Mandarin video: DPP’s problem in the coming 2024 election: Here is a video from a Taiwan KOL 郭正亮who is a former member of the DPP, with the following viewpoints:

1. The DPP 2024 candidate, 赖清德, proposed as his election platform: democracy against autocracy to achieve peace across the Taiwan Straits. He is running against Xi and not the KMT candidates. The attack on KMT autocracy is ridiculous. Normally such a slogan would be used by an opposition party like the KMT against the ruling party like the DPP. But now the DPP is the ruling party. When he(郭正亮) first heard of the DPP platform, he thought that 赖清德 is running against Tsai Ing wen, who is an autocrat now in power in Taiwan. Under her, a famous opposition TV station was banned, which is the first time in 30 years. Media is censored, and the DPP uses government funded netizen group 1450 to attack opponents and spread disinformation.
2. China is tightening the noose on the DPP government. The recent PLA military drills are real life demonstration of an invasion of Taiwan: controlling the sea lanes around Taiwan by an aircraft carrier in the southeast to block any reinforcement from the south, probably from the Philippines or a US carrier, claiming the right to inspect all vessels in the Taiwan Straits, and declaring a no-fly zone around the airspace around the north of Taiwan.
3. China announced an investigation into Taiwan unfair practices in banning mainland imports of over 2000 products, to be completed by early January, right before the Taiwan elections. This ban clearly violates the WTO rules, and has been in place for years, and China did not retaliate for the sake of the people of Taiwan. Now China just did.
4. The Taiwan economy is deteriorating fast. Growth is estimated around 2%, but inflation is running very high, which increases the Taiwan pain index. Taiwan has an enormous trade surplus from trading with the mainland. Without such a surplus, Taiwan would run a huge trade deficit. Warren Buffet said that he sold most of his TSMC holdings because of geopolitical risks.
5. TSMC just announced the cancellation of a plant in Kaohsiung where it previously announced a fabrication plant. Instead, it is looking to build plants in Japan and Germany due to generous government subsidies. The real estate in Kaohsiung had risen by more than 30% when the TSMC plant in Kaohsiung was announced; now it is being cancelled.
6. Instead of dealing with the above problems, the DPP candidate hung onto the Biden slogan of democracy against autocracy, which makes no sense at all to people in Taiwan, either from the national security or economic point of view. The DPP, because of its belligerence against the mainland, has resulted in a cutoff of all communication with the mainland. 赖清德 is afraid of tackling the real problems of dialog and peace with the mainland, since he knows he will lose votes if he does, because the only posture he could have taken in the circumstances is one of opposing China to save Taiwan. He is also afraid of broaching the issue of reunification or separatism, (my comment- because he knows he will lose votes also on the issue, especially after the very successful recent visit to the mainland by Ma Yin Jeau). He has not addressed Taiwan’s economic problems.