Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s president, is challenged by a former underling
AS TAIWAN’S FIRST female president, Tsai Ing-wen is a trailblazer. She is well-liked abroad for her reluctance to pick fights with China. But she is not popular at home. Recent polls put her approval rating below 30%. Her bid for re-election next year, already iffy, just got iffier. Lai Ching-te, her former prime minister, has declared that he will challenge Ms Tsai for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). It is the first time an incumbent president in Taiwan has been subjected to a primary. And the contest may anger China, since Mr Lai is a more vocal supporter than Ms Tsai of the idea that Taiwan should formally declare itself to be a distinct country from China—a move China says would be grounds for war.
“Taiwan doesn’t want to be a second Hong Kong or Tibet,” declared Mr Lai as he registered for the primary this week, insinuating that Ms Tsai is not doing enough to ensure Taiwan’s independence. The DPP was thrashed in municipal elections in November by the Kuomintang (KMT), the main opposition party, which advocates warmer relations with China. Voters seemed disappointed that Ms Tsai’s efforts to stimulate the economy have had scant success. Growth is slowing. Wages have been stagnant for decades.
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Following the defeat in November, Ms Tsai stepped down as leader of the DPP. A month later Mr Lai, a former mayor of the southern city of Tainan, resigned as prime minister, spurning Ms Tsai’s entreaties for him to stay. The primary will involve the two candidates giving televised presentations of their platforms, after which the party conducts an opinion poll of a sample of the whole electorate. The more popular candidate wins the nomination. The results will be announced on April 17th.
DPP activists had been panicking, as Ms Tsai has been trailing badly in the polls. They feared not only a further electoral setback, but one that would have put the government into the hands of a China-friendly leader just as China is pressing Taiwan to begin talks on unification. Some advocates of independence, fed up with Ms Tsai’s caution, are jubilant at Mr Lai’s announcement, both because they think Mr Lai has a better chance of winning and because they think he might be more assertive.
Ms Tsai’s supporters, meanwhile, are arguing that the primary could split the party and are making agonised calls for unity, by which they seem to mean Mr Lai’s withdrawal. Chen Chi-mai, the deputy prime minister and a supporter of Ms Tsai, argued in a Facebook post that China’s growing assertiveness makes divisions within the party especially dangerous. “The 2020 election will determine whether Taiwan survives or is extinguished,” he said.
Luckily for the DPP, the KMT also has no anointed candidate and its primary is still some months away. A former mayor of New Taipei City, Eric Chu, and a former speaker of parliament, Wang Jin-pyng, have both said they will run. The election will probably also feature an independent candidate, Ko Wen-je, the popular mayor of Taipei.
Inevitably, China will be front and centre in the campaign. The authorities across the Taiwan Strait probably revile Mr Lai even more than they do Ms Tsai. That might encourage them to ease the pressure on Taiwan a bit over the next few months. The Chinese government knows from experience that attempts to intimidate Taiwanese voters tend to backfire, prompting them to back the candidate most hostile to its cherished goal of reunification.