Much like the first round on July 26, Saturday’s second wave of recall elections — this time targeting seven Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers — also failed. With all 31 KMT legislators who faced recall this summer secure in their posts, the mass recall campaign has come to an end.
The outcome was unsurprising. Last month’s across-the-board defeats had already dealt a heavy blow to the morale of recall advocates and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), while bolstering the confidence of the KMT and its ally the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).
It seemed a foregone conclusion that recalls would falter, as these were the districts where campaigners had struggled to collect enough petition signatures to meet the threshold for the recall stage. In none of Saturday’s contests did “yes” votes meet the legal threshold of one-quarter of eligible voters, while “no” votes averaged 65 percent of valid ballots.
The outcome ensures that the DPP remains in the minority in the legislature, continuing to constrain President William Lai (賴清德) and his administration’s ability to advance their policies. What lessons lawmakers might draw from the recall defeats and whether they are willing to adapt their approaches remains uncertain.
KMT legislators, led by KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (?), are expected to maintain their hardline tactics in pushing legislation, and could feel emboldened to force through controversial bills. Yet the party’s leadership is unsettled. Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) has said he would not seek re-election in the Oct. 18 chairmanship race. While Chu on Saturday urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to succeed him, she ruled herself out yesterday.
Meanwhile, the TPP is preparing for an internal reshuffle in January, when it is expected to rotate out all seven of its legislators-at-large after two years, including Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌). Although the recalls left KMT lawmakers secure in their seats, they also bolstered Huang’s ambitions — particularly his bid to extract greater concessions from the KMT, including support for a possible New Taipei City mayoral run. That could set the stage for friction between the two opposition parties in the months ahead.
The DPP is also expected to make changes in hopes of regaining momentum ahead of next year’s local elections. On Saturday, Lai pledged to recalibrate his Cabinet and policy priorities, while expressing a desire for deeper dialogue with the Legislative Yuan, without offering specifics on how this might be achieved.
Lai and the Cabinet must take the initiative in opening lines of communication with the legislature and the opposition parties, while putting forward policies that can be tangibly felt by the public and seen as directly improving livelihoods — the kind of policies that opposition lawmakers would be hesitant to block.
Rather than allowing ministries to respond passively to opposition criticism, the Cabinet must improve cross-ministerial coordination and long-term planning, and present a more coherent and hopeful blueprint for the nation’s prosperity and security.
The DPP must also engage in self-reflection, clarify its core values and decide which principles warrant an uncompromising stance. At the same time, it needs to enhance its public communication to build support for those priorities, while identifying areas where flexibility could allow for more effective negotiations with the opposition.
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS