Get Ready to Meet the Next President of Taiwan

Polling has Hou and Lai in a close race with around 30% support each, with Lai generally a few points ahead. Ko sits in third at around 20%. These numbers are hardly predictive this far out from the vote in January, but with each party having chosen its candidate, onlookers can expect a very different presidential campaign and a shift in tone in Taiwan’s politics.

As the DPP candidate, Lai has emphasized continuity with Tsai, but he is still a very different style of politician. Tsai casts herself as disciplined, resolute and technocratic, even somewhat above the fray. Lai, although he couldn’t be called a populist, has built a more hands-on career through local politics in the south.

The KMT’s Hou offers his no-nonsense and pragmatic style to a party that wrestles with its authoritarian legacy and its close links with Taiwan’s business interests. Although Hou and Lai are stridently critical of each other, they occupy some of the same space as political personas.

Ko, for his part, will take votes away from both major parties but may prove more damaging for the KMT in its traditional stronghold of Taipei.

As candidates, both Hou and Lai have given voice to issues in Taiwanese politics that are too often subsumed by cross-strait relations, especially the north–south divide and gender and class politics. But neither candidate has a straightforward story to tell on those issues yet, and that could make for a bruising campaign.

Across the strait, Beijing would be deeply unhappy with Lai as president, seeing him as more explicitly Taiwanese nationalist than Tsai, however careful he might be in the campaign. Hou has stayed in line with the KMT’s position. He has already ruled out Beijing’s formula of ‘one country, two systems’ for unification and doesn’t represent the factions of the KMT for whom Chinese identity is central to their politics.

Whether it be Lai Ching-te or Hou You-yi, understanding the next president of Taiwan will require some work from an international community that has grown comfortable with and sympathetic to Tsai. Her progressive politics are accessible and familiar to interested international observers.

Hou and Lai, however, practice a politics steeped in community life and the social divides of Taiwan. While they are each compelling, the world will require deeper familiarity with the Taiwanese story to fully understand them as politicians.

As Beijing continues its threatening military activity around Taiwan, developing that familiarity will be a good starting point for policymakers around the world as they prepare for the 2024 election outcome.

Mark Harrison is a senior lecturer at the University of Tasmania. This article is published courtesy of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).