Election Day in Taiwan

Taiwanese folks are electing their leaders today. Here’s how Chinese social media is treating it.

Election day on the Beautiful Island

Taiwanese folks are electing their next President and legislature on Saturday. Given Taiwan’s controversial status in world affairs, history has its eyes on that small but precious island.

I lived in Taipei during Taiwan’s 2022 local elections so I have a good sense of how political campaigns there are presented to the public. But now I’m in mainland China, where the attitude among people following the elections is completely different. Most folks here have a one-sided perspective on Taiwan due to a politicized historical memory and relentless messaging which insists that Taiwan is, always has been, and always will be a part of China.

Politics on Chinese social media

These days, social media plays a key role in reenforcing orthodox political views. In this regard, Chinese social media platforms differ from American ones in an essential way. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are designed to keep users hooked by showing them what they like ad infinitum, regardless how objectionable their opinions or predelictions may be. American social media will more (Twitter) or less (Instagram) feed you what you want, even if you’re attracted to content as silly as moon landing conspiracies or as horrendous as anti-semitism.

But in China, politically-charged posts that deviate too far from the party line are removed from platforms very quickly. Thus, my read on Chinese social media’s handling of the Taiwanese elections is informed not by my own social media usage but rather by a virtually monolithic information ecosystem. Everyone in mainland China using domestic social media platforms to follow the Taiwanese elections is being fed two dominant themes.

Theme #1: These aren’t the “Taiwanese elections.”

Most posts avoid referring to the elections directly as “Taiwanese elections.” The most common expression is “Taiwan Region ‘elections’” (台湾地区“选举”) - with “Region” added to imply Taiwan isn’t a country and quotation marks added around the word elections to imply the elections aren’t valid. Other common terms are “elections across the strait” (对岸选举) and “elections within the island” (岛内大选).

These euphamisms are meant to deligitimize Taiwanese autonomy and project the notion that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. As one of my Chinese professors at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center explained, Taiwan’s democratization changed the island’s identity and political culture, thereby weakening (though not eliminating) Beijing’s claims over Taiwan.

Back when Taiwan was ruled by a dictator who identified as Chinese and dreamed of uniting China and Taiwan under his leadership, very few people conceived of Taiwan as a sovereign state. At that point, both sides of the Taiwan Strait were ruled by tyrants who wanted unification. But the situation changed after Taiwanese people engaged in years of political action, often enduring violence and repression along the way, culminating in a peaceful transfer of power via a direct election which elevated to the Presidency a leader who identified as Taiwanese and had no delusions about taking over all of China. Sure, some Taiwanese politicians still pay lip service to the dream of reunification with the mainland on Taiwan’s terms, but anyone with their head on straight knows that’s unrealistic.

Naturally, none of this context is promoted on Chinese social media, which offers a simplistic narrative about a rogue region that will inevitably be brought under Beijing’s control.

This post on the Chinese version of TikTok derisively uses quotation marks around the words “elections” and “legislature” and speculates that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (whose promotion of a uniquely Taiwanese identity has earned Beijing’s wrath) will lose its majority in the legislature.

Theme #2: The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is foolish, dangerous, and all-around awful.

Beijing hates the DPP, the Taiwanese political party that has been at the forefront of the Taiwanese independence movement for decades.

Since I want you to read this entire article, I’ll refrain from writing a thesis on Taiwanese democratization, the White Terror, and the shifting role of ethnicity in Taiwanese politics. For the purposes of this article, I’ll just note a few points:

• The DPP emerged in the 1980s and is directly responsible for ending single-party rule in Taiwan. It will forever boast a unique association with Taiwanese democracy and self-determination.

• Over the years, several high-profile DPP politicians have advocated for various degrees of independence, thereby earning Beijing’s utter hatred.

• Since its founding, the DPP has been the primary foil to the Nationalist Party (aka Kuomintang or KMT), which officially maintains the anachronistic view that the government in Taipei is the rightful government of China.

• In recent years, Beijing has supported the KMT in various ways due to their mutual opposition to Taiwanese independence. In a strange twist of fate, the Communist Party of China now supports the party against whom it once waged a civil war.

Given all this history, you shouldn’t be surprised that Chinese social media promotes posts that are unambiguously critical of the DPP. Countless posts criticize the DPP for advocating independence. Depending on the specific post, the the DPP could be characterized as wildly delusional, deceptively cunning, irresponsibly belligerent, or laughably toothless. As is typical in Chinese political communication, the vibe is more important than the logic.

One viral post promoted the possibility that military conflict could erupt in the Taiwan Strait if the DPP wins the elections. Given that Taiwan’s military pales in comparison to China’s, such conflict would surely be initiated by Beijing. Under the surface, this post contains a dark but unsurprising implication: were Taiwan and the mainland to engage in direct military conflict, Beijing would fire the first shot but then claim it’s the DPP’s fault.

This poll posted on Weibo prompts users to weigh in on whether military conflict will erupt in the Taiwan Strait this year in the event of a DPP victory. Violently nationalistic posts are censored more than any other type of content on Chinese social media, but this instance of fear mongering apperently didn’t cross the line.

Another viral post criticized the DPP for its education reforms, which allegedly “de-Chinafied” the curriculum by removing important parts of Chinese history and de-emphasizing classical literature. My Taiwanese friends might retort that these reforms broadened the historical memory of Taiwanese people by acknowledging the island’s historical subjugation by various colonizers and incorporating perspectives of the indigenous Taiwanese whose presence on the island long predates that of the Han Chinese. You can correctly assume that none of this context is promoted on Chinese social media either.

Identity, Freedom, and Peace

Regardless of who wins today’s elections, Taiwan is inexorably walking towards a showdown with China. Without buying into Beijing’s position that any armed conflict would necessarily be Taiwan’s fault, we should recognize that the evolution of Taiwanese national identity is completely at odds not only with the government in Beijing but also with the worldviews held by most ordinary Chinese people. Beijing has unrelentingly harped on the inevitability of reunification for decades, thereby backing themselves into a corner. Untold millions of Chinese people are bitter that Taiwan hasn’t yet been forcefully “liberated” by the People’s Liberation Army, so if Taiwan’s leaders called for de jure independence, leaders in Beijing could hardly maintain legitimacy in the eyes of their people unless they responded with horrific force.

Life is complicated, and sometimes our deepest values come into conflict with each other. If maintaining political freedom is paramount, would a Taiwanese call for independence backfire by provoking a violent response from Beijing? Or is the only way to respect freedom fighters of the past to put it all on the line in a clear expression of identity? How can the leaders of Taiwan - especially those in the DPP - be true to the voters who elect them and also be practical enough to maintain peace? These are the questions looming over Taiwan today. History has its eyes on that small but precious island.