The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has suffered a serious defeat. The loss was inevitable; the signs were already in place four years ago.
Since his re-election in 2004, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has personally stumped for the DPP in major and minor elections, with little success. Yet the DPP leadership ignored such warning signs. Instead, it upheld the so-called pro-localization banner to test its members and the public alike. Both the nomination and campaign strategies were thus flawed, resulting in a resounding defeat.
Taken hostage by fundamentalists, the DPP has tried the loyalty of its members over the last two years, causing a rift between pro-localization and non-localization factions. Self-proclaimed pro-localization leaders emphasized such divisions during party primaries. The "most united" and "patriotic" members of the DPP dubbed 11 party heavyweights the "11 Bandits" (
For the DPP, qualification for public posts became based on political ideology rather than ability -- criteria some of its members cannot even reach, not to mention those who are outside the party. The party's nomination policy and exclusiveness has stunned Taiwanese society.
The DPP miscalculated its campaign strategy based on such a philosophy. Chen took pro-localization as the campaign theme and questioned the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) stance regarding the issue. To hype up the sense of crisis, China's threat was exaggerated and the election became a confrontation between unification versus independence forces, or even a battle between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
The slogan of pro-localization does not make things happen. The election was like a no-confidence vote, and a strong answer to the question of whether Taiwan should focus on political or economic reform. In the 21st century, every country is striving to boost its economic competitiveness while considering how best to improve the quality of life. Too bad for Taiwan that its leader at the beginning of this century still thinks he's living in the last.
While it is the DPP's fault that Chen was allowed to lead the campaign, no one else dared shoulder the responsibility.
In his eight years as president, Chen has achieved little, except furthering division. His inauguration as DPP chairman in October was tantamount to a declaration of the party's failure. With no significant achievements, Chen could only harp on about localization.
And equating Chen to the pro-localization force is an insult to pro-localization. Can the pro-localization movement tolerate corruption and anti-democracy? Can it eliminate its own party members? Still, in the name of pro-localization, wrongs that should not have occurred in a democratic society have come to pass one after another.
Every political party that stands the test of public scrutiny and anyone who recognizes Taiwan's democracy can be considered pro-local. The DPP will not be able to make a comeback if it does not understand this fact. As a native regime that created the KMT's new-found absolute majority, can the DPP reflect on itself? It is alienated from pro-localization, but being trapped in its own vision of pro-localization, it has yet to realize this fact. This is perhaps the most crucial lesson to be learned from the defeat.
Chen Fang-ming is the director of the Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS