Most Taiwanese and friends of Taiwan everywhere are now rightly focused on the country’s upcoming Jan. 13, 2024 presidential election.

The critical issue for most of us remains the future of Taiwan’s relations with the People’s Republic of China, and the stakes are high. There is a fundamental question, as always, of whether Taiwan will continue to enjoy freedom and democracy or endure at best a gradual submission to the authoritarian rule of the Communist Party of China, or at worst face a possible invasion.

Some Taiwanese who have garnered considerable wealth in Hong Kong and China believe they can appease Beijing and thereby thwart the CCP threat. Others argue that besides friendly words, symbolic gestures such as a bridge joining Kinmen to China will build a better, more amiable relationship of equals.

Such delusional views are worrisome. We need only look at Hong Kong to see how the CCP implements its commitment to “one country, two systems.”

Meanwhile, there will also be increasing attention to the U.S. presidential elections on Nov. 5, 2024, and what that outcome may mean for Taiwan and U.S. policy toward China. Here perhaps we can remain somewhat calmer.

With the exception of former President Trump who bizarrely praised PRC leader Xi Jinping — “He runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. Smart, brilliant, everything perfect” — most Republican and Democratic candidates have largely agreed on the need to, at a minimum, support Taiwan. Trump’s would-be substitute and equally bizarre candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants strategic clarity on the U.S. defense of Taiwan but only until the U.S. achieves semiconductor independence, after which the U.S. would simply supply every Taiwan family with an AR-15 assault rifle.

Increasing PRC problems

The Chinese will of course have no election and no vote and we can only wonder how they might vote in the face of the increasingly severe problems their country faces. As news media, academics, and other China specialists are pointing out, Beijing is confronted by enormous and growing challenges, all of which became more apparent since CCP Chair Xi Jinping abruptly abandoned his failed COVID lockdown policy on Dec. 7, 2022:

• In June, a record 21.3% of young Chinese (ages 16 to 24), meaning more than one in five, did not have a job, according to Business Insider. The shortage of jobs has especially affected university graduates who, Chair Xi has recommended, should take up jobs in the countryside.


• Moreover, China faces an aging population and declining workforce which “could lead to increased social security costs, a slowdown in economic growth, a shortage of skilled workers, a loss of human capital, and increased labor costs.”


• China’s economy is slowing under a huge domestic debt burden built on shaky government loans for often unnecessary infrastructure and unsellable housing, office buildings, and shopping malls, as well as debts abroad for developing countries that cannot afford to pay off PRC loans for “Belt and Road” projects.


• The PRC remains heavily dependent on imports of food, energy, and raw materials which pass through sea lanes it does not control.


• There is also decreasing foreign interest in investing in state-subsidized Chinese companies that steal intellectual property and treat all foreign visitors as possible spies.


• China is similarly confronted with widespread global dissatisfaction over its policies toward Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the South China Sea, the Indian border, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, among other concerns, and the resulting increase in unfavorable views of China and Xi Jinping.

Emigration of Chinese

While the Chinese in the PRC cannot vote for change, they have a history of emigration to find better lives for themselves and their families. According to UNESCO, “By the beginning of the seventeenth century, there were about 100,000 overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and around 20,000 to 30,000 in Japan … By the mid-nineteenth century, their numbers had increased to 1.5 million, with most of them settled in Southeast Asia.”

According to the International Organization for Migration, there are more than 10.7 million Chinese overseas today — about 60 million if their descendants are included. This is one of the highest numbers of immigrants in the world, according to MPI.

Also in the 19th century, the U.S. began to attract Chinese as the best possible path to better lives. The first Chinese immigrants arrived in small numbers in the early 1800s, but 325 men are recorded to have arrived before the 1849 California Gold Rush, which attracted Chinese laborers.

In 1868, the Burlingame Treaty between China and the U.S. made immigration from China easier. Between 1850 and 1882, more than 322,000 Chinese immigrants, many from Guangdong and Fujian provinces, entered the U.S. anxious to escape the turmoil and dangers of the 14-year-long Taiping Rebellion (1850-64).

In the 21st century, Chinese numbers in the U.S. climbed. Between 2010 and 2021, the U.S. immigrant population from China and Hong Kong increased by 572,000. During the same period of time, only the immigrant population from India, which increased by 929,000, outgrew China. The U.S. remains the top destination for Chinese immigrants worldwide, accounting for about 28% of the 8.6 million Chinese living outside China, Hong Kong, or Macau, according to mid-2020 estimates by the United Nations Population Division.

More than any other country, the economic and educational opportunities offered by the U.S. continue to attract Chinese migrants. A 2021 report in Canadian Strategy Online estimated, based on online polling, that

• 137.7 million Chinese adults wanted to move to the U.S.


• 69 million wanted to move to Canada


• 52.5 million wanted to move to the U.K.


• 28.9 million wanted to move to Australia

Latest path to U.S. — Mexican Border

This pent-up demand helps to explain the most recent phenomenon of an increasing number of Chinese would-be migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexican border to claim asylum. “According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 4,366 migrants from China encountered Border Patrol officials after crossing the southern border without authorization from October 2022 to February 2023. That compares with the 421 migrants who were encountered during the same period in 2021 and 2022.”

A key reason the U.S. border is an attractive destination for Chinese migrants is that they find it far easier to prove asylum claims than people from other countries. Chinese petitioners are granted asylum at a rate of 58%, compared with 10% for Guatemala, 9% for Honduras, and 11% for El Salvador. There is simply more evident political persecution in the PRC than in most other countries.

Easy travel is not a reason. One Chinese father told Voice of America’s (VOA) Mandarin Service that “he and his 16-year-old son traveled for more than 50 days from Hong Kong to Macau to Istanbul to Ecuador. From there, they traveled through six Latin American countries, including walking on their own through the Darien Gap, a dangerous mountainous jungle between Colombia and Panama where tens of thousands of migrants crossed in 2022.”

A June 9, essay in The Diplomat pointed out that migrating to the U.S. is also not cheap. “Chinese migrants reportedly spend around US$5,000 to US$7,000 for self-guided trips, while others pay smugglers fees of up to US$35,000, or three times what migrants from Central or South America typically pay. The ability to afford such high fees suggests that while some migrants come from working-class backgrounds, many are from the middle class. Among those apprehended are small business owners, educators, and even a former finance student in Australia.”

As Taiwanese and American voters head to the polls next year, they all have reason to reflect on the fact that, when they can, many PRC citizens are voting with their feet.