“I Came Back”: An Overseas Taiwanese Trying for Office in Taipei

This past Sunday Taipei City Council candidate Hsiao Hsin-sheng (蕭新晟) held an opening ceremony for his campaign headquarters in Neihu, a part of Taipei known for its quiet residential character but also for being the high tech center of Taipei.

Hsiao is what people called a “1.5 generation” Taiwanese American—he grew up and attended high school in Taiwan, but at the age of 16 he moved to the United States where he became a software engineer. He had moved back to Taipei specifically to run for this year’s City Council elections.

At the event, Hsiao said that he left for the United States looking for the American Dream, but had always wanted to come back to his roots to help the Taiwanese society. “It felt like the right thing to do, to return to Taiwan, because I care deeply about my city and my country.”

“A local representative who’s not a local”

Hsiao is fighting an uphill battle on many fronts in his district. First, for someone who is trying to represent a district in Taipei, he has not lived in Taipei for almost two decades.

Normally, this would be seen as a minus against him. How can someone who doesn’t know the community be its representative? But rather than trying to downplay this fact, Hsiao meets it head on: his campaign slogan is “I am back.”

“I know some people believe that a city councilmember should be a local, and some people believe that seniority is a guarantee of quality. But I know there are those in this town who believe that if a young person tries to make it abroad, and comes back stronger with new ideas and lessons to offer, that’d not be a bad choice either.” Hsiao said in a Facebook post.

In Taiwan, it is not uncommon for a party to nominate a candidate to a district who is not a local, if that candidate is a national celebrity, a rising star or as a result of internal politics. It is also not uncommon for politicians in Taiwan to have been educated abroad, including the former president Ma Ying-jeou (a law degree from Harvard) and current president Tsai Ing-wen (law degree from Cornell and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics).

Hsiao, however, is more unusual in that he had lived abroad for half of his life, with much of his established life in New York. Even so, he had already been involved in projects related to Taiwan’s public interest, including spearheading the Taiwan National Treasures, a project uncovering public archival documents in the US that relates to Taiwan.

There has been many examples of Taiwanese Americans coming to Taiwan, such as actor Daniel Tang and tennis pro Jason Jung, but not so much in politics yet. “I want other overseas young Taiwanese to know that you can still accomplish something meaningful when you come back to Taiwan.” Hsiao said.

Startup companies and startup families

In terms of particular policy areas, Hsiao is interested in the idea of “startups,” in terms of starting companies, as well as starting families—both in which he has some personal experience.

As a young engineer and a candidate of the Neihu district, it makes sense to support young entrepreneurs who find it hard to compete with big companies. In recent decades, Neihu has become a hub for large tech companies in Taipei. Mobile service giants Taiwan Star and Far EasTone, as well as chipmaker MediaTek, have headquarters there. However, it is not yet a hotspot for young entrepreneurs starting their own companies.

“I want to focus on the young people who don’t want to work for big corporations but instead try their hands at startups, so that’s going to be my top priority,” he said.

He is also interested in being involved with the city’s policies towards young families with early stage childcare needs, including benefits for expecting parents. To tackle Taiwan’s low birthrate, Hsiao says that a more welcoming environment for new parents and children is needed, as opposed to simply handing out benefit checks.

New political experiment

Hsiao is a member of the New Power Party (NPP), a relatively young political party that came onto the political scene after the Sunflower Movement in 2014, a student-led protest against a proposed trade agreement with China and the way it was forced through the legislature by the ruling party at the time, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

During its first time running candidates for office in 2016, the NPP won five seats in parliament, securing its place as a viable choice from the two major parties, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) who is current in power and the KMT, which once ruled Taiwan under an authoritarian regime until 1987.

Hsiao Hsin-sheng posing with fellow NPP members (by Mauricio Sandigo Peralta)

The NPP is not just a new startup political party, but its members are mostly young first-time politicians as well. It is running five candidates for Taipei’s City Council, none of whom has held office before. However, they have all had experience in community organizing or participated in social movements, such as prominent student protest leader Wu Cheng (吳崢) running in the Songshan and Xinyi district.

The real challenge for Hsiao and the rest of the NPP city council hopefuls is even if all candidates are elected, the party will only hold a minority of votes in the city council. How will they exercise their new offices to effect change?

In some countries in Latin America, where the author of this article is from, city councilmembers have no real autonomy from their political parties. Holding a minority of votes in the legislature usually means the party has no power to effect a change in the decision-making process, since the dominant political party will usually vote to override the minority. This sort of situation would create a real challenge for Hsiao; but he is determined to sees his vote as a “key vote” for different agenda items as a balance between the two major parties.

The influence that the NPP can potentially wield can be seen from the visit that the incumbent mayor Ke Wen-je, who is independent, and the DPP candidate Pasuya Yao, both attended the opening ceremony.

With a big smile and a confident look, he sees the results of this election very optimistically. He said, “a lot of people in Taipei are happy to see a fresh face” in the campaign, and hopes that the NPP will further establish themselves as a serious political party with fresh ideas for the country.

(Feature photo by Chieh-Ting Yeh)