[mezentius]

It's almost as if you didn't read the article you linked, which summarizes, "the elections likely hinged on local issues, not China."

Polls indicate that the Taiwanese overwhelmingly want to either "maintain the status quo" or "maintain the status quo with incremental movement toward independence" (https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/PageDoc/Detail?fid=7801&id=6963), which is entirely what the US policy is intended to support! Like the Taiwanese people, we also don't want an apocalyptic conflict with China when the status quo is already de facto independence, regardless of what we call it to appease nationalist factions in Chinese domestic politics.

[pessimizer]

> which summarizes, "the elections likely hinged on local issues, not China."

It's almost as if this is NPR's editorial opinion, rather than a fact about Taiwan. I intentionally linked a hostile article.

[Apocryphon]

A pre-election article

"If Not Cross-strait Issues, What Are The 2022 Elections About?"

> CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS are not the dominant frame of this election cycle. Namely, nine-in-one elections, which serve as midterms between presidential elections, are primarily about local issues rather than cross-strait issues. Cross-strait relations are for Taiwanese, after all, largely a matter of foreign policy.

> As such, it would not surprise if the KMT performed well in this set of elections. The KMT has always had a stronger grip over local politics, seeing as its local clientelist and patronage networks date back to the authoritarian period. As the party that rose out of Taiwan’s democracy movement in past decades–and which may have had two presidents but never controlled the Taiwanese legislature until the first term of the Tsai administration–the DPP is still unable to break the stranglehold of the KMT over local politics.

> However, the key domestic election issues that voters will be voting on return to Taiwan’s economic outlook and its demographic challenges. Taiwan’s economy has seen growth, particularly with regards to exports, due to the minimized effects of COVID-19 after going for more than a year without any lockdowns as the rest of the world saw, and outbreaks that were contained with relative speed when COVID-19 did finally enter Taiwan. But such growth has not trickled down to the population writ large. As such, the issue of stagnant wages is a major issue up for contention.

https://newbloommag.net/2022/11/24/cross-domestic-issues-202...

[mezentius]

That is NPR's analysis of the situation, based on expertise, available information, and reliable polling such as that which I linked above. "Opinion" is reading an article, then entirely ignoring its conclusions and supporting data because you think you know better.