As a Taiwanese,no matter which party will be elected,we must struggle in the dilemmas between two largely economical powers.

This video should be called "why the opinion of a newspaper from a country with no free speech, does not matter to anyone"

Indicators of an independent sovereign territory include a recognized government, control over its borders, the ability to conduct foreign relations, own currency, an elected Parliament and the authority to make and enforce laws… yup sounds just like Taiwan to me. 主權獨立領土的指標包括被承認的政府、對邊界的掌控、進行外交事務的能力、擁有自己的貨幣、選舉產生的議會以及制定和執行法律的權威...嗯，聽起來確實像是台灣。

For anyone wondering. Taiwan is actually "Republic of China". RoC is the first united china after the fall of the last emperor. The china now, was actually communist rebel. Republicans lost and flee to an island that is taiwan now. Since there was no peace agreement nor power transfer, they are still at war.

I really enjoy such types of long form political explanations from SCMP, hope to see more soon!

Usually i'm happy with being born at the beginning of the 80s, but when i think about nowadays worldwide politics i'm thinking sometimes how stress free and lesser complex life would have been when being born earlier (even with all regressiveness).

Is it only me really think that the current status won’t change whether which party wins?

Expected to see the analysis of the 3 candidates but wasted 10 minutes on it...

Don't let Taiwan become the Ukraine of Asia.

Ask a random dude outside SE Asia where Taiwan is, see if they can get it right. “Important”, lol

As long as Taiwan keep the status quo, everything will be fine, but if Taiwan declare Independence as "Republic of Taiwan", PRC will declare war and occupy Taiwan by force, they even made a law about it so no matter who is PRC President, when Taiwan declare "Independence" it means "declaration of war" but they were okay even if Taiwan claimed entire China (include entire mainland China territory) as long as they didn't claimed to be "Republic of Taiwan"

A balanced and fact based reporting. Bravo to SCMP.

This election matters first and foremost to the Taiwanese because it's unthinkable they would want to be like Ukraine.

I cannot know for sure China's intentions in Taiwan, but I doubt that they would green light a military invasion of the island in the near future. The Strait of Taiwan is a strategic region for the United States because of semiconductor exports. But a disruption of this supply chain would be also catastrophic for China's economy because they only produce 17% of their semiconductor needs on the mainland. They are highly dependent on TSMC. This is what we call the "silicon shield". If they invade Taiwan, it would mean that Xi Jinping is willing to cause an economic crisis and to shutdown their entire semiconductor supply chain for a couple of weeks, months and potentially a year or more if the US gets involved. They would face the risk of confronting an Asia-Pacific coalition of countries including Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, the United States and a number of other countries who are seeing China's growing influence as a threat. A military reaction from the US and an allied coalition is not a certainty but it is a risk that China would be willing to take if they move forward. But a shutdown of their own supply chain is a certainty. I am just not imagining China taking such a risk.

Excellent video, thanks SCMP😊

5:05 why is the tekst written in Dutch? 'Dit is Taipei' means 'This is Taipei' in Dutch lol, anyone have an explanation?

Taiwan needs a wise leader. Wisdom brings peace and prosperity.

Boycott PRC PRODUCTS, TECHNOLOGIES, BRI AND EVERYTHING THAT COULD FUEL XI JINPING WAR GAMES.

Taiwan is independent

who owns South China Morning Post?

China, US and Taiwan had vastly different goals for Taiwan’s future. And out of the three, the opinion of Taiwan is the most irrelevant.

One of the big issues for Taiwan to be independent from Republic of China (ROC) or to have ROC be reformed into something like State of Taiwan is their own politics. People in Taiwan/ROC are afraid of war and do not want to end like Ukraine, and the KMT would never allow Taiwan to be independent from ROC. Changing the ROC constitution requires at least 75% of Legislative Yuan, which is something that DPP doesn't have now and is unlikely to have in the near future.

No matter how the global landscape may evolve,peace and development remain the underlying trends.

China is going crazy watching Taiwan going through power transfer in a such beautiful way every 4 years.

China is china Taiwan is taiwan

May the whole world work together as family someday

There is only one China and it does NOT include Taiwan, Tibet, Uyghurstan, Mongolia, Ladakh territory

Pls do join Ko’s evening campaign rally, especially Jan. 12 . It’s so touching.

Look at HK and do the math. Plain & simple.

I believe Taiwan is an independent country and I don’t care what other people think

That's what we call journalism.

who's here after the poll results?

Leave taiwan alone!

The map behind the Chinese diplomat at the Taiwanese Affairs Office is disgusting. Putting the 9-dash line and the atolls they illegally bulit and other countries' territory and economic zones is alarming and shameful.

if i could vote i would vote for the do right thing guy. LOLs.

They've had 70 years to declare independence and have yet to do so

As the South China Morning Post is owned by Alibaba (a Chinese company), I fully expected a bias video towing the CCP line and giving a pro China perspective. I was genuinely impressed by how informative, accurate and objective this video was. Well done SCMP

US is disappointed that it can sell more weapons lol

Hugely consequential event here

Free Tibet, East Turkistan, In mongolia 🇲🇳🇲🇳🇲🇳🇲🇳

"The right of self-determination means that a nation has the right to freely separate from the state of which it is part, to form an independent state. It is the right of a nation to independent existence as a state." - Vladimir Lenin (From his 1914 pamphlet "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination")

I believe Dr. Ke is the best president whose “rational thinking, scientific analysis and practical way”of doing things will lead Taiwan to a peaceful and prosperous future!

Look at how the Philippines changed its stance and affects the political landscaped in the Asia Pacific. The Philippines is small both economically and territorial. Yet China was shookt after the changed of the leader.

DPP all the way 👍

6:19 lol, how is that disrupting the peace? Taiwan isn't the one arming up and attacking. What a joker.

US provide Taiwan with military equipment or is it US sells to Taiwan the military equipment? There is a huge difference between them.

This can be a deadly outcome depending on who they vote in ! Or maybe regardless , world powers are getting to ambitious!!

Taiwan ❤️ 🇲🇽🤝🇹🇼

I see the nine-dash line in the background of the spokesperson. Such greediness and covetousness to the point of delusion and bravado.

China: Taiwan you are my child come back. Taiwan: No I want to be independent. USA: Yes you should be independent, here are some weapons for a billion dollar.

taiwan taiwan taiwan stand up

The report is misleading. In 1992, there was no agreement between the ROC government and the mainland on what "One China" is. The term "'92 Concensus" was created by the KMT politicians after 2000 when they lost power in democratic elections as a basis for their communication with the CCP, so there is no written document called '92 Concensus and the ROC President cannot represent a state and act according to something that is not a document signed by both sides and virtually doesn't exist and is just part of the KMT/CCP propaganda tool.

Taiwan Issue in U.S.-China Relations and China Policy Mainstream Media and Organic Views Dr. Wordman This topic has never registered in most Americans’ minds except in recent years when US-China relations became tense triggering a hostile confrontation. The Taiwan issue to most American international relations scholars has been a fuzzy one since the U.S. openly admits its practicing of an ambiguous foreign policy regarding the status of Taiwan and its significance to China and U.S.-China Relations. The ambiguous Taiwan policy may be a deliberate design or a choice led by the circumstances that happened on the world stage, but it has worked to the U.S. advantage in the past under the Cold War atmosphere. However, the ambiguous Taiwan policy is causing confusion, indecision, and miscalculation in dealing with the ever-challenging U.S.-China relations under the mutually acknowledged one-China principle. In the past one hundred years, the U.S. has emerged as the world superpower but facing an increasingly complex world with serious challenges. In the same period, China suffered devastating foreign invasions and experienced an internal revolution that never ended resulting in a split between Mainland and Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait. Two sides were influenced respectively by the communist block (the Socialist Camp led by the Soviet Union/Russia) and the Western Alliances (led by the U.S.) politically and economically. During and after WW II, the U.S. backed the Kuo-Ming-Tang (KMT/ROC) government which retreated to Taiwan while the Chinese Communist Party united the entire mainland (CCP/PRC) but Taiwan in 1949. The U.S. strategically or out of realistic assessment made a switch to recognize the PRC in 1979 with the intent of allying with China against the Soviet Union in the Cold War (which ended in 1991). Over 40+ years, Taiwan and Mainland China pursued economic development (separately following Sun Yat Sen’s political and economic development philosophy but practiced with different political party mechanisms and systems), thawing their relationship from a hostile ‘conquering the other side’ to a peaceful coexistence with mutual trade dependency. Taiwan was successful economically becoming the head of the four Asian little dragons and Mainland was catching behind with a faster (double-digit) growth rate. During this time, the U.S. maintained its one China policy but kept its legacy strategy of anti-communism considering China as a communist country. Even though the Soviet Union collapsed, the guard against communist countries remained. With China’s rapid rise in its nation-building process, the U.S. raised its concern over China’s development. Indeed, China maintained its development and growth rate ever since 1978 when its GDP was 149.54 B, 1/40 of the U.S. GDP, and accelerated to 1.21 T, when China was admitted to the World Trade Organization) WTO in 2000. China’s GDP reached 6.09T overtaking Japan as the world’s second-largest economy next to the U.S. (15.05T) in 2010. The latest GDP figure in 2022 showed 17.96 T for China and 25.46 for the U.S. With China’s 2-3 times faster growth rate, one might expect China to surpass the U.S. GDP in a few years. It is under this atmosphere that the U.S. has strategically targeted China as its number one competitor (a code name for the enemy). Indeed the U.S. has launched a trade war, technology sanctions, a media campaign, and across the board including diplomatic and military alliances against China. In this U.S.-China confrontation, the Taiwan issue has become a critical chess piece in the game. The ambiguous Taiwan policy thus becomes cumbersome for the U.S. to conduct its fast-changing and vulnerable China policy. Militarily, the U.S. had formulated the first island chain from South Korea, Japan, Philippines to Singapore to circumvent China and control China’s major shipping route along all of China’s coastline. Taiwan was not legally part of this island chain plot, but its geographical location between Japan and the Philippines made it strategically important to the containment strategy against China. Based on what happens in the U.S. diplomatic and military maneuvers (in forming anti-China mini-NATO-like alliances) and its desperate measures to reduce its dependence on China’s supply chain, one can see that the U.S. cannot hide behind a hypocritical one-China policy anymore; on the one hand selling weapons and arming Taiwan for war preparation and on the other hand coercing Taiwan along with South Korea and Japan to move their manufacturing technology and supply chain to the U.S. The U.S. Congress has attempted to create legislation to facilitate official contacts and weapon sales to Taiwan, but they are simply violating the one-China policy and stepping on China’s sovereignty redline. Crossing this redline is essentially breaking U.S.-China relations and ending diplomatic contacts. It is no surprise that China is fed up with the U.S. hypocritical one-China policy and shut its doors for U.S. officials. In the U.S., there are numerous think tanks, invariably tied with government and industrial military complex on strategic matters. The current schools of thought on China may be summarized as follows: One school proposes abandoning the one-China policy, and the other wants to maintain an ambiguous Taiwan policy, but neither has a clear solution or strategy to deal with the above-stated consequences. The U.S. has been opposing ‘Taiwan Independence’ for fear of giving China the legitimate reason to use force to take over Taiwan (which is a feasible outcome based on the U.S.'s military analysis with no real proof that China will do so.) while encouraging Taiwan government to buy U.S. weapons to arm for defense, obviously for U.S. advantage. The ones arguing for maintaining an ambiguous Taiwan policy (keeping one-China policy) cannot convince, even the U.S.’s own Allies, that the U.S. is not meddling in China’s historical domestic issues with unjustified selfish interest. Hence the U.S. containment or deterrence strategy has holes that cannot be repaired by money alone (The U.S. does not have enough money and thus wishes its allies to chip in.) This dilemma is further compounded by the U.S. misinterpretation of Taiwan’s democracy and its people’s (not politicians’) real desire. Taiwan has been a part of China for many centuries, although it was briefly occupied by invaders such as Dutch colonizers and Japanese imperialists. Japan’s fifties years of occupation of Taiwan (1895-1945) did make a deliberated colonization attempt. Hence, today after Japan surrendered in WW II and returned Taiwan to China in 1945, there are still Japanese immigrants in Taiwan, dependents of Chinese-Japanese intermarriages, and pro-Japan people. These people constitute an influence of about 30% of the total population. The rest are divided into KMT descendants and sympathizers (about 30%) and other political or no political affiliations (including those businesspeople commuting between Mainland and Taiwan.) Taiwan’s election cannot be used as a democracy versus authoritarian contest, rather it is a pure power play very much like a U.S. local village election. The media has repeatedly found that most Taiwanese people prefer to maintain the island's current situation, that is, peace with no war and trade with no sanctions (from the U.S.). The past 70 years of peace gave Taiwan prosperity and China a chance to rise to the second-largest economy in the world. The educated people in Taiwan have a better understanding of the Taiwan issue in the U.S. -China relations. They believe in historical destiny. It is unwise for the U.S. to misinterpret the Taiwan democracy for its legacy strategy. Given time, Taiwan will be united with Mainland China for mutual benefits, not for any other foreign interest. This is the real Taiwan issue in the U.S.-China relations. Honoring the one-China policy, changing deterrence to collaboration, and cultivating genuine friendship and cooperation will reap true benefits for all including the U.S. for sure!

to grasp power in the name of the people.

It doesn't matter. Only to US only.

Me and Peter cooked fish curry and rice. Will also have broccolli fresh from our garden.

Besok akan dibahas soal hubungan luar negeri khususnya Taiwan lewat debat. Untuk Indonesia, MERDEKA atau TIDAK?

It hurts me that my fellow Cantonese were invaded by the scourge of the CCP in Hong Kong. Taiwan knows this, yet the polls are close.

TAIWAN IS A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY LONG LIVE TAIWAN CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NEW PRESIDENT LAI CHING-TE

Molly bot going insane in comments

Дракон сила и мудрость. Он не будет чесать пятку, если туда попала стрела.

Taiwan freedom....Don't let Taiwan fall into communist hands

Taiwan must stay a democratic country.

Congratulation❤

I can't wait to see who the free and independent nation of Taiwan elects.

When the war started, Tsai will be one who fled Taiwan.

It's been a long time since the comment section on a SCMP video is interesting. Every time there are China hater bots that are saying some non sense

independence means war

a superficial piece

Taiwan does not need to change its constitution or coutry name. It, however, should restore the orginal English name "Chung Hwa Republic", which was decided by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 1911. The Chung Hwa Republic and the People's Republic of China are two different countries.

Those Taiwan candidates are pointed and interviewed by Americans...then in what sense Taiwan Chinese select any one of them...

Taiwan is NOT part of mainland China. Taiwan is an independent country

Why taiwan is elexting a president if it is not a country?

柯文哲讲的“台湾应当是中美沟通的桥梁而不是中美角逐中的棋子”，this is what truly matters for the people of Taiwan.

here comes the bots.😂

Congrats to The new Leader of TAIWAN ! ❤

Why is USA "bound by law" to provide security for Taiwan?

Regardless which party wins the election, sadly this will be the last election. Something tells me the next president won’t complete the turn either.

Can you report more on Bangladesh

why Taiwan name Republic of China

I think that, Taiwan has a right for it's independence against tyrants that want to rule their country, think about it it's just like how america had the British as teir tyrants Taiwan has China as their tyrants. And I have no doubt once Taiwan becomes independent it will become one of the most important countries in the world similar to Japan.

Who would be in their right mind to have *ties* with the authoritarian surveillance Chinese 🇨🇳 regime? Given regime's destiny is uncertain.

How can they be considered democratically independent when all their leaders have to seek endorsement by Arnercian when running for presidency.

With the Mainland’s economy sliding downward, Taiwan can’t count on the same prosperity as before in a relationship with the CCP.

It is by time to recognize the statehood and independence of both Taiwan and Palestine.

My HK has become a financial ruin after united with my chyna.

1. Taiwan's presidential election matters to the world ? 2. Green or Blue victory still confronts mainland China and strongly resists unification. 3. Time is totally not on Taiwan's side in terms of military strengths although U.S. superficially supports it. Judging Russia-Ukraine war we can predict what U.S. will do

the aggression towards Taiwan's democracy had helped Taiwanese to become stronger.

Congratulations sir.

FREE TAIWAN INDEPENDENT TAIWAN TAIWAN IS A COUNTRY ❤

Taiwan is what it is today because of the will of the people. The people voted for a free, democratic and inclusive society and this is worth protecting.

ni hoa ma?

Not that I hd any expectation of SCMP anymore but the subtle references eh? “Anti government” protests of 2019?

People of Taiwan, Please do not let China bully you into submission. Hold firm.

Reminder: Taiwan IS a country.

😂😂😂

Nothing😂😂😂😂

Taiwan is Taiwan and China is China, 2 different countries. A democracy and a dictatorship.

Taiwan ,USA are Developed high income Countries 👍💪🇺🇸🇹🇼 Not a poor failed state like 3 world communist china😂😂

If we take out the threat of war I wonder is the taiwanese people will support formal independence more than the current 25%?