Taiwan considers a Plan B
As Taipei navigates rising regional tensions, President Lai Ching-te faces pressure to adapt his governance strategies.
In a nutshell
- President Lai’s approach, diplomacy with defense, will likely develop
- Lai’s administration seeks to bolster democracy amid growing challenges
- Media regulation and Beijing’s influence raise concerns for Taiwan
More than two months after President Lai Ching-te took office, the international environment has changed dramatically and Taiwan’s governance strategies are in flux. China seeks to assert its sovereignty over Taiwan and is taking steps in that direction. Meanwhile on the island, the president is seeing some improvements in his local support, but new demands have been raised over Mr. Lai’s performance in domestic affairs. A need to supplement and amend his original “Plan A” is emerging.
A poll released by Taiwan’s my-formosa.com news site on July 29 showed that 55.2 percent of Taiwan’s people expressed trust in Lai Ching-te, an increase of 1.5 percentage points from the previous month, while 32 percent expressed distrust, a decrease of 4.3 percentage points from the previous month. Regarding satisfaction with the ruling government, 52 percent said they were satisfied, an increase of 4.4 percentage points, while 30.1 percent were dissatisfied, a plunge of 4.6 percentage points from last month.
It should be noted that my-formosa.com is Taiwan’s pro-government media outlet, and results should be taken with a grain of salt. Regardless of the slight progress, the Lai administration still faces three challenges since taking office: dealing with cross-Strait relations; consolidating the democratic system (specifically, managing relations with the opposition party); and enhancing freedom of the press.
Two-in-one approach to relations with the mainland
President Lai’s approach to cross-Strait relations relies on both soft and hard tactics.
An example of the softer approach occurred on February 14, 2024, when a fishing boat from China’s Fujian province refused to be inspected by the Taiwan Marine Police in the restricted area of Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands, only 10 kilometers offshore of China. As a result, the vessel capsized, killing two people. In response to the incident, representatives from both sides of the Taiwan Strait signed four consensus agreements in Kinmen on July 30. According to the mutually agreed steps, the Taiwanese side returned the remains of the bodies, seized the fishing boat and gave the families of the deceased fishermen 1.5 million renminbi ($211,345) each in consolation.
Additionally, the director of the Taiwan Marine Patrol apologized for failing to document the enforcement process with video evidence. Although the mainland side reiterated that the case was a “vicious collision of vessels” even after the incident had come to an end, in reality, in part thanks to Mr. Lai’s considered approach, the two sides did not cause any further conflict over the incident.
Mr. Lai seems to be a much calmer character than former President Chen, although he does not yet demonstrate the elegance of Tsai Ing-wen.
Lai Ching-te’s hard approach, however, is reflected in the recent resolution of the annual summit of Taiwan’s Inter-Parliamentary Coalition on China Policy. The resolution concluded that United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 did not define and determine Taiwan’s political status nor assert mainland China’s sovereignty over Taiwan. It concluded that China had misinterpreted Resolution 2758. This statement is in line with Mr. Lai’s claim that the two sides of the Strait are “mutually unaffiliated” and cooperate on a “state-to-state” basis.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should have already learned a lesson from recent history when it comes to stirring up resentment against China. Chen Shui-bian, president of Taiwan from 2000 to 2008, once attempted to mobilize the public along populist lines when he narrowly won the 2000 presidential election with 39.3 percent of the vote, including attempts to hold a referendum in support of Taiwan’s attempts to join the UN. These moves ended up alarming Beijing and irritating Washington. Mr. Lai seems to be a much calmer character than former President Chen, although he does not yet demonstrate the elegance of Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s president from 2016 until early 2024. In terms of soft tactics, he still has a lot to improve.
Trump’s threat
One of the most crucial issues in cross-Strait relations is Taiwan’s national defense. To talk to China about coexistence, the first thing leaders in Taipei must do is show strength, especially military strength. For decades, Taiwan has relied on the United States to protect it. As such, political changes in the U.S. will, to some extent, determine whether Taiwan can continue to exist as a relatively independent political and economic entity.
Former President Donald Trump downplayed the possibility of helping Taiwan in a late June interview with Bloomberg, saying Taiwan should pay the U.S. for its defense. It is assumed that if Mr. Trump is elected president, he will have greater autonomy to select his cabinet than he did in his first term. That way, unlike in his first administration (when there was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger to mitigate Mr. Trump’s emotional decisions), in a second administration his team would likely make it easier for Mr. Trump to act as he sees fit. This would also mean that Mr. Trump’s words on Taiwan (and other security relationships) should be taken seriously.
U.S. strength and Taiwan’s defense outlays
In July, the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, a cross-party working group of the U.S. House and Senate Armed Services Committees, released a report emphasizing that the U.S. is facing the most serious and challenging threat since 1945. It stated that the American armed forces are “ill-prepared” for the possibility of a major war in the near future. China today has the world’s largest navy and the largest air force in East Asia.
In contrast, the U.S. military’s ability to build, maintain and repair the maritime forces it requires is “fundamentally suspect” due to an inadequate U.S. shipbuilding industrial base. Eric Edelman, vice chairman of the Commission, noted that while the U.S. still has the world’s most powerful military and the farthest reach, “once we get within 1,000 miles of China’s coastline, the U.S. will lose its military advantage and could be on the losing side of a conflict.”
These facts, coupled with Mr. Trump’s recent comments, illustrate that Taiwan has to focus more than ever on improving its own defense and deterrence capabilities. The overall defense budget of the Tsai Ing-wen administration in the last five years of her tenure (2019-2023) increased from $12 billion to $18 billion, while Taiwan’s spending on defense as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) rose from 2 to 2.5 percent. In other words, in the event Mr. Trump returns to power, Taiwan will have to continue raising such outlays. Yet Taipei’s boosting defense spending even to 3 percent of GDP is unlikely to satisfy U.S. expectations under a Trump administration.
Herein lies the problem: Mr. Lai needs to convince the Kuomintang (KMT) – the Taiwanese opposition party with more favorable relations with Beijing – to raise military spending. This will not be an easy task for Mr. Lai’s government. Of course, there is reason to believe that things will be different if U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is elected president. But given the closeness of the presidential race, even the European Union is drawing up its own “Plan B” to deal with the eventuality of Mr. Trump returning to the White House. Taiwan would face the same predicament.
Compromising for democracy
President Lai’s governance plan (“Plan A”) was well designed. This is primarily reflected in his four-pillar plan: The first pillar is to strengthen national defense; the second is to build economic security; the third is strengthening Taiwan’s ability to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with democratic countries and jointly exercise deterrent power making Taiwan a role model for the democratic world; and the fourth is stable and principled cross-Strait leadership, committed to maintaining regional peace and stability.
Nevertheless, over the course of several months the strategy has already revealed its flaws. In addition to the defense issues mentioned above, Mr. Lai’s government also needs to take the KMT seriously and manage the relationship between the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan. From this point of view, a Plan B is not so much a replacement but an alteration and addition to Plan A. From Mr. Lai’s four-pillar discourse, it is clear that an important aspect is missing, namely, how to safeguard the domestic democratic system.
A Plan B is not so much a replacement but an alteration and addition to Plan A.
When President Lai took office, he faced a legislature in which his party, the DPP, did not have a majority, in stark contrast to the situation his predecessors, Tsai Ing-wen and Ma Ying-jeou, enjoyed. Mr. Lai was elected president with only 40 percent of the vote, and the party’s number of seats in the legislature is less than that of the opposition KMT and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) combined. It is politically logical to have the ruling and opposition parties work together to institutionalize the democracy.
The dispute between Mr. Lai and the Legislative Yuan, where the KMT has the upper hand, centers on a proposal to strengthen the legislature’s oversight of the Executive Yuan. In fact, before the DPP gained a majority in the legislature, in 2012 it had proposed a bill arguing that the legislature needed stronger oversight over the executive branch. Yet the current Lai administration seems to have forgotten this. To rebuild trust among the parties, compromise is urgently needed. The future of Taiwan’s democracy depends on how the relationship between the administration and the legislature develops.
There is also a correlation between handling the relationship with Taiwan’s opposition parties and the interaction between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. Any mistake made by the Lai administration in consolidating democracy would provide China with an opportunity to drive a wedge between Taiwan’s political parties, further destabilizing the state of Taiwanese democracy and self-determination.
How to secure genuine freedom of speech in a Plan B?
The last aspect of a Plan B that is being floated for Mr. Lai’s government is a sound media landscape, which is closely related to both consolidating democracy and maintaining functional cross-Strait relations.
Taiwan’s media is largely affected by China. The Taiwan Democracy Laboratory announced the results of its transnational program, “China Influence Index,” on March 24, 2023, in Taipei. According to the survey, Pakistan, Cambodia and Thailand are the three other countries that are the most seriously influenced by China among the 82 countries considered. Taiwan’s society and media ranked first in terms of the degree of influence by China. This survey result highlighted the challenge facing Taiwan’s media, namely: Press freedom exists in parallel to reporting manipulated by mainland China.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influences the media in Taiwan through different channels, the most typical example being the pro-China CTI News Channel. CTI used to be a mainstream television station with very high ratings and millions of viewers. In 2020, CTI applied for the renewal of its satellite broadcasting channel license, but the National Communications Commission (NCC) of Taiwan decided not to renew the license. CTI then filed an administrative lawsuit, requesting that the court revoke sanctions and grant the license renewal.
After more than two years of trial, the result finally came in late 2023. The court did not reject the NCC’s reasoning, but rather said that the basis of the review was wrong. Since then, CTI has not yet been granted a new license, although it is very active on YouTube. The incident has once again led to a discussion of whether or not to allow pro-CCP voices in Taiwan. This debate, like the current confrontation between DPP and KMT, reflects the division in Taiwanese society over whether and to what extent the media can be pro-China.
The CTI incident also reflects the inextricable relationship between the pro-mainland capital and Taiwan’s media. Tsai Eng-meng, founder of Want Want China Holdings Ltd. (Want Want Group), is an entrepreneur who became the chairman of the CTI Group when he took over its ownership.
Currently, Want Want Group’s operational focus and the main source of profit are in mainland China, spanning sectors such as media, insurance, medical, catering, agriculture, real estate and more. In 2013, the group’s annual revenue in China alone amounted to $1.7 billion. At the same time, its financial report showed that during the period of 2009-2020, nearly $1 of every $10 that the Want Want Group earned annually in China came from Chinese government subsidies. This means that the CTI also received indirect subsidies from mainland China.
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There are various ways in which the CCP influences Taiwan’s media. One is direct interference. This year, the CCP’s official reporters in Taiwan were directly involved in a politics-related program in Taiwan, supposedly as “consultants.” Yet, the media entities addressed denied such doing.
Beijing also intervenes with direct economic incentives to Taiwan’s media, meaning commercial enticement of the media. In August 2023, news agency Reuters, citing documents and interviews obtained, disclosed that the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council of China had paid at least five Taiwanese media outlets to insert news, which inevitably led to self-censorship by the beneficiaries in Taiwan.
Other forms of intervention are more indirect, such as the Chinese government spending money to invite Taiwan’s media leaders to participate in summits designed under the auspices of the mainland. This practice started in 2015 and such meetings have since been held annually. A typical example is the Cross-Strait Media Summit in Beijing, where in 2019 many Taiwanese media executives traveled to China to “listen” to China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s sermon.
Taiwan as a whole has so far failed to provide a clear answer to the following two questions: Is freedom of expression conditional? Can there be restrictions when the two sides of the Taiwan Strait do not treat each other’s media equally? Here, the principle of reciprocity could be an important foundation of Taiwan’s policy toward China’s influence. According to this principle, each side should allow the opening of the other side’s media on its own soil, but not unilaterally.
It appears that Taiwan needs to establish a media mediation group independent of the government, one that is distinct from the official NCC. Through such a mediator, Taiwan may establish a set of rules recognized by all parties which requires transparency in the operation and management of each media type, as well as in its finances. Any party that violates the rules would be subject to legal sanctions. By modifying policies and seeking balance, free speech will be bolstered, mitigating the risks to Taiwan’s democracy.
Scenarios
Possible in part: Plan B complements and amends Plan A
A scenario is possible in which the ruling DPP exhausts its soft tactics toward mainland China without violating the constitution, yet at the same time improves its national defense capabilities, actively interacts with the opposition parties via compromise and ensures freedom of speech independent from China. The result of this scenario would be to weaken pro-China forces in Taiwanese society.
It is hard to imagine that President Lai has the ability and tools to fully achieve such a situation. But there is a general belief that if he can do well in one of the three areas mentioned (bolstering defense, cooperating with the opposition, ensuring freedom of expression) during his four-year term, his leadership should be legitimized, helping provide stability to Taiwan.
Possible: Taiwan fails to make any progress and drifts toward China
An alternate scenario that is also conceivable is that the Taiwanese president accomplishes little to nothing in these three areas in his tenure. This will surely lead to the replacement of the DPP by the KMT in the seat of power in four years’ time, bolstering Beijing’s hopes of unifying the island with the mainland.
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