Voters were treated to a livestreamed event on Tuesday that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) called an “opposition leaders’ summit,” with the slogan “Bring democracy back to Taiwan.”
The event starred KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) and TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), who discussed political reform, the ongoing mass recall movement and the economic challenges of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs. The event was transparently self-serving, a political broadcast full of fictions and distractions, of use to nobody but the KMT, which is caught in the headlights of the oncoming recall train.
Chu got what he wanted out of it: He had Huang reiterate the point — so that he did not have to — that Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) proposal to “bring down the Cabinet” would do no good. Chu got Huang to say that the real target should be the resignation of the person they want voters to believe poses a threat to Taiwan’s democracy: The “dictatorial” President William Lai (賴清德), the figure behind the “green communism” who “wants to reinstate martial law.”
The KMT has no idea how to respond to the mass recall movement and it is panicking. Chu faces losing not only his chairmanship, but also the legislative majority that he and his party have abused since February last year. Huang and his merry band of TPP legislators-at-large have been riding the KMT’s coattails, a position Huang does not want to risk losing.
Is the electorate really so disgruntled with Lai that it is baying for him to step down? Or is it Chu — who for some reason did not expect Lai to have the mental or political resources to push back against the legislative chaos that the KMT and TPP have brought — who wants Lai removed?
As Chu has resorted to peddling blatant fictions in a clumsy attempt to create a narrative untethered to what is happening, opinion polls could provide a reference.
As reported in the blue-leaning China Times, the results of a survey conducted late last month by z.media showed a 51.6 percent approval rating for the Lai administration. In terms of party political support, 35.8 percent of respondents backed the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), 20.1 percent the KMT and 11.1 percent the TPP.
Respondents were overwhelmingly positive about the government’s decision to deport social media influencers who advocated for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan: 65 percent, including many KMT supporters, expressed approval of the deportations. However, they were underwhelmed by the KMT’s proposal for a referendum against “martial law” that Chu wants people to believe Lai is reinstating, with 50.3 percent expressing disapproval.
Clearly, it is only Chu, Huang and their followers who believe Lai is behaving in a dictatorial way, or should be asked to resign.
A Mirror Media opinion poll conducted this month showed that 40 percent supported the DPP, compared with 16.9 percent for the KMT and 14.2 percent for the TPP. Lai’s administration received an approval rating of 49.3 percent. Asked about the performance of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), 43.5 percent said they were satisfied.
On Lai’s response to Trump’s tariffs, 39.4 percent of respondents said they were satisfied, compared with 46 percent who were not. Voters are clearly concerned about this issue. So it is no surprise that Chu and Huang focused on the government’s response to Trump’s tariffs in their “summit.” They needed at least one credible nail on which to hang voter dissatisfaction with the Lai administration. Peddle away, Chu and Huang. Nobody is buying your desperate fictions.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sits down with US President Donald Trump in Beijing on Thursday next week, Xi is unlikely to demand a dramatic public betrayal of Taiwan. He does not need to. Beijing’s preferred victory is smaller, quieter and in some ways far more dangerous: a subtle shift in American wording that appears technical, but carries major strategic meaning. The ask is simple: replace the longstanding US formulation that Washington “does not support Taiwan independence” with a harder one — that Washington “opposes” Taiwan independence. One word changes; a deterrence structure built over decades begins to shift.
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