Taipei, Taiwan – Taiwan’s more than 19 million voters will cast their votes on Saturday for the island’s next leaders and lawmakers amid domestic economic challenges and China’s continued threat to the autonomous island.
Three candidates are in the running for the top spot. One is Taiwan’s current vice president, William Lai Ching-te, who represents the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which is skeptical of the Chinese government. New Taipei Mayor Hou Youxi of the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT). and former Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-che of the emerging Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).
Many people in Taiwan are facing soaring home prices and stagnant wages, but islanders are looking beyond the economic issues that are key to elections in many parts of the country to a more existential issue: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) We must also address the issue of wanting to control the You can also force the destruction of the island if necessary.
In preparation for the vote, the government has sent military planes and balloons across the island, and officials have urged voters to make the “right choice.”
Brian Hioe, founding editor of the Taiwanese magazine New Bloom, points out that although this is not the only factor, “Traditionally, the biggest issue in Taiwan’s presidential election is the decision between independence and unification.”
Although the Chinese government claims that Taiwan is part of China, many Taiwanese people grew up in one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies, have never known anything else, and in recent years have changed their identity. Increasingly, we are making claims about consciousness.
according to National Chengchi University Election Research CenterAs of June 2023, 62.8% identify as Taiwanese, 30.5% identify as both Taiwanese and Chinese, and only 2.5 identify as Chinese. %was.
“Our identity is being eradicated.”
Aurora Chan, now 24, has long questioned her identity and sense of belonging. She said this was because, “She knew she was Taiwanese, but she also felt that she was more than just Taiwanese. She didn’t know what the others were.”
However, at the end of her first year of undergrad, she made a decision.
“Being Taiwanese was a really conscious choice that I made,” she told Al Jazeera, speaking about her epiphany. “I wanted to connect more with my roots, understand what it means, and feel a connection to the land, family, and history,” she said.
“Our identities are being actively erased by forces far larger and with more international influence than we are,” she added.
According to Taiwan’s Central Election Commission, more than 30% of voters are between the ages of 20 and 39.
Hie, who is also a non-resident research fellow in the Taiwan Studies Program at the University of Nottingham, said: “Concerns about identity are certainly part of what makes Taiwanese young people different from other Asian young people. Most young people feel threatened by existential threats. their national identity, in that they are not confronted with their national identity.
Chen Yi-an, a 27-year-old medical worker from Taipei, is also proud to be Taiwanese.
“Taiwan is where I grew up and the land that raised me. I am Taiwanese,” she said, adding that the way one defines one’s place of origin “should not be controversial.”
However, not all young people in Taiwan are so ingrained in their sense of identity, and some consider themselves Chinese.
Tingyi Zhen, a 27-year-old student from Taiwan’s historic city of Tainan, has lived in China for seven years and is currently studying for her PhD in Beijing.
He told Al Jazeera he had no plans to return home to vote.
Last time, he supported Kuomintang candidate Han Kuo-yu, but now he is concerned about the current state of relations between Taipei and China and the impact on Taipei’s economy. Since Tsai Ing-wen was first elected president in 2016, China has increased political, economic, and military pressure on Taiwan, but despite early offers for talks, pressure on Taiwan has not increased. ing.
Zheng says he does not want the island to go to war with the Chinese government.
“I hope that both sides of the Taiwan Strait will be reunited peacefully,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that the two peoples need to get to know each other better.
Liz Lee, now 27, said she learned in school that Taiwan was an “independent country,” but as she read books on her own, she began to have doubts.
“The older I get, the more I watch the news and watch history, and the more I start to think, ‘Are we really a country?'” and not the nation.”
But whatever ideas she has about identity, they don’t drive her decisions at the voting booth.
values to live by
Lee dreams of buying her own house on the island, but the prices are so high that she has to take a job as a UX designer in Japan or the US to earn and save enough money to make that happen. I am thinking of working abroad. .
She believes that as Taiwan grapples with economic issues such as affordable housing, it needs new ideas and alternatives to the two parties, the Democratic Progressive Party and the Kuomintang Party, which have dominated politics since democratization.
Mr. Lee plans to vote for Mr. Ke of TPP because “who will give us a better and more stable life?”
Mr. Ke has drawn support from many similarly disillusioned young people, drawn to his outsider status and more concerned about economic issues than the noise from across the Taiwan Strait.
“The problem with China is that it’s a pre-existing problem for us,” she said, explaining that unlike the economy, she didn’t think it was a problem that had a huge impact on ordinary people.
Chaoning Hsu, an associate professor at the School of Communication, Journalism and Public Affairs at the University of Auckland, told Al Jazeera that Taiwanese identity is “a process of discovering who we are not” and that it is “defined by the way we live.” “It is something that will be done,” he said. , values, democracy [and] Contrasting “free speech” with Beijing’s authoritarian government.
For Ms. Chan, values such as gender equality and gay rights in Taiwan, the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, underpin her identity and make her proud to be Taiwanese. There is.
That’s why she plans to vote for Mr. Lai, who the Chinese government has labeled a “separatist.”
Lai said earlier this week that he wanted to maintain the status quo with Taiwan as de facto independent.
“As someone who believes in maintaining Taiwan’s independence, there is a very clear choice here,” Chan said.
