This is a win for freedom and democracy:
China was just dealt a significant blow in what one expert has described as potentially the year's most consequential presidential election.
Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen won a second term after a landslide electoral victory Saturday, despite efforts from China to sway the outcome. Tsai secured a record 8 million votes, which amounted to 57.3 percent of the electorate compared to just 38.5 percent from her opponent Han Kuo-yu, who conceded.
Tsai favors independence from China and has pointed to the anti-Beijing, pro-Democracy protests in Hong Kong as a warning for what could come in Taiwan if China doesn't take its foot off the gas in its attempts to reel the self-ruled island more tightly into its orbit. Han's party, meanwhile, is friendly with Beijing.
China's handling of Hong Kong protests may have sparked her rise from losing poll numbers a year ago.
And China's attempt to prop up Tsai's opponent and generally sow division within Taiwan society didn't work:
The Chinese government has undertaken a vast information influence campaign designed to support its favored candidates and sow distrust in Taiwan’s democracy.
China’s efforts go far beyond spreading disinformation and stale state propaganda. Beijing’s ambition is to shape the production, dissemination, and consumption of information in Taiwan.
Well, the former didn't work, at least. But I've mentioned China's deep ambitions to control information.
The election result is good. As is the very practice of free elections under rule of law. But Taiwan and America's INDOPACOM should be on alert. China has long said that one trigger for invading Taiwan is failure to maintain sufficient progress toward unification. China did not like Tsai or her party winning. And they will like her winning reelection even less. Her victory cannot in any way be considered maintaining sufficient progress toward surrendering to Peking.
Indeed, Taiwan's very existence as a free democracy is a threat to China's communist rulers because it shows that democracy and rule of law are totally consistent with the "Asian values" that the CCP claims make democracy an alien institution.
While voting is a proper show of defiance to China's autocrats and thugs, Taiwan needs to be able to defend their ballots with bullets. China's attack options are greater than you think and they have long been able to invade--assuming China is willing to endure the casualties--and China's ability gets better every year.
But I don't know what the casualty threshold is these days. More years of few children may make the price they are willing to pay lower. But the rise of democratic tendencies in Hong Kong and Taiwan may be such a threat to CCP rule on the mainland that no amount of troop losses are too much as a matter of survival.
Despite the immense advantage of the Taiwan Strait as a giant anti-tank ditch between Taiwan and China, China is very large and Taiwan is very small. And China makes no secret that it will control Taiwan one way or another. China will exploit the divisions within Taiwan that China is trying to widen with their influence operations.
At some point if Taiwan can't match Chinese military capabilities with a hope of success (even if it is just success in deterring an invasion) Taiwan must consider going on offense to defeat the Chinese Communist Party.
Maybe one way would be to team up with Hong Kong protesters to start a League of Liberty on Taiwan that promotes democracy at national, state and provincial, and city levels. It could draw in people from around the world to discuss democracy promotion and best practices. Who knows what seeds that might plant on the mainland?
If China will escalate to bullets to defeat ballots, Taiwan needs to make the ballots more powerful and a threat to China on the mainland, too.
UPDATE: Constant alertness on the front line with China:
An alarm sounds and the pilots rush to their jets, sitting at the ready under a hardened shelter in the warm winter sun of southern Taiwan.
Their scramble into the air was only a drill before an audience of journalists. But for Taiwan's Air Force and its most advanced fighters, the newly upgraded F-16V, the threat from China across the narrow Taiwan Strait is very real.
I hope this alertness is broad and not just a pageant for journalists.
