Chinese Interference Clouds Taiwan's Local Elections

In the southern port city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan's third-largest population center and a DPP stronghold for the past 20 years, the KMT's nominee for mayor, Han Kuo-yu, pulled off an upset victory driven by straight-talking populist rhetoric and folksy appeals to the working class. On the eve of the elections, he drew raucous applause from a crowd of 200,000 supporters when he promised to “make Kaohsiung great.” Meanwhile, his opponent struggled to connect with voters despite a positive trajectory of local economic development under DPP rule. “Kaohsiung has been transformed in the last 20 years, but the DPP candidate did not manage to get that message across,” says Dafydd Fell, director of the Center for Taiwan Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, in an email.