Little
attention has been paid in international or even regional media to Taiwan’s
July 26 recall votes. Yet, for me, they are a significant bellwether of the
political standing of Taiwan's president, Lai Ching-te, on his home turf.
On that day, Taiwan held an unprecedented mass recall vote targeting 24 Kuomintang (KMT) legislators and one independent mayor. All of the recall efforts ultimately failed.
These are the key Figures from the Recall votes:
1.
Voter Turnout (Average)
o Average
turnout across all 24 constituencies: 27.3%
o While
this exceeded the critical 25% threshold in several districts, most recalls
failed due to an insufficient margin of “yes” votes.
2.
Pro-recall ("Yes") Votes
o As a
percentage of registered voters: 20.6%
o As a
percentage of total ballots cast: 46.3%
3.
Anti-recall ("No") Votes
o As a
percentage of registered voters: 22.1%
o As a
percentage of total ballots cast: 49.6%
4.
Invalid or Blank Ballots
o Average
across districts: 4.1%
Some attribute these results to voter fatigue or broad disapproval of overtly political recall campaigns. I am more inclined to believe that they hint that the Taiwanese public is not uniformly hostile to cross-strait engagement—contrary to the dominant narrative pushed by pro-independence forces.
Taiwan’s recall mechanism, governed by the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), is touted as a tool of democratic accountability. It allows voters to remove underperforming or controversial public officials before the end of their terms.
The
process has two stages:
1.
Petition Phase
o To
initiate a recall, 1% of registered voters in a constituency must submit a
petition.
o To
advance to a public vote, signatures from 10% of voters are required.
2.
Voting Phase
o A
majority of ballots cast must support the recall.
o The
number of "yes" votes must also surpass 25% of the total electorate.
Before 2016, Taiwan’s recall mechanism was seldom used due to high thresholds. But amendments passed under President Tsai Ing-wen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration lowered the bar, opening the door to frequent use – often for partisan gain.
One of the most high-profile recalls was that of Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), ousted from his post as Kaohsiung mayor in June 2020. I happened to be visiting Taiwan when Han won the mayoralty in 2018; he was then a political juggernaut. His downfall came swiftly after he announced his presidential bid just months into office, prompting accusations of abandoning his city. But the real reasons ran deeper.
Han was a straight-talker with pronounced pro-China leanings, championing cross-strait economic ties. This put him at odds with the pro-independence wave surging in southern Taiwan after the 2019 Hong Kong protests.
Earlier attempts at recalls were largely unsuccessful:
- 1994: Attempts to recall Taipei city
councillors over corruption failed.
- 2008–2016: Several efforts targeting township heads or legislators also fizzled due to procedural hurdles.
Post-2016,
the landscape shifted dramatically:
- 2017: Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) faced
a recall effort driven by anti-marriage-equality groups. The vote failed
due to low turnout.
- 2021: Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟)
was successfully recalled.
- 2022: Freddy Lim (林昶佐)
survived his recall vote.
These events show how recalls have devolved into a proxy battlefield between the DPP and KMT—no longer tools for public accountability, but partisan weapons of revenge.
The latest recall wave failed largely because the public saw it for what it was: a politically driven campaign. Many voters perceived it as a DPP-backed move to weaken the KMT through smear tactics, especially the branding of targeted legislators as "pro-China."
Lai’s inflammatory rhetoric—such as calling for a purge of “impurities”—likely backfired, alienating moderates and undecided voters. Ironically, some DPP insiders even blamed the failure on Beijing’s alleged meddling—an odd claim considering the targets were largely from the KMT.
The outcome not only weakens Lai’s perceived mandate but also exposes a growing public resistance to politicized recalls. It is especially damaging for the DPP, which currently lacks a majority in the legislature. This failed campaign further reduces any hope of regaining legislative leverage.
Moreover, Lai risks being seen as more ideological and confrontational than his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen—who, despite her tough China stance, was more measured in tone.
Another batch of recall votes is scheduled for August 23, targeting politicians such as Ma Wen-chun, Yu Hao, Lo Ming-tsai, Lin Szu-ming, Yen Kuan-heng, Yang Chiung-ying, and Johnny Chiang. Given the current political climate and voter fatigue, these too are likely to fail.
The July 26 recalls should be a wake-up call—not just for the DPP, but for all Taiwanese. These repeated exercises in partisan recall are eroding the democratic process and fostering deeper polarization.
Perhaps it is time for Taiwan to reflect more seriously on its political identity and historical roots—beyond slogans and purges, and toward a more inclusive, stable, and democratic future.
End
Credit: The essay was composed with the help of ChatGPT, especially on the facts and figures.
There were more than 45,000 businesses from Taiwan investing over USD200 Billion in China in the last thirty years.
ReplyDeleteWhile some would have left for India and Southeast Asia, others albeit on contraction factors from increased labour rates to US geopolitics have continued to set up or expand in China whether for its massively scalable domestic market or as part of China exports to more open overseas markets.
Moreover, China bought over USD600 Billion in goods during the period from the island especially semiconductors which in 2024 was 10% of China's import requirement.
The island has consistently maintained a trade surplus with China. The two-way trade in machine tools has lately been of comparable sizes which is curious since traditional manufacturing except for sharp end-spikes from semiconductors is no longer the island's main staple which as with most advanced economies is entrenched in services, commanding 70% in value.
It is also instructive to note that the two-way trade had leapt over 2,000% to some USD100 Billion on 31% yoy growth over the preceding thirty years, thus showing the initial explosive enthusiasm for cross-Straits trade relations.
One other aspect is that one-fifth of the world's maritime trade, or USD2.3 Trillion transits the Straits every year upon which Japan and South Korea depend for their lifelines. In the case of South Korea, it also explains why the US sabotaged China's Peru port investment which would have bypassed Los Angeles enroute Busan.
Geopolitics aside, trade is thus the linchpin of the bilateral relations and with China displacing Taipei across the globe, the latter is less assured its economy except for chip processing won't grow slower if it loses the China market for its investments. That said, its semiconductor investments in the US and India are presently crimped by disincentive factors from cyclical dearth of demand to restrictive local rules and in the case of the US, shortage of right-skilled personnel.
In a nutshell, China remains the safer bet for the future of Taiwan's economy.
The Lai clique however doesn't see this. Coming from the tradition of Lee and Chen, it rather pays homage to Japan, its past occupier, who had literally bled China dry from Manchuria down to the Eastern provinces.
However Tokyo has elliptically just said Japanese investors on the island are to fend for themselves in the event of a China reclamation of the island. Rubio's question to Japan, and thus Australia, whether they will intervene is thus indirectly answered.
Will Nato forces come over as British and ANZ had done during the Korean war? Given Nato is itself having budget, manpower and logistic issues in Europe over Ukraine and Russia is also active in Northeast Asia subset Japan and all the way to the Arctic subset the US cranial channel while North Korea is bleeding its forces in Eastern Europe, any likelihood would be contentious.
As will also be seen from the pace of China's armaments modernization.
The US is undoubtedly the most experienced force with amphibious landings and carrier takeoffs but its armaments production rates are slower and in an exchange, the depletions may be decisive. Moreover, it has published detailed and public acclamations of its amphibious landings in Guadacanal, Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima etc. Interesting if embellished reads in addition to at least two movies.
2/3:
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, China's is ahead in hypersonic missiles, and production of fifth-generation fighters with drones complements and thus multi-dimensional air combat, and a current monopoly over rare-earth magnets needed for military devices.
That leaves two aspects. First, the US' porcupine defense infrastructure for the island propped by its contingent of 100 special forces personnel in Taoyuan to train, mine, artillerize, dig aircraft hangers inside mountains or takeover fighter jets from commercial highways like Sweden.
But Pelosi has already provided the countermeasure. Surround the island and let the insurance companies deny coverage thus ending the island's commercial trade besides food, fuel and other supplies.
Will the US et al intervene directly? Excluding any nuclear exchange by the MAD doctrine, Trump in his first term had already said the US is 7,000 miles from Taiwan which is 100 miles from the Mainland. While it has forces in Guam as well as Japan's Okinawa, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Yamaguchi and South Korea's Chinhae naval base plus numerous other camps, a number would have to be held in case North Korea gets active with its forces into South Korea and missiles into Japan.
Any US-China kinetic exchange over Taiwan will conflare the whole of Northeast Asia at the least by stopping cross-Straits fuel supplies to Japan and South Korea besides sinking the US stockmarket propped by its tech stocks which depend directly and indirectly on the island's TSMC before its new plants in Arizona etc come online while Intel still has production issues.
If the US stockmarket goes, so too its bond market and thus pension funds.
The second aspect is the US seizes China's USD760 Billion in US bonds. Result? see the above. It would be catastrophic for the US economy. And everyone else's by dint of the US dollar being 58% of the official forex reserves. The price of gold and stablecoins will rise dramatically; China has been accumulating the former.
3/3:
ReplyDeleteYet China has said she wants to see peaceful reunification. The historical roots are beyond 23-million Taiwan carting over the 1,400-million Mainland's national reserves and cultural treasures (especially the pork jade). Both Fujian and Taiwan denizens speak fujianese and share the importance of the sugar-cane. History spills into the present.
In recognition of that, China had tried to placate Taipei with the one-country-two-systems offer a'la Hong Kong SAR. That's why the US-UK compact had subverted the youths in HK to riot knowing Beijing would intervene to stabilize and while she has done so, Taipei has used the intervention as an excuse to say any Taiwan as an SAR would lose its full democratic autonomy.
But in its attempt to muzzle its opposition lawmakers one must ask what democracy is that, for that matter the rules-based international order of Campbell-Blinken's US?
When we look at the youths on the island, why pit them to fight when both sides have so much in common for a brighter future for both?
Taipei may decry it has been marginalized from many of the world's socio-economic platforms; as an integral part of China's thrust onto the world's stage past a disgruntled and retreating US, it would be unwise to ignore the potential reunification can bring, especially after looking at how HK SAR is holding its own and Tibet is gaining economic and heritage sustainability.
And a China with Taiwan can develop more tech applications in collaboration with a more chastized US which will usher a new era of prosperity with peace with honour for all.
So what's Lai's beef with China that he and his clique can still hypocritically gaslight olive leaf offerings but with the agenda of another Pelosi (of 'what a beautiful sight' infamy after seeing the HK riots) in an attempt to saber-rattle the Taiwan lobby in the US congress to fight for his version of democracy that censures the Opposition movements in the island?
As with his predecessor, Taipei bought overpriced US military wares. Conflicts kill but arms-makers celebrate under the ostentious US Taiwan Relations Act and its subtexts which were put up to diffuse the Shanghai Communiques on China and Taiwan.
The Anglo-Saxons. Agents of the world's troubles. And as Bond's M would have quipped, cunning linguists.