TAIWAN’S first female president has had a testing start. Within weeks of Tsai Ing-wen’s inauguration in May, China announced that it had cut off important channels of communication with her government, because she refuses to accept the idea of “one China”, with Taiwan as part of it. Ms Tsai has inherited a struggling economy, hampered by sluggish global demand, and has had to contend with a series of mini-crises, too: a flood crippled the capital’s main airport; flight attendants at the largest airline, China Airlines, went on strike to demand better working hours and benefits (stoppages are rare in Taiwan); the navy accidentally fired an anti-ship missile, killing a fisherman.
At the annual congress of her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in mid-July, Ms Tsai displayed photographs of these events. “I would like everyone here to take a good look at these pictures, and this nation,” she said. “This is Taiwan under a DPP government.” Her words were meant to goad officials into action, not (presumably) to describe how she saw the coming four years of her term. But there is little doubt that her leadership risks being beset by...Continue reading
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