There are plenty of reasons for global interest in this
. Yeah, I think that might be a bit
difference between what global investors are looking at with this
election and what the local community here is going to
be voting for as well. But as you say
, right, this is one of the most hotly
contested national elections that we've seen in decades. And
we're just about a little over 24 hours away from
when pollings of polls will open tomorrow to kick off
this election. And certainly a lot is at stake
as we've been talking about all week now and,
and really the high level, you know, interest
in, in what we're seeing when it comes to
what this means for cross strait relations, us China
relations as well. Taiwan's position, of course,
in key supply chains like advanced semiconductors, that certainly
is a reason why there's a lot of implications and
not just what it means for cross strait relations but
also the global economy. So, you know,
this is a chance for Taiwanese voters to decide what
Taiwan's future is going to be, is it going
to be one that is going to to lead to
heralding war ties with China, which is exactly what
the KMT and TP is vowing for or is this
about democracy with the US backing, which would put
the DPP if they win a third straight term and
which is something that we haven't seen before. So
given the importance of this to China, any signs
of Beijing perhaps trying to meddle in the election in
some way or doing anything that might impact the results
. Yeah, you know, there certainly has been
several things that we've reported about. You talked about
the Chinese balloons, there's been some, you know
, signs of, of China that China really trying
to interfere as well as economic coercion. And they've
suspended some of these tariff concessions on some Taiwanese products
and warning that there might be more. Uh and
then of course, there's some more dirtier tactics,
right? We've seen, you know, video surfacing
online fake videos of presidents. We of course,
we can't verify where, where those videos came from
, but certainly that does lead, show you just
the anxiety that that we see leading up to this
election. And then of course, just a few
days ago, that arm that are that that sort
of missile air alarm that that certainly sent some panic
across the ground here when that alert came on people's
phones, you know, it turned out just to
be a satellite launch from China, but it was
just a bad case of translation as well because the
English side said that it was a missile sort of
launched. So certainly that led to some more of
why we're seeing this sort of fever pitch leading up
to this election now. And how far Beijing is
going to go in response to this election in meddling
is still a key topic here. But certainly there's
a lot, a lot at stake here so far
. It's such a great chart that we just showed
as well. The Bloomberg, New Taiwan straight stress
index and I wanna throw up another chart taking a
look at expected heightened volatility. Yvonne, you've,
you've seen this right when it comes to uh Taiwan
dollar versus the US dollar. And over next week
, I it is expected to be a pretty rocky
ride. Having said that at the moment we're seeing
traders uh trading currency options, the most bullish on
the Taiwan dollar in about 16 years. So,
uh h how are we expecting the market impact to
be expressed? Yeah, I think it's, it's
interesting. We've been talking to our guests about this
as well and, and people are, are,
are easily to say this. This election might just
be noise at the moment, right? This is
just the first sort of major geopolitical test for,
for global investors. This year, we saw a
lot of uh elections come, of course, with
the US election in November as well. That might
be more of the important matter in all this.
But when you look at, you know, as
you say, local markets, you are seeing that
volatility in the currency. But from the analyst that
, you know, our colleagues have been talking to
this, this might look more like a slow burn
then really some sort of drastic volatility that could ensue
obviously, if it's something that's a shock, sort
of win from the opposition parties or you, either
one that might be a surprise to the market and
might actually help sentiment, right? If we see
closer ties with Beijing, but you keep in mind
we, we have the time on stock benchmark,
very tech heavy. It's, it's near all time
highs right now. This is one of the leading
markets last year and that wasn't really because of any
geopolitics, but this A I trade that really has
helped markets like Taiwan and South Korea. So potentially
we talked to a guest just this week saying look
, the A I craze that that could still continue
this year and potentially you could have overshadow some of
geopolitical concerns.