NEW TAIPEI: Hundreds of thousands of people attended final pre-election rallies in Taiwan on Friday ahead of critical presidential and parliamentary polls that China has warned could take the island closer to war.

Taiwan, a neighbouring island China claims as its own, is separated by a narrow 180-kilometre strait from China and is a major producer of vital semiconductors.

Vice President Lai Ching-te, the front-runner candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), paints the election as a choice between “democracy and autocracy” — criticising his main opponent Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang (KMT) for being too “pro-China”.

“After I get elected as the president, I will continue to take the path of democracy and peace. I will stand with the international camp of freedom and democracy. What’s more, I will forever stand with Taiwan’s people,” he said.

Beijing frames polls as choice between ‘peace and war’, warns it would ‘smash plots of independence’

In a stadium nearby, Mr Hou called for his red-and-blue-clad supporters to kick out the DPP, which has been in power for eight years. “This is a choice between war and peace… If Lai Ching-te is elected, the Taiwan Strait is very likely to fall into unrest,” said Hou.

“Don’t say that we are pro-China,” said supporter Minai at Hou’s final rally. “We just want the peaceful co-existence of both sides… I don’t want there to be a war.”

China, which has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control, has framed the elections as a choice between “peace and war”, calling the DPP dangerous separatists and urging Taiwanese to make the “right choice”.

In the run-up to Saturday’s election, China repeatedly denounced Mr Lai and rebuffed repeated calls from him for talks.

China’s defence ministry, responding to a question earlier on Friday on Taiwan’s air force upgrading F-16 fighter jets and buying more from the United States, said even with purchases of US weapons the DPP “cannot stop the trend of complete reunification of the motherland”.

“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army remains on high alert at all times and will take all necessary measures to resolutely crush any form of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist plots and firmly defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang.

Mr Lai says he is committed to preserving peace across the Taiwan Strait. The DPP has accused China of seeking to interfere in the vote by spreading disinformation and putting further military and economic pressure on the island. Beijing says election interference allegations are DPP “dirty tricks”.

‘US must not interfere’

Meanwhile, the White House said on Friday that the United States wanted to see free and fair elections in Taiwan and it would be unacceptable for any nation to interfere.

“It would be unacceptable for any other actor, nation, state or otherwise, to interfere with that exercise of democracy,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also met a senior Chinese official in Washington on the eve of Taiwan’s elections.

Blinken, briefly back in Washington in between his latest Middle East crisis tour and a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, opened talks with Liu Jianchao, who heads the international division of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee.

This “interference” by the United States was criticised by observers in Beijing.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2024