DPP's Lai vows to keep status quo in Taiwan Strait

TAIPEI - Mr Lai Ching-te's late mother hoped he would become a doctor.

- Yip Wai Yee

So when he announced in 1996 that he planned to give up his medical career to enter politics, she protested, eventually agreeing only because she was convinced he would not find much success in the political arena. She was wrong.

Mr Lai finds himself the front runner in the race to become Taiwan's next president, as the candidate for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Should the 64-year-old win, it would mark the first time that a party has retained power for more than two consecutive terms since direct presidential elections were introduced in 1996.

But analysts have noted how another victory for the independence-leaning party could portend prolonged hostilities between Taipei and Beijing, which claims the island as its own territory, to be reunified with the mainland one day.

When Ms Tsai Ing-wen was elected president in 2016, Beijing cut off official communication with Taipei, citing her refusal to endorse the notion of a single Chinese nation.

"We already know that Beijing refused to work with Tsai Ing-wen and was deeply suspicious of her and her motives. If they couldn't get along with Tsai, they won't work with Lai," said Dr Kharis Templeman, a Taiwan studies expert at Stanford University.

If anything, China has signalled an even deeper distrust of Mr Lai, who is Taiwan's Vice-President.

"Beijing does not like Tsai, but they don't actually name her in their messaging," Assistant Professor James Yifan Chen from New Taipei's Tamkang University told The Sunday Times. "But Beijing has directly named Lai as a troublemaker and a separatist almost daily in recent months."

Much of this has to do with concern over his previous rhetoric. In particular, Mr Lai described himself as a "practical worker for Taiwan independence" while serving as premier in 2017. For Beijing, declaring de jure independence is a red line.