Taipei, Taiwan – Taiwan’s greater than 19 million eligible voters will solid their ballots on Saturday for the island’s subsequent leaders and lawmakers amid home financial challenges and China’s continued threats towards the self-ruled island.
There are three candidates within the working for the highest job: William Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s present vice chairman who represents the ruling Beijing-sceptic Democratic Progressive Occasion (DPP); New Taipei mayor Hou Yu-ih of the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT); and ex-Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je of the newer Taiwan Folks’s Occasion (TPP).
Many in Taiwan face skyrocketing housing costs and stagnating wages, however past the financial points which might be key to elections in all places, folks on the island should additionally deal with a extra existential query – that the Chinese language Communist Occasion (CCP) desires to take management of the island, by pressure if needed.
Within the run-up to the polls, it has despatched navy plane and balloons across the island whereas its officers have urged voters to make the “right choice”.
Brian Hioe, founding editor of Taiwan-focused journal New Bloom, notes that whereas not the one issue, “the largest issue in Taiwanese presidential elections traditionally is the decision between independence and unification”.
Beijing insists Taiwan is a part of China, however in recent times, the folks of Taiwan, a lot of whom have grown up in one in every of Asia’s most vibrant democracies and identified nothing else, have develop into more and more assertive about their very own sense of identification.
In response to Nationwide Chengchi College’s Election Research Heart, 62.8 p.c of individuals recognized as Taiwanese as of June 2023, whereas 30.5 p.c mentioned they have been each Taiwanese and Chinese language, and solely 2.5 p.c recognized as Chinese language.
‘Our identity is being eradicated’
Aurora Chang, now 24, lengthy questioned her identification and sense of belonging as a result of “I knew that I was Taiwanese but also felt that I wasn’t solely just Taiwanese – but didn’t know what the other things were”.
On the finish of her first 12 months as an undergraduate, nonetheless, she got here to a call.
“Being Taiwanese was really a conscious choice that I made,” she instructed Al Jazeera, referring to her epiphany. “I wanted to connect more to my roots and to understand what it meant and to feel my connection with the land and my family and my history,” she mentioned.
“Our identity is actively being eradicated by a power much larger and much more international influence than us,” she added.
In response to Taiwan’s Central Election Fee, greater than 30 p.c of voters are aged between 20 and 39.
Hioe, who can also be a non-resident fellow on the College of Nottingham’s Taiwan research programme, notes that “identity concerns are certainly part of what sets Taiwanese young people apart from other Asian youths – in that most youth do not face an existential threat to their national identity”.
Chen Yi An, a 27-year-old medical employee from Taipei, can also be proud to name herself Taiwanese.
“Taiwan is the place I grew up, the land that raised me. I am Taiwanese,” she mentioned, including that the way in which she defines the place is from “should not be controversial”.
However not all younger Taiwanese are so rooted of their sense of identification, and a few do see themselves as Chinese language.
Ting-yi Zheng, a 27-year-old scholar from Tainan, Taiwan’s historic metropolis, has lived in China for seven years and is at the moment finding out for a doctoral diploma in Beijing.
He instructed Al Jazeera he had no plan to return dwelling to vote.
Final time round he backed KMT candidate Han Kuo-yu, however now he worries in regards to the state of Taipei’s ties with Beijing and the impact on the island’s economic system. China has raised political, financial and navy stress on Taiwan ever since Tsai Ing-wen was first elected president in 2016, regardless of her early supply of talks.
Zheng says he doesn’t need the island to go to battle with Beijing.
“I hope the two sides of the Taiwan Strait can be peacefully unified,” he instructed Al Jazeera, including that each peoples wanted to know one another extra.
Liz Li, now 27, says she realized at college that Taiwan was an “independent country” however says she got here to have doubts after doing extra of her personal studying.
“The older you get, the more news and history you see, and you will think to yourself: Are we really a country?” Li mentioned, referring to the worldwide group’s understanding of Taiwan’s state as “a country but not a country”.
No matter her ideas on identification, nonetheless, it won’t be what motivates her resolution on the poll field.
Values to reside by
Li goals of shopping for her own residence on the island, however costs are so excessive she is considering of working abroad – getting a job as a UX designer in Japan or the USA – so she will earn and save sufficient cash to make it a actuality.
She thinks that as Taiwan grapples with financial points similar to inexpensive housing, it wants new concepts and a substitute for the 2 events – the DPP and KMT – which have dominated politics since democratisation.
Li plans to vote for the TPP’s Ko for the sake of “who will give us a better and more stable life.”
Ko has attracted assist from many equally disillusioned younger people who find themselves attracted by his outsider standing, and for whom financial points are extra of a priority than the rumbling from throughout the Taiwan Strait.
“The thing about China is that it is an existing problem for us,” she mentioned, explaining that she didn’t assume it was a difficulty the place peculiar folks might have a lot affect, not like the economic system.
Chiaoning Su, affiliate professor within the Division of Communication, Journalism and Public Relations at Oakland College within the US, instructed Al Jazeera that Taiwanese identification was “a process of knowing who we are not”, which was “being defined by our way of life, value, democracy [and] freedom of speech” and the distinction with the authoritarian authorities in Beijing.
For Chang, these values, together with “gender equality” and “views on queer rights” with the island the primary in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage, underpin her identification and make her happy with being Taiwanese.
They’re additionally why she plans to vote for Lai, a person Beijing has labelled a “separatist”.
Lai mentioned earlier this week, he wished to keep up Taiwan’s establishment as de facto impartial.
“Being somebody who believes in the maintenance of Taiwanese independence, there is a very clear choice here,” Chang mentioned.