When the new format for today's legislative elections was finalized, this newspaper supported it despite anomalies in voter-legislator ratios across counties that give one side -- the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) -- a distinct advantage.
The change from a near-anarchic system of multiple candidates per district to a single-member system was necessary to increase long-term accountability of legislators to their constituents. In the short term, there were always going to be teething problems, and in this campaign they have been very apparent.
The changes have been condemned in some quarters as increasing the power of legislators and turning electoral districts into corrupt fiefdoms. This criticism ignores the fact that the new legislator-at-large vote ensures that an increased proportion of candidates is elected by party affiliation. A balance of interests between legislators who answer to party headquarters and those who answer to local constituents is a vast improvement over what came before.
The new system was never going to eliminate the pestilence of vote-buying. Commentators who hoped at the time that the entrenched culture of vote captains, factional patronage and illegal surveillance of voting behavior would disappear overnight were naive; in the face of thousands of reports of vote-buying and other mischief, some analysts now seem nostalgic for the old regime, which is absurd.
Aberrant election culture can only be reformed if there is a bipartisan commitment to do so. The KMT, for its part, has spent vast amounts of advertising dollars sabotaging the referendums while ridiculing the Central Election Commission and manipulating election conditions through sympathetic local governments, which suggests that bipartisanship will not be possible anytime soon.
Even by Taiwanese standards, this campaign has been short on policy and long on inept character assassination, laughable melodrama and dubious incidents of "violence." The KMT is highly likely to have an outright majority in the next legislature, and this has forced many candidates to turn the contest into one based on image, charisma, notoriety and slanging matches rather than content and ability.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) must get between 40 and 45 of the 113 seats to maintain its current representation; more than 45 would be a big bonus, but a few seats less than 40 would be catastrophic because it would give the KMT an outright two-thirds majority -- or the prospect of forging one with sympathetic minor parties and/or independents.
The KMT would then have the power to effect radical change at the expense of democratic institutions -- and even national security.
The DPP's failure to cut a deal with the Taiwan Solidarity Union will likely lose it one nominally pan-green seat (Chiayi City) and scuttle a number of closer contests elsewhere through a fracturing of the pan-green vote. The KMT is much less likely to suffer from votes leaking to its stablemate, the New Party.
On the referendum questions, a low voter turnout and the KMT boycott will likely invalidate the plebiscite through a failure to reach threshold.
The DPP has failed to make significant inroads into KMT dominance over local politics, and this will be reflected in a district vote that will reward the KMT for its regressive behavior. Of more interest is the new and purely party-based vote for legislators-at-large. This offers a preview of the presidential election and may yet give the DPP and presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
Today should mark the functional demise of President Chen Shui-bian (
Congratulations to China’s working class — they have officially entered the “Livestock Feed 2.0” era. While others are still researching how to achieve healthy and balanced diets, China has already evolved to the point where it does not matter whether you are actually eating food, as long as you can swallow it. There is no need for cooking, chewing or making decisions — just tear open a package, add some hot water and in a short three minutes you have something that can keep you alive for at least another six hours. This is not science fiction — it is reality.
A foreign colleague of mine asked me recently, “What is a safe distance from potential People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force’s (PLARF) Taiwan targets?” This article will answer this question and help people living in Taiwan have a deeper understanding of the threat. Why is it important to understand PLA/PLARF targeting strategy? According to RAND analysis, the PLA’s “systems destruction warfare” focuses on crippling an adversary’s operational system by targeting its networks, especially leadership, command and control (C2) nodes, sensors, and information hubs. Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, noted in his 15 May 2025 Sedona Forum keynote speech that, as
In a world increasingly defined by unpredictability, two actors stand out as islands of stability: Europe and Taiwan. One, a sprawling union of democracies, but under immense pressure, grappling with a geopolitical reality it was not originally designed for. The other, a vibrant, resilient democracy thriving as a technological global leader, but living under a growing existential threat. In response to rising uncertainties, they are both seeking resilience and learning to better position themselves. It is now time they recognize each other not just as partners of convenience, but as strategic and indispensable lifelines. The US, long seen as the anchor
Kinmen County’s political geography is provocative in and of itself. A pair of islets running up abreast the Chinese mainland, just 20 minutes by ferry from the Chinese city of Xiamen, Kinmen remains under the Taiwanese government’s control, after China’s failed invasion attempt in 1949. The provocative nature of Kinmen’s existence, along with the Matsu Islands off the coast of China’s Fuzhou City, has led to no shortage of outrageous takes and analyses in foreign media either fearmongering of a Chinese invasion or using these accidents of history to somehow understand Taiwan. Every few months a foreign reporter goes to
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