How do people in Taiwan see the threat from mainland China? Hsin-Hsin Pan on democracy, independence, and life between Beijing and Washington. Being Taiwan How do people on the island see the threat from mainland China? Hsin-Hsin Pan on democracy, independence, and life between Beijing and Washington. Andrew Haimerl Chinaâs foreign minister warned in April that anyone in Taiwan who rejected Beijingâs ultimate control over their country was âplaying with fire.â The rhetoric accompanied large-scale Chinese military exercises in the Taiwan Strait after the islandâs president, Tsai Ing-wen, met with Kevin McCarthy, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Tensions between the Peopleâs Republic of China and Taiwan date back to 1949, when Mao Zedongâs Communist Party took over the Chinese mainland and the nationalist Kuomintang moved its rival government to Taipeiâbut confrontations have been escalating since the 2016 election of Tsai, who favors greater independence from Beijing. China has meanwhile stepped up military flights into Taiwanese airspace, ramped up cyberattacks into the thousands daily against Taiwan government agencies, and is using more and more ominous language all around. But as Chinaâs president, Xi Jinping, continues to concentrate power and consolidate his autocratic rule, Taiwan is preparing for a presidential election in January. Having served two terms, Tsai is ineligible to run againâbut her vice president, William Lai, is leading in the polls, and the race is dominated by questions about Taipeiâs relationship with Beijing. So what do those questions look like for people in Taiwan? Hsin-Hsin Pan is an assistant professor of sociology at Soochow University in Taipei. According to Pan, the majority of Taiwanese have long preferred maintaining the status quo of their ambiguous relationship with the mainland, though in recent years, more have been leaning toward independenceâa shift reflected in the growing popularity of Tsaiâs and Laiâs Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Overwhelming numbers of people in Taiwan fear a Chinese invasionâand believe that the odds of one have grown since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Despite enduring anxiety over the islandâs sovereignty, Pan says, public support for democracy remains strongâeven as some skepticism about it emerges among a disaffected younger generation. This article is part of a series in partnership with the[Human Rights Foundation](. Michael Bluhm: What does the debate look like right now among Taiwanâs major political parties about the countryâs relationship with the Peopleâs Republic? Hsin-Hsin Pan: This coming presidential election is all about Taiwanâs China policy. President Tsai Ing-wenâs Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) resists China more forcefully, taking a harder line on defending Taiwanâs sovereignty, than the opposition Kuomintang (KMT). The other major candidates, including the Taiwan Peopleâs Party (TPP) and the independent Terry Gou, are also less aggressive than the DPPâand more flexible about potential negotiations with Beijing regarding Taiwanâs sovereignty. Vice President William Lai, the DPP nominee now leading in national polls, is clearly pro-U.S. and anti-China, whereas the rest of the parties call for maintaining an equal distance between the two powersâmaking them more pro-China, relatively speaking. Economically, Lai is more in favor of decoupling from China, which is in line with the U.S. stance. The other parties and candidates are more supportive of resuming trade with China. Where it comes to talks with Beijing, Lai and the DPP say they still support negotiating the relationship, but without any preconceived ideas about Taiwanâs status. The other parties support negotiating with Beijing, but they fundamentally accept Beijingâs position on the status of Taiwan. So the dynamic of this election is the DPP versus everyone elseâand everyone else has a lot in common. Itâs a contest between a more confrontational position toward China and a less confrontational one. Bluhm: What does Taiwanese public opinion look like on the issue? Advertisement Pan: Itâs quite stable over time. For the last 30 years, the mainstream view in Taiwan has supported maintaining the status quo. Today, itâs the view of about 60 percent of the population. The extreme ends of the opinion spectrumâfavoring either immediate independence from China or immediate unification with itâare marginal. Even the DPP supports the status quoâbut it supports the status quo with a pronounced tendency toward independence. Other parties support the status quo with tendencies toward more moderately pro-China policies. Meanwhile, public support for any unificationâwhether thatâs immediate or a gradual transition from the status quoâhas been insignificant, steady decline over the past five years. Itâs a trend that accelerated after 2020 on account of [Beijingâs crackdown]( in [Hong Kong](. Now only about 7 or 8 percent of the population supports any form of unification at all. The pro-independence positionâwhether for immediate or gradual independence from mainland Chinaâhas risen somewhat, now to between 25 to 30 percent of the population. Bluhm: How worried do Taiwanese people tend to be about an invasion from the mainland? Pan: In polling from the Asian Barometer Survey back in 2020, before the attack on Ukraine, a strong majority of Taiwanese people feared war, with 73.5 percent saying they worry very much or a great deal. But that survey included 16 other countries geographically close to mainland China, and the results for Taiwan were roughly in the middle of the list. You could argue that Taiwan should be the country in Asia where the highest number of people are most worried about warâbut in relative terms, it wasnât. Even Japan had a higher ratio, with around 80 percent saying they worry about war very much or a great deal. The other countries surveyed werenât involved in any territorial or sovereignty issues with China, so not many of their people should be as highly worried about war. In a comparative sense, then, the number for Taiwan isnât that high. Still, recent polling shows 83 percent of Taiwanese people believe the threat of an invasion has increased in the past few years. Daniel Gregoire More from Hsin-Hsin Pan at The Signal: âSomewhere normally between 70 and 80 percent of the population in Taiwan will consistently say theyâre worried about China attacking. What varies a lot isnât this; what varies a lot are peopleâs views on the United Statesâ security commitment to Taiwan. Numbers on that question have gone down and up since the invasion of Ukraine. Before the war, the percentage of the Taiwanese population expressing confidence in the U.S. security commitment was around 70 percent. When Moscow attacked Ukraine, and the U.S. didnât send troops, that confidence dropped by 30 percent. But after Nancy Pelosiâat the time, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representativesâ[visited Taiwan in August 2022]( it went back to the same level as before the Ukraine war. People in Taiwan are super-sensitive to current events.â âThey donât see U.S. support for Ukraine and U.S. support for Taiwan as a zero-sum proposition. ... Youâll hear from certain Washington think tanks that the United States hasnât sent any troops to Ukraine because the U.S. is reserving its military forces in East Asia to stabilize and protect Taiwan in case China attacks. Zero-sum here refers to the number of U.S. troops: Itâs a fixed number. So moving troops to one place means taking them from another. But thatâs not what people in Taiwan tend to think. People here tend to see the fact that the United States hasnât sent troops to Ukraine as evidence that the U.S. might not send troops to Taiwan if they were attacked.â âIn 2020 polling, about 89 percent of Taiwanese people said they believed democracy was the best form of government. Itâs an overwhelming percentage. If I had to name one thing thatâs detrimental to democracy in Taiwan, it would be social inequality. Itâs causing a generation gap in faith in democracy. Younger Taiwanese people are suffering much greater social inequality than previous generations didâclass mobility has been stuck for years, and thatâs caused a substantial ratio of the younger generation to support the idea of strongman rule. ... [But] democracy in Taiwan is robust. Thereâs no way weâre going to give it up. Itâs the single, unifying political value shared across all parties; itâs a matter of dominant national consensus.â [Continue reading]( ⦠and become a memberâfor access to our full articles & archive and to support The Signal, as we develop a new approach to global current affairs. [Become a member now]( The Signal | 1717 N St. NW, Washington, DC 20011 [Unsubscribe {EMAIL}](
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