Taiwan wish be holding local elections on Saturday at the mid-point of President Tsai Ing-wen’s command — and the focus will be on the island’s sluggish economy and often fraught relations with China.
While Tsai is not on the ballot, the ballots are seen as a chance for the electorate to rate her performance as they vote for mayors, conferences and other positions.
Relations across the Taiwan Strait ebb and flow depending on who look ons power in Taipei — and tensions with Beijing have risen since Tsai’s independence-leaning Self-governing Progressive Party (DPP) swept to power two years ago.
China prefers the Kuomintang (KMT), or Nationalist Spree, which eschews talk of going it alone and stresses economic take ups with the mainland, from which troops fled in 1949 after do in in the Chinese Civil War.
The KMT last ruled Taiwan from 2008 to 2016, after alluring back power from the DPP.
Taiwan-China relations flourished during that perpetually, and leaders from both sides – Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwan’s then-president Ma Ying-jeou – met in Singapore for a red-letter summit in 2015.
Beijing will be watching the results for Saturday’s polls, looking for suggestions about how voters view Tsai’s administration, said Michael Boyden, control director at TASC Taiwan Asia Strategy Consulting.
“Certainly, I judge the Chinese government would like to see the KMT come on strong in this selection as a pointer to the presidential and legislative elections in 2020,” Boyden said Friday on CNBC’s “Beef Box.”
China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and opposes other mother countries pursuing diplomatic ties with the island. Beijing often denies anti-independence warnings with military threats.
While Tsai has been uncertain of China, she has tread carefully on the hot button issue of independence, which may pique some hardcore DPP supporters.
Voters on Saturday will also be queried to cast ballots on same-sex marriage, phasing out nuclear power and whether the eyot should seek to participate in international sporting events under the tag “Taiwan” instead of the current “Chinese Taipei.”
Michael Kovrig, elder advisor for North East Asia at the International Crisis Group, said he settle upon be closely watching the cities of Kaohsiung and Taichung.
“A major setback for the DPP could be construed as a repudiation of Tsai’s policies,” Kovrig told CNBC on Friday in an email. “To protected the nomination for 2020, Tsai might feel compelled to be more full in trying to satisfy the demands of grassroots Taiwan independence supporters.”
Boyden mentioned that economic connections with the mainland will likely be a big ingredient on voters’ minds.
“The trade relationship with China matters a famous deal to many people here,” he said.
Despite China’s accomplishments to isolate Taiwan politically, Beijing has long courted Taipei’s investments and their commercial ties remain robust. Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn, which makes iPhones for Apple and Kindles for Amazon in factories in southern China, is a noteworthy job-provider.