If the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) wishes to win the presidential election next year, it should nominate former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) for president.
First, Su is the DPP’s most outstandingly successful electoral politician. In 1989, he won the county commissionership in Pingtung County and was twice elected as Taipei County commissioner, in 1997 and 2001. Su was also elected twice as a provincial assemblyman and in 1995 as a legislator.
Even in his failed campaign for Taipei City mayor last year, Su obtained the second highest percentage of the vote ever obtained by a DPP candidate in Taiwan’s capital, where the DPP has never won an absolute majority of the votes.
PROVEN ADMINISTRATOR
Second, Su is a proven administrator. His re-election in 2001 as Taipei County commissioner demonstrated that the voters in Taiwan’s most populous and most complex local administrative unit approved of his administrative and political skills. Taiwanese as well as foreign observers of Taiwan’s government agree that he was undoubtedly the most successful of the five premiers under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Thus, Su has by far the most successful administrative experience in large-scale governmental organizations, where most observers comment favorably about the excellence of his leadership and skill.
Third, as many as one-fifth to one-fourth of Taiwan’s voters are swing voters. This means that a very large proportion of the electorate choose their candidate on the basis of the candidate him/herself and the candidate’s platform, rather than their party.
This is one reason the DPP, which won over 50 percent of the presidential vote in 2004, slumped to less than 42 percent in 2008.
Many people who had voted twice for Chen voted for Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 2008. And, they said, if Ma did not do a good job, they would vote DPP in the next election.
WIDE SUPPORT
Both public and private polls show that Su is both the strongest challenger to Ma and the one DPP candidate who can definitely defeat Ma. This is because Su appeals to swing voters. To win the presidency, a candidate in Taiwan must win the support of swing voters. Without this essential part of the electorate, a candidate will lose.
Fourth, Su appeals across both gender and generation lines. He has support among men and women as well as among young and old.
He also has support across all educational backgrounds and in all geographic areas of Taiwan.
His interest in and promotion of a wide variety of Taiwanese popular music, for example, has won strong support among the young.
KNOWLEDGEABLE
Fifth, Su has demonstrated a clear perception of problems as well as strategic analytical abilities in dealing with domestic politics and foreign relations. He is extraordinarily knowledgeable in international affairs. I know that several foreign correspondents, in addition to this writer, have been very impressed after extended interviews.
Su came into politics as a lawyer for the defendants in the Kaohsiung Incident trial of 1980. In 1986, he became a co-founder of the DPP and since then has made many contributions to both Taiwan and the DPP.
If the DPP wishes to win next year’s presidential election, it should nominate Su Tseng-chang.
Bruce Jacobs is a professor of Asian languages and studies and director of the Taiwan Research Unit at Monash University in Australia.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not