William Lai, the vice-president, is expected to win the upcoming presidential election in Taiwan due to the split in the opposition parties. Despite the potential change in leadership, Taiwan's stance on China and its alliances with the United States and Japan are unlikely to shift. President Xi Jinping of China maintains his determination to bring Taiwan back under Chinese rule.
Taiwan ’s fate is as unknowable as usual, even though we know who the next president will be. William Lai , vice-president under outgoing President Tsai Ing-Wen , will almost certainly win the election on Saturday, Jan. 13, because the two opposition parties failed to agree on a joint candidate and will split the slightly-less-anti- China vote between them. Tsai, who is retiring after eight years in the presidency, could still win re-election today if she had not reached the two-term limit.
Lai is cut from the same cloth: firmly against enforced ‘unification’ with China, and careful always to tend the not-quite-alliances with the United States and Japan that hold Beijing at bay.So no real change on the international front, even though president-for-life Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China continues to insist that he will use force, if necessary, to bring Taiwan back under the rule of the ‘motherland’. It’s a bit like Schrödinger’s Cat, reall
Taiwan Presidential Election William Lai Tsai Ing-Wen China Alliances Xi Jinping