While much of the world’s attention was focused on the recent events in Hong Kong, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen quietly achieved another victory at home. Having trailed in the previous months, Tsai was in danger of being the first incumbent Taiwanese president since 2000 to suffer an embarrassing party primary loss.
Instead, on June 13, Tsai rolled to an 8.2-percentage-point victory over challenger William Lai, a respected independence hard-liner and former premier, to ensure that she would represent the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) again in Taiwan’s 2020 presidential election. That came with her own accidental helping hand from the mainland: the Hong Kong protests, which invigorated Taiwanese who now, like Tsai, see mostly threat rather than promise from Beijing. Fear of mainland China—as well as Tsai’s own underrated successes—may yet ensure her reelection.
Instead, on June 13, Tsai rolled to an 8.2-percentage-point victory over challenger William Lai, a respected independence hard-liner and former premier, to ensure that she would represent the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) again in Taiwan’s 2020 presidential election. That came with her own accidental helping hand from the mainland: the Hong Kong protests, which invigorated Taiwanese who now, like Tsai, see mostly threat rather than promise from Beijing. Fear of mainland China—as well as Tsai’s own underrated successes—may yet ensure her reelection.
