The third lecture in the series “Cross-Strait Relations in Context: Perspectives on the Relationship Between Taiwan and China”
Debating China: How Taiwan’s Political Parties Discuss Relations with China in their Political Advertising?
by Professor Dafydd Fell (SOAS)
When: 23 April 2026, 17:30 – 19:00
Where: Celetná 20, room 247
Taiwan’s elections are often described in the international media as referendums on unification versus independence. But to what extent is this stereotype accurate in actual election political communication? How do Taiwan’s political parties deal with the topic of relations with China in their electoral advertising? Is this really the most central issue in election campaigns, as both the international media and political science studies suggest? Do the parties offer similar or highly polarised perspectives on their preferred visions for relations with China? How do they warn voters of the potential benefits or risks of different formulas for managing cross-strait relations? To answer these questions, I will analyse a set of election advertisements issued by Taiwan’s leading parties in the last two rounds of national elections in 2020 and 2024.
About the speaker
DAFYDD J. FELL is a Professor of Comparative Politics at the Department of Politics and International Studies of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He is also the Director of the SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies. In 2004 he helped establish the European Association of Taiwan Studies. He has published numerous articles on political parties and electioneering in Taiwan. His first book was Party Politics in Taiwan (Routledge, 2005), which analyzed party change in the first fifteen years of multi-party competition. His second book was Government and Politics in Taiwan (Routledge, 2011) and the second edition was published in early 2018. He has edited a number of volumes on Taiwan, with the most recent Taiwan Studies Revisited, published in 2019, Taiwan’s Economic and Diplomatic Challenges and Opportunities (2021) and Taiwan’s Contemporary Indigenous Peoples (2021). His latest single authored book was Taiwan’s Green Parties (Routledge 2021) and he is currently working with two co-authors on a forthcoming Chinese version of the book. In 2025 he co-authored a new book that examines the history of Taiwan’s sugar railways titled The Twilight Years of Taiwan’s Sugar Railways. He is also the book series editor for the Routledge Research on Taiwan Series.
Email: df2[at]soas.ac.uk
The lecture is organised by Global Taiwan Chair, Department of Sinology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University
