The recall vote for Taiwan Statebuilding Party Legislator Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟) on Saturday next week has little to do with his performance as a legislator representing Taichung’s second electoral district. It is a local issue, but not in the way that recalls are intended to be. More significantly, it concerns national, and even international, political power play.
Chen has had a target on his back ever since he won the seat in last year’s legislative elections as a dark-horse candidate against then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Yen Kuan-hen (顏寬恆).
Yen is the son of former Non-Partisan Solidarity Union legislator Yen Ching-piao (顏清標), a former convict affiliated with the KMT who has been a powerful figure in Taichung for decades as a result of, not in spite of, his shadowy background. The Yen family’s long-term grip on the electoral district was broken by Chen’s victory and they, together with the KMT, are hoping for his recall so that the younger Yen can reclaim his “birthright.”
Chen’s recall motion — launched by the pro-unification New Party, an offshoot of the KMT — just days after former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) was recalled in June last year, was just the first in a wave of “retributive” recalls that has included independent Kaohsiung City Councilor Huang Jie (黃捷) and former Taoyuan city councilor Wang Hao-yu (王浩宇) — Huang survived the vote, Wang did not — and still threatens independent Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐).
While Huang was vilified by Han and KMT supporters for her questioning of the former mayor in the city council, Chen’s part in Han’s recall was far more direct: He was the spokesman of the Taiwan Radical Wings Party, the precursor to the Taiwan Statebuilding Party, and actively campaigned for Han’s ouster.
More than a year since that “original sin,” Chen’s recall has morphed from being a retributive action on the local level to part of the KMT’s national strategy to reclaim the presidency. The KMT does not care about avenging Han’s recall, but it is happy to exploit the lingering anger of his supporters among its core voter base.
Recalls are intended as a mechanism for voters to remove an official in-between elections if that person is deemed to be negligent or unfit for office. However, as KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said during his campaign for the party chairpersonship, the four referendums scheduled for Dec. 18 and Chen’s recall were two major weapons in the party’s attempt to regain the presidency. Other major KMT figures have also linked the recall to a vote on Premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) leadership.
If that seems a stretch, KMT Legislator Lee De-wei (李德維) helpfully pointed out that Chen had consistently voted in line with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — from lifting a ban on pork imports containing the feed additive ractopamine to the government’s policy on COVID-19 vaccines. The Taiwan Statebuilding Party is a small political party, and Chen is its only legislator. It presents no challenge to the KMT in terms of clout.
The party is mostly aligned with the DPP, but has been vociferously critical of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) reluctance to move further toward independence. Its strong pro-independence stance is an affront to the KMT’s mission of protecting the Republic of China against a “Republic of Taiwan.” However, it is the Chinese Communist Party that appears to be even more determined to stamp out the influence of Chen’s party in the legislature.
Chu’s focus on Chen’s recall, and his mobilization of KMT forces to get it passed, could be interpreted as his kowtowing to his masters in Beijing.
Whatever the outcome, it is becoming increasingly clear that the local mechanism is being manipulated and exploited for national political ends, and is even open to foreign influence. The government needs to rethink the recall process.
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
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
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
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