2024 ROC Prez and Legislative elections Jan 13th

[xelas81]

Are the Chinese threats from the time Pelosi visited Taiwan having an effect on the election?

With Biden clearly trying to leverage his record on the Russia-Ukraine War for his re-election in 2024 I expect the GOP to try to outflank the Dems on the PRC issue in 2023.  I wonder if GOP Speaker McCarthy will repeat Pelosi's visit to ROC in 2023.  

If so I am not sure if the DPP regime will be so hot on that.  Some DPP post-mortem of the 2022 ROC local elections did report that Pelosi's visit followed by the PRC reaction mostly hurt the DPP in the elections in Nov 2022.  On the flip side if the DPP finds itself behind the KMT in Fall 2023 for the Jan 2024 Prez elections I can see DPP taking the bet and asking GOP Speaker McCarthy to visit.

If anything DPP  post-mortems of 2022 seem to indicate that PRC Pelosi's visit and PRC counteractions mostly helped the relatively pro-PRC KMT.

I'm sorry why did China threatening Taiwan turn the Taiwanese into a pro-PRC people?

KMT/Pan-Blue views on the Mainland ranges from unification now to do-not-rock-the-boat and don't anger PRC.

[xelas81]

It seems a rational DPP strategy for 2024 would be to hope for a breakdown in the USA-PRC relationship and then make that a key issue of the election.  In that situation, the DPP is hoping for a split in the KMT hierarchy between are pro-PRC and pro-USA factions.  People like Hou and even Ko see this risk ergo they are preemptively pushing an "equidistant" between USA and PRC lines.  The effectiveness of the likely DPP strategy depends on how bad the USA-PRC conflict in 2023 gets.  The DPP is betting that the House GOP and Biden will get into a competitive anti-PRC bidding race and the relationship will get worse throughout 2023.

Is there any evidence that US-PRC relationship will improve in the near future? Feels like hawks are winning the debate in both US and PRC.

[xelas81]

In a dovish move, ROC announces the reopening of direct flights with Mainland China which were shut down at the beginning of COVID.  The PRC indicated earlier in 2022 that they were ready for the resumption of direct flights but were turned down by DPP due to their need to set the narrative in the 2022 local elections.  What is interesting is that ROC announced this on the same day Xi was re-elected as PRC Prez for his third term.  This is clearly not a coincidence and along with DPP Prez Tsai telling McCarthy not to visit ROC, it seems that DPP Prez Tsai is focused on her legacy.  It is also likely that in her assessment that rising tensions with PRC might not work to the DPP advantage in 2024 elections unlikely 2020.

From what I understand, although tourism from mainlanders helped Taiwanese economy, average Taiwanese didn't like interacting with mainlander tourists. Is this true?

[xelas81]

If Hou wins how will PRC react?

[xelas81]

So what is going on with NPP?
Are they pessimistic that they won't make the 5% cutoff?
Is their strategy to reach 5% appealing to Lai voters or Ko voters?

[xelas81]

Looks like PRC does care about this election.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/ignoring-taiwans-complaints-more-chinese-balloons-spotted-over-strait-2024-01-08/