Crossroads Taiwan (Sep. 1, 2023)
Terry Gou finally admits he is running for president, and everyone reacts.
News Roundup:
Terry Gou announces run for president
On Monday August 28, Foxconn founder Terry Gou formally announced his run for presidency as an independent at a special press conference. As part of his platform, Gou promised he would bring 50 years of peace to the Taiwan Strait and raise Taiwan’s GDP to “number one in Asia” in 20 years.
Also at the press conference, when asked if Foxconn assets in China makes him vulnerable to pressure from Beijing, Gou said “if taking my assets means China won’t attack, I’d tell them, please do it.”
Gou had previously tried to run in the KMT’s presidential primary, but rather than hold primary elections the KMT chairman Eric Chu appointed New Taipei mayor Hou You-ih as the party’s nominee in March. At the time, Gou promised to support Hou, but has since ran an “unofficial” campaign, including meeting with local party bosses and legislative candidates.
Since the announcement, MNews’s 8/30 poll shows that in a three-way race (without Gou), DPP’s Lai is first at 34.3%, followed by Ko (27.1%) and Hou (16.2%), and 22.4% undecided. In a four-way race with Gou in the mix, Lai is at 33.4%, followed by Ko (22.7%), Hou (15.3%), and Gou (12.9%), with 15.7% undecided.
Newtalk, an online magazine, also released polling on 8/30, conducted over text messages to mobile numbers. In their poll, Lai remains first at 33.33%, followed by Ko (20.97%), but with Gou in third place (20.02%) ahead of Hou (18.14%).
Ko, Hou and Gou are seen as vying for the same base of non-DPP voters. Therefore, supporters have expressed desire for some kind of consolidation into a single presidential ticket, with two of the three dropping out of the race. Most commentators are pessimistic about such a scenario.
Nonetheless, Newtalk’s poll asked about the possible head-to-head races: Gou and Hou would both lose to Lai, but Ko would beat Lai at 44.77% to 36.09%, respectively.
The Chinese government mouthpiece Global Times has criticized Gou’s entering the race as “hurts friends but brings joy to the enemy.”
By law, Gou has to secure the petition of close to 300,000 signatures, something he is expected to achieve without any difficulty.
Foxconn’s stock on the Taiwan Stock Exchange has dropped more than 3% since Gou’s announcement.
More U.S. Military Sales to Taiwan
The U.S. approved a $500 million arms sales to Taiwan last Wednesday. The items in the latest sales include infrared search tracking systems and other equipment for advanced F-16 jets. Even though the size of the sales is modest compared to previous U.S. military sales to Taiwan, it still received angry protests from Beijing.
Days after the military sales, China deployed 32 military aircraft and nine naval vessels near Taiwan on August 25. At least 20 military aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or intruded Taiwan’s air defense identification zone.
The Chinese Defense Ministry said Beijing opposed the arms sales and described the move as a “gross interference” of China’s internal affairs and a violation of its “One China Principle.”
Following the latest wave of U.S. military sales, U.S. State Department said on August 30 that it is the first time that Washington approved military sales to Taiwan under a program reserved for sovereign states. However, the State Department emphasized that the move doesn’t reflect a change in its policy toward Taiwan’s status.
Taiwan Vice President met with foreign media in Taipei
Following his seven-day trip to Paraguay, which included two stopovers in New York and San Francisco, Taiwanese Vice President Lai Ching-te met with members of the foreign media in Taiwan on Aug. 25.
During the 90-minute long meeting, Lai warned that Beijing may interfere with Taiwan’s presidential election in January by employing unfair trade practices. If succeeded, Lai said China will be able to undermine Taiwan’s democracy.
Prior to the meeting, China suspended imports of Taiwanese mangos while staging another military exercise around Taiwan on Aug. 19. The U.S. State Department called on China to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressures on Taiwan.
In addition to warning of potential Chinese election interference, Lai also reiterated his “unwavering support” for maintaining the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. However, he emphasized that the international community could see that the recent rise of tensions across the Taiwan Strait is caused by China rather than Taiwan.
"The opposition parties currently hope to seek peace through negotiations and exchanges but we have to beware that the precondition for the opposition parties is to accept the 'one-China' principle," Lai said.
Taiwan’s first MeToo March
Around two hundred people took part in Taiwan’s first #MeToo march on Aug. 27, hoping to maintain the momentum of the movement that exposed multiple scandals involving dozens of prominent figures across the politics, entertainment, cultural, and business sector. The movement also led to an important amendment of Taiwan’s three laws governing sexual harassment.
The march on Sunday was initiated by eight college students and during the event, demonstrators called for the end of “victim blaming” and emphasized the need to show solidarity with all victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault.
One of the organizers surnamed Cheng said the purpose of the march was to show victims who are committed to the cause that “they are not alone.” Apart from the march, there was an exhibition outlining the objectives of the march.
The changes to the laws, which took place at the end of July, included higher penalties and longer periods for victims to come forward and report incidents to authorities. Under the workplace law, employers can now be fined up to $1 million NTD if they fail to address sexual harassment complaints.
The education law makes it illegal for educators to have romantic relationships with students under the age of 18. Principals and teachers who fail to report sexual harassment allegations to relevant authorities within 24 hours will be fined.
Lawmakers extended the penalty for sexual harassment to three years in jail under the Sexual Harassment Protection Act and increased the heaviest fines to $600,000 NT dollars.
Commentary:
William Yang
As some may have expected, Foxconn founder Terry Gou finally announced his bid to run for Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election as an independent. Even though he still needs to collect close to 290,000 signatures before the deadline in November in order to officially become a presidential candidate, his announcement has thrown doubts into the opposition camp, which has been trying to explore possibilities of collaboration.
Wen-ti Sung, a sessional lecturer at the Australian National University’s Taiwan Studies Program, said Gou’s entrance to the race will further divide the opposition’s votes and further complicate their attempts to overcome differences and find consensus.
“We know from polling data that Gou’s base has a lot in common with Ko Wen-je,” he told me. “Gou’s entrance may potentially hurt Ko more than it hurts KMT’s Hou You-ih. Paradoxically, if Hou’s campaign can handle this development with grace, Gou’s entrance may end up benefiting Hou in the long run.”
Sung adds that if Gou’s entrance ends up weakening former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je’s support base, it may help Hou become the sole remaining viable opposition candidate, thereby consolidating second place and turning him into the opposition camp’s unity candidate.
Soon after Gou announced his intention to run for president next January, KMT announced that if any party members tried to campaign for non-KMT candidates, they could face severe penalties. The announcement seemed like a clear signal to potential supporters of Gou within the main opposition party.
Meanwhile, KMT’s deputy chairperson Sean Lien told the media on Wednesday that he tried to communicate with Gou about three weeks ago, but Gou demanded that KMT let him replace Hou as the party’s presidential candidate. Lien claimed that Gou didn’t give KMT any flexibility so the two sides couldn’t have any negotiation.
Hours later, Gou’s team issued a statement, denying Lien’s claim that Gou had insisted that KMT to replace Hou with him, and Lien said if he had twisted Gou’s messages, he would be willing to shoulder any responsibility. Lien altered his earlier claims, emphasizing that he didn’t meet with Gou but had only communicated with Gou’s family members.
Even within the KMT, some senior leadership has admitted that Gou’s entrance into the race has further muddied the water for the opposition’s efforts to try to coordinate and find common grounds for potential collaborations.
Ko Chih-en, the executive director of the KMT’s affiliated think tank, said in a talk show that while a lot of people still have hopes that the KMT and Taiwan People’s Party may be able to join forces in the upcoming election, she is now putting a question mark over that possibility.
Ko added that the chaotic interaction between Hou, Ko, and Gou has turned the attempts of uniting forces into mutual suspicion. She said a lot of opposition supporters now hold the same feeling. As this shows, Gou’s participation has added more uncertainty to the 2024 election, especially for the opposition parties.
But this shouldn’t be read as a guarantee that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and Vice President Lai Ching-te are destined to win the election. If anything this only further exacerbates the lack of clarity of this upcoming election and the trajectory of development. After all, we are still more than four months away from the actual election.
Chieh-Ting Yeh
Trying to understand Taiwan’s presidential drama without knowing Taiwan’s election system is like watching baseball but not knowing the rules.
Taiwan elects its president directly, meaning every eligible voter casts a vote directly picking the person he or she likes to be the president. It is not like parliamentary systems where people vote for the parties. It is also not like the US, where the voters’ votes are converted into electoral votes counted state to state.
Taiwan’s presidential election also has no run-off or second round voting. That’s different from France, where the first round of elections determines the top two winners, who then compete head to head in a second round election. In Taiwan, whoever receives the most votes wins, even if that’s less than 50%.
This second point is why Terry Gou’s announcement generated so much drama.
In Taiwan, there has only been SEVEN national presidential elections (we were ruled by dictators before 1987). In the second ever presidential election in 2000, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) nominated then-Vice President Lien Chan as candidate, skipping over a party superstar named James Soong. Mr. Soong ran as an independent, and we had a three-way race (sann-kha-tu, in Taiwanese).
On election night, Lien received 23.10% of the vote, and Soong pulled in 36.84%; the opposition DPP’s Chen Shui-bian won with 39.3% of the vote. In other words, because the KMT voters were split between two candidates, their common enemy won without a majority. If they had only worked together, they would’ve come close to 60%!
Taiwanese voters, KMT supporters especially, learned the lesson the hard way. No one cares if you come in second or third; only the first place matters.
Therefore, a lot of Taiwanese presidential politics since then have involved the second place and third place candidates trying to “join forces,” or preventing extra candidates from splitting the voter base. This could be done by forming a joint ticket (president and vice president) or convincing someone to step down in exchange for other concessions. If nothing works, candidates can still appeal directly to voters, asking them to ditch their first choice and concentrate their votes on a single, winnable candidate (known as 棄保 qibao).
Since 2000, Taiwanese presidential races have always come down to a direct head to head race between two candidates: one from the KMT, another from the DPP (other candidates have tried, but have always had support in the low single digits). This has also solidified Taiwan’s bipolar political divide based on attitude towards China: one friendly, another skeptical, or in our jargon, “blue” versus “green.”
That is, until this year. Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je and his Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) is in the race, and has more or less been in second place so far, behind Vice President William Lai. The KMT’s own candidate Hou You-ih comes in third (although the trends have been reversing in recent weeks).
Being second place and third place candidates, they both naturally want to “join forces.” But being from two different parties, a joint-ticket or some kind of concession is basically unthinkable. To make matters worse, the KMT, as the major opposition party with almost 100 years of history, would not possibly be the junior partner to Ko’s new startup party.
Then there’s Terry Gou. He tried to run in the KMT’s presidential primary, but KMT Chairman Eric Chu did not even hold a primary election and appointed someone else as the nominee. Undeterred, Gou began campaigning as if he was running for president anyway, making public appearances and meeting with KMT local bosses, all the while making everyone else wait to see if and when he will officially announce.
In the meantime, Gou has called on the other two candidates to sit down and “have coffee.” He even compared the three of them to The Three Little Pigs, who had to “join forces” to fight the Big Bad Wolf.
So now we have a four-way race. For all the people who won’t vote for the DPP, they have a choice between the superstar businessman, the former Taipei mayor without a filter, or the KMT’s actual candidate. If they spread their votes among all three candidates evenly, all three candidates will lose.
On the other side of town, the DPP has stressed that they are still running the campaign assuming this is a serious, head-to-head race. Which means Lai is spending his time actually convincing voters and looking presidential, while his competitors squabble with each other.
DPP supporters and strategists may be tempted to view Gou’s announcement with glee. The more the opposition is fractured, the more likely Lai will win. It’s simply a matter of the rules of the game.
But is this a good development for Taiwan? Next week I’ll talk about why this year’s four-way race is problematic for Taiwan as a whole, even for Lai supporters.