Taipei residents gather to follow U.S. election results

Taipei, Nov. 6 (CNA) As votes determining the next United States president were being counted, people gathered Wednesday morning across the Pacific at a bar in downtown Taipei to follow live updates of a race that was clearly moving in Donald Trump's favor.

At a watch party in Taipei hosted by Democrats Abroad's chapter in Taiwan, visual artist Laura Hobson was enjoying her breakfast with a male friend while occasionally casting a glance over the table to check the vote count on a big screen.

Hobson, who is a registered Democrat and has always voted for that party's candidate, told CNA that she believed a Kamala Harris presidency would be better for Taiwan than a second term for the Republican Party's Trump.

"Trump has said that he will cut off any protections on Taiwan, so I think Kamala will do a little bit better, at least trying to negotiate with our allies to do better for the world," Hobson said.

 Apart from continuing the foreign policy of incumbent President Joe Biden, she highlighted Harris' background as a prosecutor, noting that her good negotiation skills and the ability to hold people accountable might enable her to "push [her agenda] further."

Alan Sicher, who has lived in Taiwan for 16 years and works in the computer industry, echoed similar views when he spoke to CNA in a room full of attentive and nervous Democrats.

Many of them wore T-shirts printed with Harris' face, and they cheered and waved their cardboards when it was announced that Harris won a state or that a Democrat won a down-ballot race.

"If Harris gets elected, I think we can expect some continuation of the last four years," Sicher said, referring to the prospects for U.S.-Taiwan relations and Washington's engagement with other countries in the Indo-Pacific region.

A Harris administration would be "more stable, more alliance-based," he said.

Trump, on the other hand, has demonstrated his admiration for authoritarian leaders such as China's Xi Jinping while expressing skepticism over U.S. alliances with other countries in Asia, he said.

"He's very anti-democratic," he said of the Republican Party's candidate, expressing concern over Trump's pro-Russia stance and his desire to withdraw funding for Ukraine in its fight against Russian troops.

If Trump is elected and he allows Moscow to maintain the land in Ukraine that it has conquered, it will send "a positive signal to Xi Jinping," he observed.

Leo Chen, a Taiwanese national wearing a T-shirt with an image of Trump being shot while campaigning, disagreed.

Chen, who works in the security guard sector, believed Trump was more capable of addressing what he called Beijing's unfair international trade practices.

He said he noticed Trump's recent comments that Taiwan should pay for U.S. protection but did not consider them to be a shift in attitude from the former president.

Trump has also asked European countries to shoulder more financial responsibility for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), he said, though Taiwan's strategic location made it less likely for Washington to easily walk away from its commitment to the island.

In addition to foreign policy, Sicher and Hobson also took note of their attachment to social issues -- women's rights, immigration and race, to name a few -- as well as the economy.

"I feel like my position is more aligned with the Democratic Party than the far-right," Sicher said, "The Republican Party nowadays is really the Trump Party...All their positions are crazy to me."

Meanwhile, access to medical care matters the most to Hobson, who has lived in Taiwan for 11 years. "We need universal health care. And living in Taiwan, I just want all this stuff that we have here in America."

As much as the participants were hopeful, the results showing Trump doing well in the southern swing states had them on edge.

Hobson said she was nervous and a little frustrated.

"I can't wrap my head around anyone that can support someone that doesn't want to give more freedoms and independence to people," she said.

Sicher was hoping for better vote counts from Pennsylvania and Michigan, but as more results came in, the crowd thinned, disappointment that Trump seemed headed to victory setting in.

Democrats Abroad is the official Democratic Party arm for the millions of Americans living outside the the U.S.