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William Lai (Lai Ching-Te), the candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has just been elected President of the Republic of Taiwan, succeeding outgoing President Tsai Ing-Wen. They celebrate the victory on stage at their party headquarters, with his running mate Hsiao Bi-Khim.

Jimmy Beunardeau / Hans Lucas via Reuters

Lai won in Taiwan, but Xi isn’t losing his cool

Taiwan may have elected pro-independence candidate William Lai as its next president, but the result wasn’t the worst news Beijing expected.While Lai secured a decisive win with a seven percentage point lead over his next nearest rival, his party did not fare as well. Dissatisfaction with rising house prices, stagnant wages, and shrinking job opportunities lost the party favor with young voters. Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, failed to get a majority of seats in the legislature. Final results gave the Kuomintang 52 seats, the DPP 51, the Taiwan People’s Party 8, and independents 2.

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Taiwan's Vice President Lai Ching-te, who heads the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, raises his fist after winning the presidential election in Taipei on Jan. 13, 2024.

Kyodo via Reuters

Taiwan elects pro-independence candidate, calls Beijing’s bluff

Taiwan, one of the freest democracies in Asia, went to the polls on Saturday for a highly anticipated election with implications for both cross-strait and US-China relations.

As we told you last week, Taiwan’s presidential campaign ended up being a close race between independence-leaning candidate William Lai Ching-te of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, and Hou You-ih of the Kuomintang, aka KMT, who favors closer relations with China.

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A woman outside the damaged house of her son, who was killed the day before by shelling in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine.

REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

Hard Numbers: Deadly shelling, drug kingpin's jail security, Lai sighting, Sweden soccer semi, twin takeover

7: Shelling in the southern Ukrainian province of Kherson Ukraine on Sunday killed seven people, including a 23-day-old baby girl. The attack followed denials by Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar that Ukrainian forces had engaged in Russian-occupied territory in the region.

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