Beijing’s man lost by a shocking landslide in Taiwan’s presidential election

- Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen was re-elected today (Jan. 11), in a miraculous turnaround of fortunes thanks in no small part to China’s consistent threats.

Tsai won over 8 million votes, or 57% of the vote share, the biggest election victory since Taiwan held its first presidential election in 1996. Her main challenger, the Kuomintang party’s Han Kuo-yu, won 5.4 million votes. Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) also retained its majority in the legislative election.

Though the polls showed Tsai was the favorite to win, her large margin of victory was unexpected. A result made more shocking following the drubbing her party received in local elections a little over a year ago. In November 2018, the independence-leaning DPP lost seven of the 13 cities and counties it had held to the China-friendly Kuomintang. The result was seen as a rebuke of Tsai’s economic and social policies.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has repeatedly threatened to use military might to force unification of the territories. Taiwan has never been under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. After Tsai was first elected in 2016, Beijing broke off ties with Taipei and attempted to restrict Taiwan’s economy through coercive measures, including limiting the number of Chinese tourists allowed to travel to the island. Han, currently the mayor of the southern city of Kaohsiung, promised a reset of relations with China if he was elected. He promised that warmer cross-strait relations would deliver a better economy to Taiwan.