Taiwanese democracy has weathered many storms — martial law, diplomatic isolation, economic uncertainty and rising authoritarian pressure from Beijing. Yet today, the gravest threat to its survival might come not from across the Taiwan Strait, but from within.
The recent mass-recall effort aimed at ousting 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers might have failed at the ballot box, but it succeeded in revealing a dangerous truth: Taiwanese politics is broken.
The major political parties increasingly view each other not as competitors, but as enemies. Instead of debating policies, they trade accusations of treason. Instead of compromise, they choose sabotage. The legislature, paralyzed by obstruction and mutual contempt, is no longer a site of democratic deliberation — it is a battlefield.
The polarization is no longer just a nuisance; it is a national security risk.
An analysis published on Friday in Foreign Affairs by political analyst Lev Nachman and Academia Sinica Institute of Political Science assistant research fellow Yen Wei-ting (顏維婷) bluntly warned in its headline that “Taiwan’s democracy is in trouble.” The article details how political dysfunction and mutual distrust have eroded the nation’s ability to respond to growing threats from China.
“Taiwan’s leaders are prioritizing defeating one another over defending the nation,” they wrote.
No one who has watched recent brawls in the legislature or witnessed the bitter recall campaigns would disagree.
Beijing has ramped up military threats and coercive pressure, while Taiwanese lawmakers are freezing military budgets, demonizing political opponents and refusing to cooperate, even on matters as existential as defense policy. President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has called for bolstering deterrence; the opposition has blocked funding. While the Chinese military expands its drills, Taiwan’s politicians sharpen their knives, aimed at each other.
In a democracy, disagreement is natural, but affective polarization — the toxic belief that anyone who disagrees must be corrupt, unpatriotic or dangerous — is corrosive. It eats away at national solidarity.
Nachman and Yen wrote that 85 percent of Democratic Progressive Party supporters said they would fight to defend Taiwan if China invaded; that number drops to 4 percent among KMT voters. What happens in a crisis if half the country blames the other for provoking war?
Beijing knows this. It has already tried to divide Taiwan with online disinformation and whisper campaigns about war and chaos. The truth is that China is not creating the polarization; it is exploiting it, and Taiwanese are making its job easier.
This moment calls for leadership not from one party, but from all sides. Lai must tone down moralistic language about “impurities.” KMT and Taiwan People’s Party leaders must stop comparing democratic rivals to Nazis. Defending Taiwan does not mean agreeing on every policy; it means agreeing on what is worth defending: institutions, freedoms, the right for Taiwanese to decide their own future.
This has been done before. In the early days of COVID-19, the government and civil society set aside their differences to act swiftly and decisively. Lawmakers can do it again, if they choose unity over unification and cooperation over collapse.
Democracy is not just about elections — it is about the ability to govern — and in the face of China’s growing threats, dysfunction is no longer an option. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and it certainly cannot fight.
Simon Tang is an adjunct professor at California State University, Fullerton, who lectures on international relations.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) on Tuesday returned from her visit to the US, where she had met with several US senators and representatives, think tanks, and overseas Taiwanese and Chinese communities, espousing her vision of promoting cross-strait dialogue as a way to evade war. On Monday last week, she sat down with US academic Orville Schell and Asia Society Policy Institute distinguished fellow Daniel Russel. Russel is a seasoned diplomat who has served in positions related to East Asian and Indo-Pacific affairs. At the conclusion of the discussion, Russel employed his considerable diplomatic experience and knowledge
I arrived in Taiwan when I was 18, fresh out of high school and trying to navigate university life. Everything felt unfamiliar. My broken Mandarin quickly revealed what I already knew: I was not from here. When I told people I was from Indonesia, many told me that I did not look Indonesian. This caught me off guard, not because it was cruel, but because of how casually it was said. Sometimes it came with curiosity, sometimes surprise, occasionally admiration for my “fair skin.” More often than not, the people asking meant no harm. It is understandable. I look ethnically
Nearly three decades after the 1997 handover, Hong Kong has become a paradox: a place where financial dynamism coexists with political repression — a reality Taiwan cannot afford to ignore. Despite a sharp contraction of civic freedoms since 2020, Hong Kong remains a major global financial center. It has recently overtaken Switzerland as the world’s largest offshore wealth hub, supported by steady inflows of capital from China and across Asia. The territory continues to serve as a key intermediary linking Chinese firms, multinational investors and global markets. Institutional continuity has played a role. The Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the
In the aftermath of China’s expulsion of the New York Times correspondent Vivian Wang (王月眉), Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) has publicly and explicitly articulated Beijing’s core thinking on the Taiwan issue. Chinese authorities accused the newspaper of promoting what they called “Taiwan independence fallacies,” and said that its description of Taiwan as a country amounts to a challenge to the “one China” principle. The significance of the incident goes beyond the reporting dispute and has given the international community a window into the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) attitude toward Taiwan. Lin, in a statement, said
RSS