially social-democratic party, and while it again won the Presidency, it did so this time with only about 40% of the vote. It actually just
lost its control of Taiwan’s unicameral legislature. The DPP position is of course unabashedly pro-Western, pro-U.S. and pro-liberal democracy. Since it first came to power under Chen Sui-bian it has itself followed different and often subtle policies on declaring independence, usually hedging its own position by not “declaring” its independence but merely pointing out that it is in fact
de facto independent and sovereign already. In fact it argues it can best preserve the
status quo, as also do the opposition KMT and TPP, which together received about 60% of the vote.
So the issue is complex. Not formally recognized as an independent sovereign state by the UN, China, or even the West, it clearly is not in the same category as Ukraine, though the U.S. is now seeking to arm it to the teeth and even providing arms for free, something never before done.
The biggest difference between the Taiwanese political parties may in fact be their attitude toward trade relations with China. China wants to buy up Taiwanese media and publishing houses and of course resents the U.S. putting pressure on Taiwanese chip firms not to sell high tech chips to its biggest trade partner on the Mainland.
XiJinping would rather “buy than bomb” Taiwan, so this is where the ambiguous line between the KMT and DPP policies toward the Mainland often get drawn in fact.
