As Taiwan gears up for a recall vote that could reshape the legislature, opposition lawmakers being challenged at the ballot box are getting two unusual supporters: Chinese officials and state media outlets rallying to their cause.
While President William Lai (賴清德) won the election last year, his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost its legislative majority.
The opposition has flexed its muscles since then to pass laws the government has opposed and impose budget cuts, complicating efforts to boost defense spending in particular.
Photo: Reuters
The political drama has been happening against a backdrop of China ramping up its own military and diplomatic pressure campaign against Taiwan to assert territorial claims Lai and his government resolutely reject.
Civic groups formally started the recall campaign earlier this year, and on Saturday voters are to decide on the fate of 24 lawmakers from Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), about one-fifth of all lawmakers.
The recall groups say theirs is an “anti-communist” movement, accusing the KMT of selling out Taiwan by sending lawmakers to China, not supporting defense spending and bringing chaos to the legislature.
The KMT rejects those accusations, denouncing Lai’s “dictatorship” and “green terror."
China has not sat quietly on the sidelines, to the KMT’s unease, ever wary of being “painted red” by its opponents.
Last month, two senior Chinese officials overseeing Taiwan policy denounced the recalls as a “political scheme” of Lai’s.
Lai is “engaging in dictatorship under the guise of democracy” and “using every means possible to suppress the opposition,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) told a news briefing last month.
Business tycoon Robert Tsao (曹興誠), one of the most prominent recall campaigners, said such comments would only support their cause.
“It shows they [the KMT] are together with the communist party. It helps us,” he told reporters at a campaign event on Monday.
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The KMT says it neither asked for nor wants China’s support, cannot control what China says and that it is not pro-Beijing.
“We feel the same way as all the people of Taiwan — this is our business. It is the two parties, the DPP and the KMT, fighting for public support, for public recognition. It has nothing to do with the mainland,” party spokesperson Crystal Yang (楊智伃) said.
Chinese state media outlets and their affiliated social media accounts published about 425 articles or videos describing the recall campaign as “dictatorship” or “green terror” in the first half of this year, according to Taiwan research organization IORG, which analyses Chinese state media.
In an April commentary, the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily said Lai was “presumptuously abusing the recall system to crack down on the opposition party, attempting to establish a ‘green dictatorship.’”
Pointing to the similarity between China and the KMT’s arguments against the recalls, DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said Beijing is “offering ammunition” to the KMT to sway voters.
“China is really concerned that the mass recall will be successful and win the support of Taiwan’s public,” she said.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment.
The KMT says its China engagement is vital given Beijing’s refusal to talk to Lai, and to advocate for Taiwan’s interests, such as promoting agricultural exports.
“This is an unfair criticism,” Tony Lin (林鼎超), chair of the KMT’s Culture and Communication Committee, said, referring to the accusations they are pro-Beijing. “What we have always stressed is that we are pro-communication.”
The KMT hopes people will turn out to also express their dissatisfaction with Lai, whom they say is incompetent and has stoked tensions with China.
“The DPP uses its overwhelming propaganda network to bring up a sense of fear [about China] in Taiwanese society,” said Huang Kwei-bo (黃奎博), a professor of diplomacy at National Chengchi University and a former KMT deputy secretary-general.
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