Taiwan Election

It's easy to lose track of other parts of the world with all of the focus on Iraq and أﻟﻘﺎﻋﺪﺓ all the time.

But Taiwan will be having elections on March 20. The contest is between Chen Shui-bian, the pro-indepence incumbent, and Lien Chan, the Nationalist Party challenger.

Chen won four years ago with only 39% of the vote, because the Nationalist Party was divided. It appears that he's had success in driving public sentiment towards a Taiwanese identity instead of a mainland one (see the statistics below).

Meanwhile, China is thought to be flexing it's military muscle on the eve of the election to intimidate the Taiwanese. This posturing has included joint military exercises with France off the coast of Taiwan just four days before the election (the largest ever with a foreign nation), as well as repeated missile tests since January . There is much speculation that the Chinese would attack the island if Chen wins again, largely because of his support for a referendum demanding that China remove its missiles pointed at Taiwan – a referendum seen as a precursor to an independence referendum.

Other than the fact that we've committed to protecting the democracy in Taiwan from mainland encroachment, this is relevant to the US because, by law, we are required to support the Taiwanese military through arms sales, and we have historically (though vaguely) asserted that we would help Taiwan defend itself in the face of Chinese agression. So this could get out of hand quickly.

USA Today provides a surprisingly good summary of the situation, including some interesting statistics:

44% — Percentage of Taiwanese who defined themselves as Chinese in September 1992 9% — Percentage of Taiwanese who defined themselves as Chinese in November 2003 496 — Number of missiles China has pointed at Taiwan 82.7% — Turnout in last Taiwanese presidential election (2000) 67.4% — Turnout in last U.S. presidential election (2000) 1 — Number of seats in the 225-member Taiwanese parliament, the Legislative Yuan, held by the pro-unification New Party in 2004. 21 — Number of seats in legislature held by pro-unification New Party in 1995. $12,941 — Annual per capita gross domestic product in Taiwan (2001) $840 — Annual per capita gross domestic product in China (2001) Sources: USA TODAY research, Taiwan Government Information Office; Taipei Times

Watch this space....
Update: As Brad points out in a comment below, Chen and his VP candidate were wounded in a shooting today. They were both released from the hospital after a few hours and the vote will go on on Saturday.

More: I had forgotten about this. But I wonder if the Sino-French excerises were motivated partially by the frigate bribery scandal from January:

Illegal payments linked to a French defense deal with Taiwan signed in 1991 have placed the French government at risk of being ordered to repay up to $600 million in murky commissions, according to a report published on Wednesday.

Posted by richard at March 19, 2004 12:56 AM