(): The three candidates running in next month’s Taiwanese presidential election will hold a televised debate on December 30 as the race heats up under pressure from China. The outcome of the January 13 election could have a major effect on relations between China and the United States, which is bound by its own laws to provide Taiwan with the weapons it needs to defend itself and to regard threats to the self-governing island as a matter of “grave
concern.”
Differences over Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, are a major flashpoint in US-China relations. The debate will feature current Vice President William Lai of the Democratic Progressive Party; Hou Yu-ih, a local government leader representing the main opposition Nationalist Party, or KMT; and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je, of the smaller Taiwan People’s Party. Lai, whose party favours the status quo of de-facto independence, is favoured to win the election, ensuring that tensions with China will likely remain high. The KMT, which formerly ruled in China before being driven to Taiwan amid the Communist takeover of the mainland in 1949, formally backs political unification between the sides, a prospect most Taiwanese reject. Ko, who briefly flirted with an alliance with the KMT, has advocated restarting talks with China. “The whole world wants to know whether the people of Taiwan will continue to move forward on the path of democracy in this major election, or whether they will choose to rely on China, follow a pro-China path, and lock Taiwan into China again,” Lai said in a recent speech.