World

‘A country but not a country’: Taiwan prepares to vote in China’s shadow

Published

2 years ago

January 12, 2024

‘A country but not a country’: Taiwan prepares to vote in China’s shadow

Taipei, Taiwan – Taiwan’s more than 19 million eligible voters will cast their ballots on Saturday for the island’s next leaders and lawmakers amid domestic economic challenges and China’s continued threats against the self-ruled island.

There are three candidates in the running for the top job: William Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s current vice president who represents the ruling Beijing-sceptic Democratic Progressive Party (DPP); New Taipei mayor Hou Yu-ih of the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT); and ex-Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je of the newer Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).

Many in Taiwan face skyrocketing housing prices and stagnating wages, but beyond the economic issues that are key to elections everywhere, people on the island must also contend with a more existential question – that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants to take control of the island, by force if necessary.

In the run-up to the polls, it has sent military aircraft and balloons around the island while its officials have urged voters to make the “right choice”.

Brian Hioe, founding editor of Taiwan-focused magazine New Bloom, notes that while not the only factor, “the largest issue in Taiwanese presidential elections traditionally is the decision between independence and unification”.

Protesters in Taiwan dress up to depict authoritarian China, which has tried to influence the outcome of Saturday’s election with military threats, diplomatic pressure, fake news and financial inducements [Ng Han Guan/AP Photo]

Beijing insists Taiwan is part of China, but in recent years, the people of Taiwan, many of whom have grown up in one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies and known nothing else, have become increasingly assertive about their own sense of identity.

According to National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center, 62.8 percent of people identified as Taiwanese as of June 2023, while 30.5 percent said they were both Taiwanese and Chinese, and only 2.5 percent identified as Chinese.

‘Our identity is being eradicated’

Aurora Chang, now 24, long questioned her identity and sense of belonging because “I knew that I was Taiwanese but also felt that I wasn’t solely just Taiwanese – but didn’t know what the other things were”.

At the end of her first year as an undergraduate, however, she came to a decision.

“Being Taiwanese was really a conscious choice that I made,” she told Al Jazeera, referring to her epiphany. “I wanted to connect more to my roots and to understand what it meant and to feel my connection with the land and my family and my history,” she said.

“Our identity is actively being eradicated by a power much larger and much more international influence than us,” she added.

According to Taiwan’s Central Election Commission, more than 30 percent of voters are aged between 20 and 39.

Hioe, who is also a non-resident fellow at the University of Nottingham’s Taiwan studies programme, notes that “identity concerns are certainly part of what sets Taiwanese young people apart from other Asian youths – in that most youth do not face an existential threat to their national identity”.

Chen Yi An, a 27-year-old medical worker from Taipei, is also proud to call herself Taiwanese.

“Taiwan is the place I grew up, the land that raised me. I am Taiwanese,” she said, adding that the way she defines where is from “should not be controversial”.

But not all young Taiwanese are so rooted in their sense of identity, and some do see themselves as Chinese.

Ting-yi Zheng, a 27-year-old student from Tainan, Taiwan’s historical city, has lived in China for seven years and is currently studying for a doctoral degree in Beijing.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, She is waving to supporters as she leaves an election rally — China has increased political, military and economic pressure on Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen was first elected president in 2016. She cannot run for a third term [Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP]

He told Al Jazeera he had no plan to return home to vote.

Last time around he backed KMT candidate Han Kuo-yu, but now he worries about the state of Taipei’s ties with Beijing and the effect on the island’s economy. China has raised political, economic and military pressure on Taiwan ever since Tsai Ing-wen was first elected president in 2016, despite her early offer of talks.

Zheng says he does not want the island to go to war with Beijing.

“I hope the two sides of the Taiwan Strait can be peacefully unified,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that both peoples needed to know each other more.

Liz Li, now 27, says she learned at school that Taiwan was an “independent country” but says she came to have doubts after doing more of her own reading.

“The older you get, the more news and history you see, and you will think to yourself: Are we really a country?” Li said, referring to the international community’s understanding of Taiwan’s state as “a country but not a country”.

Whatever her thoughts on identity, however, it will not be what motivates her decision at the ballot box.

Values to live by

Li dreams of buying her own home on the island, but prices are so high she is thinking of working overseas – getting a job as a UX designer in Japan or the United States – so she can earn and save enough money to make it a reality.

She thinks that as Taiwan grapples with economic issues such as affordable housing, it needs new ideas and an alternative to the two parties – the DPP and KMT – that have dominated politics since democratisation.

Li plans to vote for the TPP’s Ko for the sake of “who will give us a better and more stable life.”

Ko has attracted support from many similarly disillusioned young people who are attracted by his outsider status, and for whom economic issues are more of a concern than the rumbling from across the Taiwan Strait.

“The thing about China is that it is an existing problem for us,” she said, explaining that she did not think it was an issue where ordinary people could have much impact, unlike the economy.

Chiaoning Su, associate professor in the Department of Communication, Journalism and Public Relations at Oakland University in the US, told Al Jazeera that Taiwanese identity was “a process of knowing who we are not”, which was “being defined by our way of life, value, democracy [and] freedom of speech” and the contrast with the authoritarian government in Beijing.

For Chang, those values, including “gender equality” and “views on queer rights” with the island the first in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage, underpin her identity and make her proud of being Taiwanese.

They are also why she plans to vote for Lai, a man Beijing has labelled a “separatist”.

Lai said earlier this week, he wanted to maintain Taiwan’s status quo as de facto independent.

“Being somebody who believes in the maintenance of Taiwanese independence, there is a very clear choice here,” Chang said.

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World

A look at some of the contenders to be Iran’s supreme leader after the killing of Khamenei

Published

4 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

A look at some of the contenders to be Iran’s supreme leader after the killing of Khamenei

Iran’s leaders are scrambling to replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ruled the country for 37 years before he was killed in the surprise U.S. and Israeli bombardment.

It’s only the second time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that a new supreme leader is being chosen. Potential candidates range from hard-liners committed to confrontation with the West to reformists who seek diplomatic engagement.

The supreme leader has the final say on all major decisions, including war, peace and the country’s disputed nuclear program.

In the meantime, a provisional governing council composed of President Masoud Pezeshkian, hard-line judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei and senior Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali Reza Arafi is guiding the country through its biggest crisis in decades. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that a new supreme leader would be chosen early this week.

The supreme leader is appointed by an 88-member panel called the Assembly of Experts, who by law are supposed to quickly name a successor. The panel consists of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected after their candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog.

Khamenei had major influence over both clerical bodies, making it unlikely the next leader will mark a radical departure.

Here are the top contenders.

Mojtaba Khamenei

The son of Khamenei, a mid-level Shiite cleric, is widely considered a potential successor. He has strong ties to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard but has never held office. His selection could prove awkward, as the Islamic Republic has long criticized hereditary rule and cast itself as a more just alternative.

Ayatollah Ali Reza Arafi

Arafi is a member of the provisional government council. The senior Shiite cleric was handpicked by Khamenei to be a member of the Guardian Council in 2019, and three years later he was elected to the Assembly of Experts. He leads a network of seminaries.

Hassan Rouhani

Rouhani, a relative moderate, was president of Iran from 2013 to 2021 and reached the landmark nuclear agreement with the Obama administration that U.S. President Donald Trump scrapped during his first term. Rouhani served on the Assembly of Experts until 2024, when he said he was disqualified from running for reelection. Rouhani criticized it as an infringement on Iranians’ political participation.

Hassan Khomeini

Khomeini is the most prominent grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He is also seen as a relative moderate, but has never held government office. He currently works at his grandfather’s mausoleum in Tehran.

Ayatollah Mohammed Mehdi Mirbagheri

Mirbagheri is a senior cleric popular with hard-liners who serves on the Assembly of Experts.

He was close to the late Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, a fellow hard-liner who wrote that Iran should not deprive itself of the right to produce “special weapons,” a veiled reference to nuclear arms.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mirbagheri denounced the closure of schools as a “conspiracy.”

He is currently the head of the Islamic Cultural Center in Qom, the main center for Islamic teaching in Iran.

World

US cleared to use British bases for limited strikes on Iranian missile capabilities

Published

5 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

US cleared to use British bases for limited strikes on Iranian missile capabilities

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The U.S. has been cleared to use British bases for limited strikes on Iran’s missile capabilities after Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed off on the plan, and while U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey stated on Sunday Britain had “stepped up alongside the Americans.”

“The only way to stop the threat is to destroy the missiles at source, in their storage depots or the launchers which are used to fire the missiles,” Starmer confirmed in a recorded statement to the nation.

“The U.S. has requested permission to use British bases for that specific and limited defensive purpose,” he said. “We have taken the decision to accept this request.”

The decision came amid escalation across the Middle East in the wake of U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory missile and drone attacks, raising fears of a broader regional conflict.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed off on a plan to use British bases for limited strikes on Iranian missile capabilities. (Kin Cheung / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)

On Feb. 28, in the wake of Operation Epic Fury, Starmer confirmed British planes “are in the sky today” across the Middle East “as part of coordinated regional defensive operations to protect our people, our interests and our allies.”

Healey went on to disclose Sunday that two Iranian missiles were fired in the direction of Cyprus, where Britain maintains key sovereign base areas.

The Royal Air Force confirmed that Typhoon jets operating from Qatar as part of the joint U.K.-Qatar Typhoon Squadron successfully intercepted an Iranian drone heading toward Qatar.

About 300 British personnel are stationed at a naval facility in Bahrain, where Iranian missiles and drones struck nearby areas.

“We’re taking down the drones that are menacing either our bases, our people or our allies,” Healey told “Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips” on Sky. “We’ve stepped up alongside the Americans. We’ve stepped up our defensive forces in the Middle East. We’re flying those sorties.”

ISRAEL’S LARGEST EVER MILITARY FLYOVER HAMMERS IRANIAN MILITARY TARGETS

British Defense Secretary John Healey stressed that the U.K. had “no part” in the American-Israeli strikes on Iran. (Peter Nicholls/Pool via Reuters)

Healey also made sure to stress that the U.K. had “no part” in the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and insisted all British actions were defensive. “All our actions are about defending U.K. interests and defending U.K. allies,” he said.

When asked if the U.K. would join the U.S. in offensive action, Healey said, “I’m not going to speculate,” according to Sky News.

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Downing Street also confirmed Feb. 28 that Starmer and President Donald Trump had spoken by phone about the “situation in the Middle East,” the BBC reported.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Downing Street for comment.

Emma Bussey is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital. Before joining Fox, she worked at The Telegraph with the U.S. overnight team, across desks including foreign, politics, news, sport and culture.

World

Pakistan calls troops, orders 3-day curfew as 24 killed in pro-Iran rallies

Published

7 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Pakistan calls troops, orders 3-day curfew as 24 killed in pro-Iran rallies

Army deployed and some areas in northern Gilgit-Baltistan region put under curfew after deadly violence over Khamenei’s killing.

By AFP, Anadolu and The Associated Press

Published On 2 Mar 2026

Pakistan has called in the military and imposed a three-day curfew in some areas following deadly protests over the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a joint United States-Israeli attack on Saturday.

At least 24 people were killed and dozens injured in clashes between protesters and security forces across the country on Sunday, prompting authorities to tighten security around the US embassy and consulates.