Day: December 27, 2023

The candidates are exchanging blows over everything from property disputes to whether drinking whisky is out of touch, in a raucous and freewheeling display of the island’s democracy.

Taiwan’s Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary election will define how the Chinese-claimed island deals with Beijing and the subject is indeed a major bone of contention.

But it is far from the sole issue debated at rallies, press conferences and on television talk shows where the uncensored exchanges are a major contrast to China, which says it is a socialist democracy but has been ruled only by the Communist Party since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.

One subject taking much limelight in Taiwan is whether the childhood home of Lai Ching-te from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and currently frontrunner to be next president according to most polls, was illegally expanded by his family in an old coal mining area north of Taipei.

Lai has denied anything untoward took place. But he has pledged to donate the tidy-looking house, which using Chinese-language wordplay on his name the opposition have called Lai’s “rascally shack,” so it can be turned into a miners’ museum.

“I’ve seen that villagers in mining areas are worried the houses they’ve settled down in would be considered illegally built and be demolished. I’m very sorry about this. It is my responsibility to help everyone find a way to protect their housing rights,” Lai said last week.

The property ownership of the other two presidential candidates, Hou Yu-ih from the main opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT) and Ko Wen-je from the small Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have also garnered attention.

The DPP has criticized Ko for co-owning farmland illegally turned into a parking lot, and Hou of profiting from renting out a large number of apartments his wife owns.

Ko has promised to tear up the parking lot. Hou has denied wrongdoing, and his wife said on Wednesday the apartments “from beginning to end do not belong” to him, denouncing “political smears and suspicion.”

Hou’s running mate, the outspoken media personality Jaw Shaw-kong, said this week nobody was being forced to live in the apartments, many of which were rented to students.

“If people think they are too expensive then boycott them,” Jaw told reporters.

Illegally adding to buildings or putting farmland into other uses are not uncommon problems in Taiwan given the sometimes vague or unenforced regulations.

Lai has a lead of around 5 percentage points in most polls, though some have shown Hou only one or two points behind.

One focus for all three parties has been how to appeal to the young, with an estimated 1 million new voters eligible to cast ballots at this election.

Ko has honed in on bread-and-butter issues like the high cost of housing, and young people have flocked to his rallies even if he has trailed in the polls.

But the TPP has been attacked as out of touch with ordinary people for Ko’s choice of running mate, Cynthia Wu, whose family is a major shareholder of conglomerate the Shin Kong Group.

The TPP’s opponents mocked Wu for comments at a vice presidential debate Friday where she said, “when I was young, everyone loved to drink Johnnie Walker,” referring to the popular Scotch whisky.

Wang Ting-yu, a senior DPP lawmaker, shot back on his Facebook page that when he was young, “we mostly drank plain water.”

Wu downplayed the furor.

“Sarsaparilla, beer, guava juice and Johnnie Walker is for us Chinese what should be on the table to drink. OK? So there’s no need to make a fuss about it,” she told reporters.

Taiwan’s Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections are taking place as China, which views the island as its own territory, has sought to force Taiwan to accept Chinese sovereignty claims.

Taiwan this month accused China of economic coercion and election interference after Beijing announced the end of tariff cuts on some chemical imports from the island, saying Taipei violated a trade agreement between the two sides signed in 2010.

That came after China said it had determined Taiwan had put up trade barriers in contravention of both World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and the 2010 trade deal.

Speaking at a regular news briefing in Beijing, Chen Binhua, spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said the “root cause” of resolving problems related to the 2010 deal was Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) adherence to the island’s formal independence.

“If the DPP authorities are determined to persevere, continue to stubbornly adhere to their Taiwan independence position, and refuse to repent, we support the relevant departments taking further measures in accordance with the regulations,” Chen said.

China detests both the DPP and its presidential candidate, current Vice President Lai Ching-te, who is leading in the polls, believing they are separatists.

Lai says he has no plans to change the island’s formal name, the Republic of China, but that only Taiwan’s people can decide their future. He has also repeatedly offered talks with China but has been rebuffed.

China’s defeated republican government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists, who founded the People’s Republic of China.

Chen said Taiwan was “facing a crossroads” about where to go, and that anything can be discussed on the basis of opposing Taiwan’s independence. He reiterated that Taiwan independence means war.

However, Chen also extended his “heartfelt thanks” to Taiwanese companies which had donated money to help deal with the aftermath of an earthquake in a remote part of northwestern China this month which killed 1,949 people.

But he made no mention of condolences by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to China after the disaster and offers of help from her government.

The foreign ministry said on Tuesday it would take “countermeasures” against Kharon and its director of investigations for providing “so-called evidence for America’s illegal sanctions related to Xinjiang.”

In response, Los-Angeles based Kharon said it had no presence in China, so the action was “largely symbolic” and would not impact its operations or ability to service its clients.

“In service of our clients and all global businesses that seek to implement leading risk management programs, Kharon will continue to provide research and data analytics that is objective, independent, and based on reliable sources,” it said in a statement.

A former researcher of the U.S.-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies will also be subject to sanctions.

The affected individuals will be banned from entering China, including Hong Kong and Macau, and the property of Kharon in China will be frozen, the ministry said.

Kharon said companies depend on its forced labor data to comply with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA).

The act was signed into U.S. law in 2021 to deny entry to goods from listed companies originating from the Chinese region of Xinjiang unless they can prove they were not produced with or tied to forced labor.

The United States this month curbed imports from three more Chinese firms including Sichuan Jingweida Technology Group, previously found by Kharon to have participated in labor transfers in 2017 in which thousands of workers were sent to work at various production facilities.

U.S. officials say they believe Chinese authorities have established labor camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang. Beijing denies any abuses.

The Xinjiang-related sanctions are based on “lies” and “false narratives,” according to Beijing, which says the U.S. is bent on undermining Xinjiang’s stability and curbing China’s development.