Taiwan elections 2024: What's at stake for the United States?

Taiwan faces its most important elections in recent years this week. The 23 million Taiwanese citizens will vote Saturday in presidential and legislative elections, which will come to define the island's relationship with China and the United States, as well as diplomacy between the two great powers.

The island has an autonomous government but is claimed by the People's Republic of China. It has been under the government of Tsai Ing-Wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (PDP) since 2016. Tsai Ing-Wen can not be re-elected for a new term, making way for her party's new candidate, Lai Ching-te.

Compared to the PDP, the opposition gathers around Taiwan's conservative party, the Kuomintang, direct heir to the island's initial governments. This party maintains, although ambiguous, a position closer to reunification with mainland China. On the contrary, the PDP has been working for years to promote Taiwanese identity and its members defend positions ranging from the total independence and international recognition to maintaining the status-quo.

Although the polls continue to show the PDP candidate as the favorite, the distance with the Kuomintang could narrow by Saturday. Throughout the election cycle, the shadow of China and its intrusion have loomed during the entire process.

As tension grows between the United States and China and Xi Jinping's Communist Party promises to take over the island and take its commitment to unification one step further, Voz Media journalist and commentator Karina Mariani sat down with Asia expert and analyst Fernando Pedrosa.

Pedrosa is a professor at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina and has a doctorate in Contemporary Political Processes. Together with Mariana, they offer some of the keys to understanding everything that is at stake in next Saturday's elections, not only for Taiwan, but also for the United States.