Lai Ching-te officially takes office
Helen Davidson
Outside the president’s office, where the crowd is watching this part of the ceremony on a large screen, there is a standing ovation and cheers from the crowd as Lai is formally declared president of the Republic of China.
Key events
Tigers, cheerleaders, a scarecrow, dancing delicacies, singing preschoolers, giant birds.
A, nay (neigh), the giant blue horse has arrived. More on its significance soon.
The horse is blowing smoke from its nostrils and nodding its head slowly along to a musical and dance performance called “Peace and happiness: Resilient Taiwan”.
There are also trick bikes, and what appears to be a praying mantis on stilts.
What is Taiwan’s relationship with the US?
Speaking of baseball, what are US-Taiwan relations like at the moment.
In 2022, the then US house speaker and Democratic party member Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in a trip the Council on Foreign Relations described as heightening tensions between China and the US.
Nancy Pelosi even met with the then president Tsai Ing-wen, with Foreign Policy saying Beijing strongly condemned the visit, reacting by planning military exercises and banning some food imports.
Less than a year later – the then US house speaker Kevin McCarthy met with Tsai Ing-wen in the US, in a visit that also angered China.
This is what the US state department says:
Though the United States does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, we have a robust unofficial relationship. The United States and Taiwan share similar values, deep commercial and economic links, and strong people-to-people ties, which form the bedrock of our friendship and serve as the impetus for expanding US engagement with Taiwan.
The state department goes on to say that the US has a “longstanding one China policy”, and that it “opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side”.
… We do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.
Thinktank the Council on Foreign Relations says that Beijing has repeatedly urged Washington to stop selling defence equipment to Taiwan and to cease its contact with Taipei.
The Guardian’s Helen Davidson and Chi Hui Lin explain the metal:
Taiwan has a very big metal scene. The Indigenous music is from one of Taiwan’s 16 Aboriginal tribes.
Baseball is also hugely important in Taiwan. Early in the pandemic, when the world was largely shut down, Taiwan’s baseball league was the only professional sport still playing in the whole world.
As a dragon danced around a very large inflatable planet, the announce emphasised Taiwan’s importance to the world.
We’re about to see a performance by dancers known for, the celebration MCs say, “Taking their bodies to the limit to represent the limitless possibilities of the streets,” with Hip Hop and breakdancing which, the announcers point out, will be an Olympic sport this year.
The performance has so far featured traditional costumes, baseball players, dancers wearing butterfly sarongs, what appears to be heavy metal music, and very long dragons on sticks, tunnelling and twisting impressively.
The Guardian’s Helen Davidson and Chi Hui Lin report: the dragons represent the four Asian dragons – the four countries in Asia which have had huge economic growth since the 1960s: South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong Kong.
Apologies, we have just learned that outgoing president Tsai Ing-wen will not be making an address after all. We’ll continue to bring you updates and analysis in the meantime. Lai Ching-te will be speaking at 11.10 local time, or in just over an hour.
Stay tuned for details on the meanings behind tonight’s state banquet, more on Tsai’s legacy, and performances from the National Nantou Senior High School and JingMei Tug-of-War teams.
Back now to tensions between Taiwan and China. Taiwan has also been making some military moves.
Foreign Policy recently reported that Taiwan is looking to buy weaponry known as “suicide drones” from the US, in a sign it says that the territory is bowing to a US push to acquire munitions that could ward off a Chinese invasion.
Reuters has also reported that the US and Taiwan navies conducted joint drills in the Pacific in April that, officially, did not take place. Four people briefed on the matter told Reuters the drills had taken place as the two militaries boost cooperation.
And in 2022 we reported on a $1.1bn arms sale to Taiwan by the Biden administration.
The sale included $355m for Harpoon air-to-sea missiles and $85m for Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, the state department said.
Quick Guide
China-Taiwan relations
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A brief history
The Chinese government claims Taiwan as a province of China and has not ruled out taking it by force.
At the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, the losing Kuomintang government fled to the island of Taiwan, establishing the Republic of China (ROC) government in exile. On the mainland the Chinese Communist party (CCP) established the People’s Republic of China.
From the 1970s onwards many nations began switching their formal ties from the ROC to Beijing, and today fewer than 15 world governments recognise the ROC (Taiwan) as a country.
The CCP has never ruled over Taiwan and since the end of the civil war Taiwan has enjoyed de facto independence.
Since its decades-long period of martial law ended in the 1980s, Taiwan has also grown to become a vibrant democracy with free elections and media.
But unification is a key goal of the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. The island’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, has said Taiwan is already a sovereign country with no need to declare independence, but Beijing regards Taiwan’s democratically elected government as separatists.
Under Xi’s rule, aggression towards Taiwan has increased and analysts believe the threat of invasion is at its highest in decades.
In recent years the People’s Liberation Army has sent hundreds of war planes into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, as part of greatly increased “grey zone” activities, which are combat-adjacent but do not meet the threshold of war.
Taiwan is working to modernise its military and is buying large numbers of military assets and weapons from the US in the hope it can deter Xi and the CCP from making a move. Helen Davidson
Guests are now being treated to a performance by traditional dancers and acrobats. The Guardian’s Helen Davidson and Chi Hui Lin report:
This is a traditional opera dance inviting gods to give blessings to the new president. This sort of dance is often seen in the many temples (Buddhist and Taoist) spread across Taiwan.
Lai will build on Tsai’s efforts to strengthen ties with the US, which doesn’t formally recognize Taiwan as a country but is bound by its own laws to provide the island with the means to defend itself.
During Tsai’s tenure, Taiwan became the first society in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, though critics say she skirted political responsibility by leaving the decision up to the Supreme Court and a series of referendums.
She oversaw a controversial pension and labor reform and extended the military conscription length to one year. She also kickstarted a military modernisation drive, including a program for building indigenous submarines at more than $16bn each.
Tsai’s leadership during the pandemic split public opinion, with most admiring Taiwan’s initial ability to keep the virus largely outside its borders but criticising the lack of investment in rapid testing as the pandemic progressed.
We’re expecting outgoing president Tsai Ing-wen to make a speech shortly, though things appear to be running slightly behind schedule.