What Taiwan’s general election means for the country – and democracy worldwide

Good morning.

Before we start on Taiwan: late last night, US and UK forces launched air strikes involving at least 60 Houthi targets in 16 locations around Yemen. Joe Biden said he ordered the strikes “in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea”. The US president added that he would not hesitate to order further military action. Despite warnings from Washington in the new year that the Houthis would “bear the consequences” of any more attacks, this week the Iran-backed group had launched its most sophisticated and heaviest attacks to date.

It looks as though this was the final straw for Biden. Rishi Sunak also issued a statement on the UK’s participation in the attack, with the prime minister describing it as a “limited, necessary and proportionate action in self-defence”. Houthi officials, who have been targeting commercial vessels since mid-October in response to the war in Gaza, have said there will be retaliation. According to the US, there has been no Houthi response so far.

The air strikes come at a fraught time, risking escalation in a region that is already brimming with tensions. For more information, read Dan Sabbagh and Julian Borger’s full report. Julian’s analysis unpacks the potential global fallout of the strikes. For more context, Archie Bland wrote a detailed newsletter earlier this month on the Houthi attacks on vessels with real or perceived links to Israel. And keep an eye out on the Guardian’s homepage for more updates on the liveblog.

The rest of today’s newsletter focuses on an event thousands of miles away, but also involving global high stakes, in Taiwan, where the first, and one of the most significant, elections of the year is due to take place tomorrow.

China has long claimed the island, viewing it as a province and vowing to reunify it with the mainland. The threat of annexation has grown in recent years, with China carrying out increasingly aggressive military exercises close to the island, which has escalated tensions between Washington, a close ally of Taiwan, and Beijing.

For today’s newsletter I spoke with Helen Davidson, a Guardian correspondent based in Taipei, about the potential fallout of this crucial election. That’s right after the headlines.

Five big stories

In depth: ‘China wants the DPP gone and the KMT in’

This election campaign has become one of the most contentious in the country’s 26-year democracy, with the leading parties struggling to pull ahead despite significant ideological differences. Voter turnout has been high in the last two presidential elections, at 66% in 2016 and 75% four years later, so it is all to play for.

The main contenders

The Democratic Progressive party and Kuomintang (KMT) have been the two main parties in Taiwan since the early 90s. The conservative KMT, led by Hou You-yi (above), a former police officer and mayor of New Taipei City, has long been viewed as elitist, with an older voter base. Though it does not want reunification with China, the KMT’s position has been conciliatory, pushing the idea that a closer relationship with more dialogue and economic ties is the best way to maintain peace. “China wants the DPP gone and the KMT in because there’s this idea that Beijing sees them as perhaps more easily persuaded to peacefully rejoin the mainland,” Helen says.

Which brings us to the incumbent party, the DPP, led by frontrunner Lai Ching-te. Though it was born out of the anti-authoritarian protest movement, after eight years in power many now view the DPP as an establishment party. Unlike the KMT, it espouses that the most reliable way to maintain independence and peace is by fostering closer ties with other countries, particularly the US.

The wildcard presidential hopeful Ko Wen-je is running as the leader of the Taiwan People’s party (TPP), which he founded in 2019. Ko has proven to be popular with younger voters, who are clamouring for an outsider option. A provocative populist, Ko has been inconsistent and vague in some of his policy positions, but his stance on the economy has helped him in the polls. “He’s made some pretty aggressive plans for addressing housing affordability and the cost of living crisis, which has made him especially popular with the youth vote,” Helen says. “And as far as the China issue is concerned, he’s offering himself as a third option, but that seems to be mainly based on just not being the other two guys.” Taiwan has had a three-way presidential election before, but rarely has it been this close.

The big issues

The election in Taiwan is being closely monitored around the world because of the security implications of China’s looming threat of annexation. But polls have found that for those living on the island, economic concerns like housing, low wages, energy security and inflation, as well as judicial reform, social provision for elderly people and corruption, are the issues that most preoccupy the population.

“China is obviously still a huge concern, but it is certainly not the only one,” Helen says.

Election interference

DPP leader Lai has accused China of unprecedented interference in Taiwanese elections. Though the Chinese Communist party has targeted Taiwan for years, in recent years the meddling has become more sophisticated: “Harassment and intimidation has sort of slowed in the lead up to the election,” Helen says, as the Chinese government recognised that overt hostility could actually help the DPP. Instead, the CCP has opted to increase levels of disinformation and threatening rhetoric. “They have framed this election as peace with the KMT or war with the DPP.”

There have also been signs of more traditional on-the-ground intervention from Beijing. Under anti-infiltration laws, Taiwanese authorities recently arrested 200 local neighbourhood leaders who were invited on all expenses paid trips to China. Authorities suspected that these trips were designed to influence local leaders to drum up votes for pro-Beijing KMT candidates.

Relations with the US and China

If the DPP regains power, the relationship between Taiwan and the US will grow stronger, as relations between Taiwan and China sour. The KMT faces more of a challenge: it has committed to increasing Taiwan’s defence capabilities if it wins. That is heavily contingent on US aid, meaning that it will need to maintain a good relationship with Washington. However, it simultaneously wants to improve and foster ties with China – strategic positions that are seemingly incompatible.

For China and the US, the issue of Taiwan has been the biggest sticking point in attempts at de-escalating tensions. “They have made noises about improving relations in meetings between Biden and Xi, but then there is always this sort of immovable point of Taiwan, where China says it’s an internal matter and accuses the US of interfering, but the US says they support the status quo, which is not Chinese control of Taiwan,” Helen explains.

For the latest updates on the election tomorrow, visit the Guardian website, where there will be up-to-date reporting.

What else we’ve been reading

Have you noticed more clutter on the streets? Emine Saner looks at how Britain’s pavements are becoming tougher to navigate, exacerbating accessibility problems. Matthew Pearce, newsletters team

Have you always wanted to watch The Sopranos but just could not find the time? Well, maybe the 25-second digestible edits that HBO are uploading to TikTok in honour of the show’s 25th anniversary will help you get through it. But, Stuart Heritage asks, what is the purpose of boiling down the masterful storytelling to tiny bite-size clips? Nimo

Fred Harter reports from Hustai national park, Mongolia, looking into the past, present and future of the country’s wildlife. The pictures are absolutely stunning, too. Matthew

The photographer Lucien Migné has been documenting the lives of marginalised people working in disappearing trades that remain unchanged by technological advancements. This photo essay by Chloé Farand compiles some of his work and reportage to reveal the “feudal power dynamics between the world’s rich and poor, which come to the fore in how people work”. Nimo

It started with a promising job offer, and ended with litigation. Here, the FT’s David Pilling meets the young people in Nairobi fighting back against the horrors of Facebook content moderation gigs. Matthew

Sport

Football | The former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson has revealed he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The 75-year-old said in the “best case” scenario he has around a year to live.

Tennis | The Australian Open draw is in, and Emma Raducanu has been handed a favourable first matchup in her return to grand slam tennis as she faces Shelby Rogers. Men’s number one Carlos Alcaraz will play Richard Gasquet in his first match.

Football | In transfer news, Manchester United winger Jadon Sancho has rejoined Borussia Dortmund on loan, while centreback Eric Dier is edging closer to a £3.5m Bayern Munich move

The front pages

The Guardian print team raced to get the dramatic developments in the Middle East into the third edition of the paper: “Britain and the US strike against Houthis over shipping attacks”. The Daily Express has it as “Britain and US unite to strike against Iran-backed rebels”. “UK blitz warning to Iran” says the Daily Mail. “Britain strikes back” – the Daily Mirror’s third-edition replate knocked a Prince William story off the front. The Daily Telegraph leads with “US and UK launch strikes on Houthi rebel bases”. “UK prepares air strikes on Yemen rebels to protect food shipping” – that’s the final version of the i, as far as we can see, and there’s this from the Financial Times: “Iran raises threat to Mideast shipping lanes with seizure of oil tanker in Gulf”. “Airstrikes on Houthis after strife in Red Sea” says the Times. “I have a year to live – and I appreciate every day” – the words of Sven-Göran Eriksson on the front of the Metro.

Something for the weekend

Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read and listen to right now

TV
After the Flood (ITV1 and ITVX)
I’ll be honest with you. My hopes weren’t high for After the Flood. ITV’s drama is a hit-and-miss affair – increasingly the former, but not yet often enough that you can approach an evening’s viewing with unassailable confidence in the investment you are about to make – and the publicity made this one sound like a standard police procedural. However, after a predictably watery start, this six-parter becomes an ace murder mystery starring the wonderful Sophie Rundle and Lorraine Ashbourne. A rare treat from ITV. Lucy Mangan

Music
Kali Uchis: Orquídeas
Less hazy than her recent Red Moon in Venus, the witty Colombian-American singer (above) returns with an album centred on reggaeton, cumbia and reggae rhythms. Orquídeas is the second predominantly Spanish-language album released by Uchis, who spent her childhood shuttling between America and Colombia. It’s dreamy and fuzzy but sharp, witty and danceable with it; varied but coherent, consistently enjoyable. It’s an album on which Kali Uchis sounds not just like an artist who is now doing exactly what she wants, but one who also knows exactly what she’s doing. Alexis Petridis

Film
Poor Things (Cinemas nationwide)
Emma Stone gives a hilarious, beyond-next-level performance as Bella Baxter, the experimental subject of a troubled Victorian anatomist, in Yorgos Lanthimos’s toweringly bizarre comedy. Poor Things is a steampunk-retrofuturist Victorian freakout and macabre black-comic horror. Lanthimos shows us an extraordinary, artificial, contorted world, partly shot in monochrome, sometimes bulging out at us through a fish-eye lens, elsewhere lit from within in richly saturated tones, like an engraved colour plate. Peter Bradshaw

Podcast
Catching the Kingpins (BBC Sounds, episodes weekly)
If you like your podcasts full of drug dealing, corruption and encrypted phone networks, this six-parter about the Met police’s biggest organised crime bust will do the job. As host Mobeen Azhar says, it gets “more and more jawdropping” as he gets the inside story from the force that infiltrated key figures from the criminal underworld. Hannah Verdier

Today in Focus

Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

It’s brown, it’s dry, it’s been dug up by bandicoots, but this Tasmanian garden is a prize winner. Kathleen Murray is the proud victor of the first World’s Ugliest Lawn competition after the Swedish contest, which encourages water-saving and environmentally-friendly gardening, went global.

The jury took nearly two hours of deliberations to reach their verdict on the ugliest lawn. “All of them were hideous and well worthy of winning but the winning entry was really, really bad,” said a spokesperson.

Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday

Bored at work?

And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until Monday.

Quick crossword

Cryptic crossword

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