President Tsai’s effort to delineate Taiwanese identity from mainland China while preserving the fragile cross-Strait balance is proving costly.
Author: Sheryn Lee, Macquarie University
The confluence of Taiwan’s domestic politics and cross-Strait relations remains complex. Local dissatisfaction with President Tsai Ing-wen’s administration resulted in low popularity and major losses for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the November 2018 ‘9 in 1’ local elections. But the continued strength of Taiwanese civil society and its participation in elections reflects Taiwan’s consolidated democracy — a trend that is accelerating China’s diplomatic pressure on Taipei. Meanwhile, US–Taiwan relations are advancing and Taipei is strengthening its regional ties.
President Tsai is successfully pushing forward reforms to restructure Taiwan’s economy in response to an ageing society and increasing economic and technological competition with China. Taiwan had its best economic growth rate in years in the first quarter of 2018, reaching 3 per cent.
Still, Taiwanese civil society remains dissatisfied. In March, Tsai’s DPP introduced amendments to the Labor Standards Act with the aim to make seven Taiwanese industries more competitive against their Chinese counterparts. The amendments angered Taiwanese unions by reducing mandatory days off and increasing allowable overtime. Although President Tsai also raised the monthly minimum wage by 10 per cent and public servant pay by 3 per cent in May, the government was still met with protests for higher wages.
In June, the DPP legislated unpopular but much needed pension reform, reducing pensions to military veterans, civil servants and public school teachers. Although this sparked violent protests from military veterans, the reform had already been considered by Tsai’s predecessors Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou.
