Although William Lai Ching-te won the presidential election in January, his Democratic Progressive Party lost control of the legislature to the Kuomintang and The People’s Party. The first days of Lai’s administration have been fraught with legislative disputes, protests, and threats from China, casting shadows on the prospects of the new president’s administration.
As President Lai Ching-te set out to take office, Taiwan’s legislature was agitated by political altercations. Lai’s term marks the third consecutive presidency for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which upholds democracy in Taiwan amid growing threats from authoritarian China. However, the DPP lost its majority in parliament in January.
Voters have become disillusioned with the party’s performance, which has been in power since 2016, and this discontent allowed the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) to gain strength, joining forces to promote their mutual ideas.
Younger Taiwanese are losing faith in the DPP, which has failed to address pressing societal issues, such as rising house prices and rentals, low wages, a significant youth unemployment rate, and an annual gross domestic product growth of 2%.
This frustration is directed at the DPP for its failure to address these economic issues, especially from Gen Z, who didn’t live the authoritarian past of the Kuomintang, which ruled the island until the early 90s. The TPP has profited the most from this discontent, garnering 3.69 million votes in January.
Chaos in the legislature
The right-wing Kuomintang party, formerly led by Chiang Kai-shek and which fled China’s communist revolution to Taiwan but now favors closer ties with China, together with the People’s Party, the 3rd most represented parliamentary group but with only 8 seats out of 118, have attempted to push through legislative reform through parliament that would significantly reduce the power of the executive.
The opposition aims to enhance parliamentary oversight of the government by proposing additional powers of scrutiny. It also includes a contentious “contempt of Congress” measure to criminalize officials who are found to have made false statements in parliament.
Having won the presidency by a narrow margin and lost his parliamentary majority, President Lai faces a weakened position amid political opposition and Chinese pressure.
The DPP considers the way in which the KMT and TPP are attempting to push through too-wide a bill without the customary consultation process as “an unconstitutional abuse of power,” and are concerned about the bill’s lack of checks and balances. On May 17, violent scuffles broke out in parliament between lawmakers, several of which were hospitalized, straining the democratic process.
But the dispute is not confined to parliament. In response to the legislative proposals, thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest against the KMT’s attempt to increase the investigative powers of the legislature, as well as a controversial infrastructure project that would link the island’s east and west coasts with high-speed railways.
“Taiwan independence is a dead end”
In his inauguration speech, the president declared that a “glorious era of Taiwan’s democracy has arrived.” He deliberately referred to his neighbor as “China” rather than the “mainland,” which triggered China into denouncing the new administration as “separatist” and launching a fresh wave of intimidation tactics as “punishment.”
In 24 hours last week, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry detected 49 Chinese aircraft carrying live ammunition, as well as 19 Chinese warships and seven Coast Guard vessels near the Taiwan strait.
“Taiwan independence is a dead end,” stated the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, at a press conference on Thursday. He warned that “Taiwan independence separatist forces will be crushed and bloodied by the historic trend of China’s complete reunification.”
The new Taiwanese president is already having to balance discontent at home with intimidations from its neighbor, who justified the military exercises as “completely necessary” in “safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has refused to recognize the island’s independence, vowing to take it by force if necessary. The Red Army has been instructed by the government to be prepared for invasion by 2027, according to the U.S. Department of State.
“We’ve gotten used to China’s threats”
But although these provocations attracted global attention, they have not disconcerted Taiwanese residents, many of whom have continued their daily lives as usual. Residents interviewed by Reuters insisted that they did not feel seriously threatened by China’s exercises, claiming that they have become routine and that if China wanted to take over Taiwan, it would have done so already.
Chen Sian-en, a tire repair shop owner, said that he lived with Chinese threats “from childhood to adulthood, it means that we’ve gotten used to“them and that the military exercises “don’t really affect our daily lives.”
Taiwan’s stock market has also not wavered, and oil and natural gas imports have continued as normal, with enough reserves to meet domestic demand. Vasu Menon, Managing Director of Investment Strategy at OCBC in Singapore, stated that investors did not anticipate any significant escalation in tensions.
But the pressure on Lai, elected with a weak mandate of 40% of the popular vote, to manage the ramped-up Chinese shadow remains significant. China’s military ships crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, the theoretical border between China and Taiwan.
President Lai has recently opted for a conciliatory tone and remains open to negotiations with China, saying at a DPP conference on Sunday that he looks forward to “enhancing mutual understanding and reconciliation through exchanges and cooperation with China… and moving towards a position of peace and common prosperity.”
