In this episode of Perspectives with Neilo, we bring you Part 2 in our mini series on Taiwan's 2024 Presidential Election and we focus on the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (民進黨) and their candidate, William Lai or Lai Ching-te (賴清德)
As we mentioned in our previous episode, this election outcome will likely have profound implications for Taiwan as it will set the tone for how authoritarian China, who claim Taiwan as their sovereign territory, will advance their expansionist agenda in the future.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) were founded in 1986 a year before the end of martial law. They are one of the two major political parties in Taiwan, the other being the Kuomintang (KMT). We will focus on the KMT's presidential candidate in the next episode.
The DPP has traditionally been associated with economic innovation, safeguarding human rights as well as promotion of Taiwanese nationalism and identity. Their insistence that Taiwan is a de facto sovereign state infuriates China.
The incumbent DPP president, Tsai Ing-wen, is the country's first female president and was re-elected for a second term in January 2020 with a historic 8 million plus votes, the largest number of votes for a presidential candidate in the country's era of direct presidential elections.
Presidential candidates in Taiwan are not allowed to run for a third term, so current Vice President William Lai has been unanimously selected by the DPP as the party's 2024 presidential candidate.
Our guest in this episode is Vincent Chao (@vyctw). He is the Director of International Affairs for the DPP as well as a Taipei City Councilor and Spokesperson for William Lai's campaign. We met him on November 14th to talk about William Lai's background, his policies on energy, foreign relations and much more.
After our interview, on November 20th William Lai officially named Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) as his running mate for the 2024 election. Hsiao has been Taiwan's representative to the United States since 2020.
We've shared more information on the candidates and the topics covered in this episode as well as the latest polling data from Courtney Donovan Smith published in the Taiwan News in our Dive Deeper section below.
Date of Recording: November 14th, 2023.
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| DPP Presidential Candidate Lai Ching-te and Vice Presidential Candidate Hsiao Bi-khim |
DIVE DEEPER:
Additional information and references on the topics covered in this episode:
- Taiwan's Election Isn't About War. It's About Clarity - Vincent Chao, DPP, The Diplomat (December 1st, 2023)
- 'Baldy' and 'Golden Boy' bring the magic to Hou Yu-ih's poll numbers - Courtney Donovan Smith, Taiwan News (December 3rd, 2023)
- Democratic Progressive Party - website
- My Plan to Preserve Peace in the Taiwan Strait - Lai Ching-te, Wall Street Journal (July 4th, 2023)
- Hsiao Bi-khim - Taiwan's Cat-Warrior - Table Media (November 22nd, 2023)
- Taiwan's opposition drama ends with no deal - Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, BBC News, Taiwan (November 24th, 2023)
