The University of Nottingham's Taiwan Research Hub presents a webinar
The aftermath of Taiwan's 2024 Presidential and Legislative Election
with panel speakers, Prof Jacques deLisle, University of Pennsylvania, Brian Hioe, New Bloom Magazine and Billion Lee, Cofacts.
Chaired by Dr Chun-yi Lee, Taiwan Research Hub, University of Nottingham
Wednesday 28 February 2024, 1 -2.30pm online webinar
Talk abstract
Taiwan’s 2024 elections saw the victory of Lai Ching-te of the DPP but also a divided house in the Legislative Yuan. This outcome may not come as a surprise, seeing as this was mostly in line with expectations that Lai would win through a split pan-Blue vote, as well as that the legislature would also be split between the pan-Blue and pan-Green camps–with the TPP potentially playing the position of “kingmaker” able to balance between DPP and KMT.
This post-election webinar invites three experts, Prof. Jacques deLisle, Dr. Jonanthan Sullivan and independent commentator Brian Hioe to delve into the dynamics of Taiwan politics, to evaluate whether the split between independent versus unification politics still present, and make sense of the meteoric rise of the Ko Wen-je of the TPP, who came in third in the election results, but still surprised with his strong performance? Some have attributed Ke's successes and the DPP’s weakness to the fact that the Taiwanese public is increasingly more interested in bread-and-butter issues. Should international stakeholders view Ko’s rise as a sign of shifting dynamics in Taiwanese politics, away from the dominance of cross-strait politics?
It is also a launch event for Hioe's policy paper for TRH, titled as "Beyond the China Factor: Do 2024 Elections Show Voters Have Moved Away From the Cross-Strait Frame?"
About the speakers
Jacques deLisle is Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law, Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania, and Chair of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
His writings on Taiwan’s international status and cross-Strait relations, China’s engagement with international law, and U.S.-China relations have appeared in Orbis, The Journal of Contemporary China, Asia Policy, The China Review, Administrative Law Review and many law reviews, foreign affairs and area studies journals, and edited volumes. He is the co-editor of, and contributor to, The Party Leads All (Brookings, 2022); After Engagement: Dilemmas in U.S.-China Security Relations (Brookings, 2021); Taiwan in the Era of Tsai Ing-wen (Routledge, 2021); To Get Rich is Glorious: Challenges Facing China’s Economic Reform and Opening at Forty (Brookings, 2019); China's Global Engagement: Cooperation, Competition, and Influence in the 21st Century (Brookings, 2017); Political Changes in Taiwan under Ma Ying-jeou (Routledge, 2014), China’s Challenges (University of Pennsylvania, 2014), and other edited volumes.
He has often served as an expert witness on Chinese law and China’s approach to international law, and as a participant in U.S. government and international foundation projects involving law reform in China and issues of international law involving China.
Brian Hioe (丘琦欣) is one of the founding editors of New Bloom Magazine (破土), an online magazine covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific. From 2017 to 2018, he was Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. He is currently a non-resident fellow at the University of Nottingham’s Taiwan Research Hub.
Billion Lee is Cofacts cofounder. She started this project in 2016 and she has been advocating for marriage equality and open freedom, dedicating herself to connecting different communities and providing empowerment courses to combat disinformation. She has previously visited PolitiFact in the United States for exchanges and connected contributors from different countries, to collaborate on clarifying information. She manages a community working on OSINT fact-checking skills and media literacy.