“One country, two systems,” is the principle by which Hong Kong has been governed since being handed over from British to Chinese control in 1997. But it’s a model many opposition figures in the city see as fundamentally broken, unable to balance growing encroachment from Beijing with demands for greater democracy.
The huge, often violent protests
which have been taking place in the city for more than six months have renewed skepticism over “one country, two systems” — particularly in Taiwan, where both Tsai and Han have denounced it as a potential model for any unification with China.
“‘One country, two systems’ can never be implemented in Taiwan. Taiwanese people can never accept it,” Han told a rally in June, though he recently knocked Tsai in a debate for “enjoying electoral gains” while Hong Kongers are “bleeding from fighting against China.”
Tsai Chia-hung, director of the Election Study Center at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, told CNN that the situation in Hong Kong has “influenced this election a lot.”
“The relationship between Taiwan and China is always a dominant issue in Taiwan’s elections,” he said, adding that in the wake of the protests in the city and Beijing’s hardline reaction, “people are really worried about the future of Taiwan and they … want to voice their concern over the relationship between Taiwan and China.”
Fears of China
Taiwan is a democratically-governed island of 23 million people in the South China Sea. A Japanese colony until 1945, it was taken over by the Kuomintang after they lost the Chinese civil war and moved their Republic of China (ROC) government to the island.
KMT-ruled Taiwan was a dictatorship for many decades, before democratic reforms began in the late 1980s, leading to its first direct presidential election in 1996. Since then, the island has gone through a major change it is identity, with many, particularly younger people, regarding themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, and supporting full independence from the mainland — meaning the ROC, as Taiwan still calls itself, would become the Republic of Taiwan.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never controlled Taiwan, but that has not stopped the Communist government regarding the island as an integral part of its territory, and vowing to “retake” it,
by force if necessary.
In the past, as Taiwan has appeared poised to drift further out of its orbit, Beijing has resorted to aggressive measures — for instance,
firing missiles into the sea near the island ahead of the 1996 elections. Last month, Beijing
sailed its new aircraft carrier into the Taiwan Strait, which divides the island from mainland China, along with several naval frigates. The move was greeted with some alarm by Taipei, which urged Beijing to uphold “peace and stability across the strait and in the region.”
This week, the Global Times, a nationalist Chinese state-run tabloid,
quoted Chinese officials and analysts as warning “that reunification of the motherland is an inevitable trend regardless of who wins.”
According to some, in addition to bellicose statements and shows of force, Beijing is also pursuing a more subtle approach to influence the elections, targeting Taiwanese voters
with fake news and misleading information.
The Taiwan FactCheck Center, an independent NGO,
has tracked numerous instances of disinformation regarding voting procedure, party policies, ID requirements and Tsai herself. One particularly prevalent piece of fake news is that Tsai’s PhD from the London School of Economics is somehow illegitimate, despite the university
repeatedly confirming the degree.
Taiwan’s Central Election Commission has also
warned of a surge in fake news and disinformation in the run up to Saturday’s vote.
On December 31, Taiwan’s parliament — in which the DPP has a majority — passed an
Anti-Infiltration Act aimed at reining in Chinese influence over the island’s elections. The move has been denounced by some opposition figures as endangering free speech and legitimate cross-straits ties, leading Tsai to reassure voters in her New Year’s address that it was only designed to “more strongly protect Taiwan’s democracy and freedom.”
Both
Twitter and Facebook have launched dedicated services for tracking misinformation and manipulation ahead of Saturday’s vote. In December, Facebook
reportedly removed more than 200 fan pages, groups and accounts targeting Taiwan for violating its guidelines.
Chinese officials have pushed back against claims of attempting to influence the election. In the Global Times report, the paper quoted experts saying “to blame Beijing for meddling in the election was groundless as reunification is inevitable and the mainland will not see the election result as an important factor affecting this process.”
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The DPP’s poor performance in the 2018 local elections appeared to mark a resurgence for the KMT however, particularly for a new wave of figures such as Han. Going into 2019 it seemed like Tsai might lose both the presidency and the legislature, and while the former seems very unlikely at this point, the KMT still has a strong chance of regaining control of the Yuan.
