Much has been said about the significance of the recall vote, but here is what must be said clearly and without euphemism: This vote is not just about legislative misconduct. It is about defending Taiwan’s sovereignty against a “united front” campaign that has crept into the heart of our legislature.
Taiwanese voters on Jan. 13 last year made a complex decision. Many supported William Lai (賴清德) for president to keep Taiwan strong on the world stage. At the same time, some hoped that giving the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) a legislative majority would offer a check on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and restore balance to the system. That hope has proven misplaced.
Look what the KMT and the TPP have done with that majority.
Within weeks of the election, KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) led a delegation to China and met with Wang Huning (王滬寧), Beijing’s top official in charge of “united front” work. Wang is not just a policy thinker, he is the chief architect of China’s ideological strategy to weaken Taiwan from within — not through war, but through manipulation, infiltration and political co-opting. That a senior KMT figure would meet him, under the pretext of a “cross-strait exchange,” before the new legislature even got to work, was a flashing red warning.
Since then, the KMT-TPP bloc has wasted no time flexing its power. It has bypassed debate, forced through legislation that curtails oversight, weakened Taiwan’s defense and used its majority not to check the executive, but to disable it. These are not checks and balances. This is sabotage disguised as procedure. Now, they expect the public to either forget or give up.
The recall movement is the public’s answer. It is lawful, it is constitutional and it is the only available tool — short of the next election — to halt this trajectory.
Let us be absolutely clear about what success of the recall means. It means ousting enough KMT legislators to break the pan-blue majority in the legislature. It means stopping this legislative hijacking before it metastasizes into something we can no longer undo. It means setting the stage for by-elections to restore a working majority to the DPP, which is committed to resisting Beijing’s grip.
Some might still say: “But I don’t like the DPP either.”
In normal times, that sentiment would be the basis for healthy political change. However, when “change” comes at the cost of eroding Taiwan’s sovereignty, what we need is not change for its own sake, but improvement within a framework that protects our freedom.
Here is the hard truth: If Taiwan’s political institutions fall under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party’s “united front” strategy, your party preference would no longer matter. There would be no meaningful elections left to debate.
The recall vote is not about hatred. It is not just about punishing misconduct or replacing underperforming lawmakers. It is about stopping — immediately — those who have chosen to prioritize ties with Beijing over accountability to the people who elected them. It is about recognizing that if we do not act now, we might not get another chance before 2028. By then, the damage could be irreversible.
We are voting to defend the only system that still allows us to punish, question and replace those in power. We are voting to protect the democracy that many once doubted could even survive in Taiwan, and we are doing it not with protest signs, but with ballots.
This is the line, and it will not draw itself.
Vote for the recalls. Tell your friends. Remind your neighbors. Bring your family. If you have ever cared about Taiwan’s freedom, now is the time to show it.
John Cheng is a retired businessman from Hong Kong now living in Taiwan.
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