Taiwan goes to the polls on Saturday for a presidential election that will determine how it navigates its increasingly volatile relationship with Beijing. And Washington is caught in the middle — with already fraught U.S.-China ties on the line.

The two main parties offer starkly different approaches to managing the longrunning threat from China to the self-governing island.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party — whose candidate Lai Ching-te is widely favored to win — has long called for independence from China and has pledged to increase the island’s military capabilities to fend off any potential attack from Beijing. The opposition Kuomintang, or KMT, party opposes any moves toward independence and says friendlier relations with China will lower the chance of war.

Polls show Lai is ahead of KMT candidate Hou You-ih by between 3 and 11 percentage points. But the polls are more than a week old, and there’s still the possibility of an upset by Hou. A third party candidate, Ko Wen-je, who trails both Lai and Hou, also supports cozier relations with Beijing.

In an apparent move to widen his appeal, Lai has been soft-pedaling his pro-independence platform with a pledge to maintain a status quo that won’t provoke war with China.

China’s threats to Taiwan have overshadowed pocketbook issues including housing prices and inflation in the election, which also includes races for the island's 113 legislative seats. U.S. assessments of a possible Chinese invasion attempt by as early as 2027 have fanned those fears.

In speeches, Hou has equated a Lai victory with a greater risk of war with China. Lai has shot back by accusing Hou of being a “collaborator” for his more Beijing-friendly platforms.

“Far and away the paramount concern revolves around Taipei's relations with the mainland,” Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told reporters last week.

A Lai victory would likely fuel a sharp escalation in ongoing intrusions in and around Taiwan’s airspace and territorial waters by People’s Liberation Army aircraft and ships.

“It’s not going to be pretty. … Beijing will choose to administer a spanking to the people of Taiwan,” said Danny Russel, who served as assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs in the Obama administration.

A Lai victory could also worsen friction between China and the U.S. over Washington’s support for Taiwan. Beijing has repeatedly accused the Biden administration of “conniving at and supporting ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”

That would strain the fragile easing of bilateral tensions that President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping brokered in their meeting in San Francisco in November.

And any intensification of Chinese military intimidation across the Taiwan Strait could fuel calls on Capitol Hill for greater U.S. military support for Taiwan.........

© Politico