ABSTRACT
Tsai is caught between the demands of the political mainstream and the KMT on one side and her own party's fundamentalist wing on the other; in other words, a ‘sandwich president’. This chapter discusses how Tsai managed to navigate those pressures and be re-elected with a DPP legislative majority in 2020. It also considers how events in Taiwan and Hong Kong changed the political environment to help Tsai undermine the KMT's popularity. Tsai's first term proved that Taiwan could survive – and even prosper economically – without the 1992 Consensus. Nevertheless, the 2020 election went beyond questioning the Consensus’ necessity. It raised the possibility that disengagement from the PRC may be a safer option than engagement. If the KMT cannot find a new approach to cross-Strait relations, we may find the next round of elections sends Taiwan's voters looking for new alternatives. Meanwhile, although Tsai Ing-wen survived a term as a ‘sandwich president’, as she moves into her second term, the unresolved tensions within Taiwan and across the Taiwan Strait will continue to produce pressure that will take great skill and fortitude to manage.
