The inauguration of the new president on 20 May in Taiwan was accompanied by increased political turbulence on the island itself, had a notable international resonance and caused an expectedly negative reaction in the PRC.

On 20 May, Taiwan’s capital Taipei hosted the inauguration of President William Lai, who had won a simple majority of votes in the 13 January general election. Like his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen, he had represented the Democratic Progressive Party in the election. The procedure was very resonant in terms of the political situation on the island and in the surrounding area.

Internal situation

The incident in the Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (unicameral parliament), discussed earlier by us, which took place on the eve of W. Lai’s inauguration, was followed up by a mass demonstration the day after the ceremony. It was initiated by small parties that were not members of the parliament but actually took the side of one of the parties to the conflict, namely the DPP.

The latter opposed the intention of the opposition parties Kuomintang and Taiwan People’s Party, which together won the majority of parliamentary seats, to radically change the upper level of the island’s governance system. The intention is to increase the role of the parliament and complicate the procedure for electing the president. If these intentions are realised, even the current president will have a sharply reduced freedom of manoeuvre in the international arena. The continuation of Tsai Ing-wen’s foreign policy was the main content of W. Lai’s inaugural address.

The reaction of the former (2008-2016) Taiwanese president from the Kuomintang Party Ma Ying-jeou, who stated that the thesis of “two independent states” voiced in the above-mentioned speech was dangerous for maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait. In other words, there is still no prospect of a decrease in the internal political tension on the island, which only intensified with the end of the elections on 13 January.

External aspects

Meanwhile, this seemingly purely domestic political circumstance is fraught with serious complications for the continuation of the course in the Taiwan issue of one of the two main stakeholders in it, which is Washington. Apparently, that is why Washington took a cautious and wait-and-see stance regarding the inauguration procedure of W. Lai.

There were no officials in the American delegation,........

© New Eastern Outlook