Policy Voices | “For the Taiwanese people there is no Taiwan question”

William Lai, from the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of Taiwan, won comfortably the Presidential elections last Saturday. Framed as a choice between war and peace, democracy and autocracy, in the end, democracy was the clear winner.

In this week’s Policy Voices, host Catarina Vila Nova speaks with Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, assistant professor at the National Dong Hwa University, who has been living in Taiwan for the past four years and describes Saturday’s vote as smooth and a testament to a strong and healthy democracy. Always looming is the China threat but Ferenczy says that socioeconomic issues also played a role in dictating the outcome. After all, “for the Taiwanese people, there is no Taiwan question. There is no need to declare independence because Taiwan is already independent”, says the expert on EU relations with China and Taiwan.

On cross-strait relations, Ferenczy predicts a policy of continuity as far as Taipei is concerned but what about Beijing? And the European Union? As far as the 27-member states bloc is concerned, Ferenczy, who was a political advisor for the European Parliament for over a decade, claims that the EU is better positioned than the United States to maintain peace and stability in the strait because it’s not engaged in geostrategic rivalry with China.

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