Taiwan’s Lai consolidating power before turning to China

Franklin D Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office helped steady the US during a time of crisis and set a lasting standard for evaluating presidential success. While the “first 100 days” concept remains most prominent in the US, other democracies like Taiwan have adopted it.

Since the island’s first democratic transition of power in 2000, Taiwanese citizens have increasingly used the first 100 days to assess their president’s effectiveness, mirroring the practice established decades earlier in Washington.

However, Taiwan’s presidents have struggled to match the 62% average approval rating US presidents have achieved in their first 100 days since Dwight Eisenhower in 1950. Since 2000, each Taiwanese leader has faced a significant drop in approval by this benchmark.

For example, president Chen Shui-bian saw his rating plunge from 79% to 42% in just four months. Ma Ying-jeou and Tsai Ing-wen fared similarly, with ratings of 41% and 39%, respectively, at their 100-day marks. Most recently, President Lai Ching-te, inaugurated on May 20, 2024, saw his approval slip from 58% to 46% within three months.

As a young democracy with less mature democratic norms and deep political polarization, Taiwan differs significantly from the US (though recent years have seen the US grow more similar).

Since the start of democratization in the late 1980s, Taiwan’s politics have been marred by intense ideological clashes, especially over national identity. That’s created a persistent divide between the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and the now-ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

This division often causes Taiwanese presidents to quickly reverse their predecessor’s policies while fending off relentless opposition attacks for doing so.

President Lai now stands in a unique position as the first Taiwanese president since democratization to succeed a leader from the same party, the DPP, giving him a rare chance to break from the cycle of “correcting” previous administrations.

While many expected him to focus on building party unity to defend his policies and positons in the face of a strong opposition, where the combined KMT and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have a parliament majority, Lai has taken an unexpected turn.

Unlike his predecessors who targeted the opposition, Lai has directed his political strikes inward, seen in the detention of Cheng Wen-tsan, chairperson of the Straits Exchange Foundation, over corruption allegations dating to his tenure as Taoyuan City mayor. Cheng’s arrest is reflective of an intense intra-DPP political struggle between a pair of long-time rivals.

Cheng, a prominent figure in the DPP, established himself as a rising star within the party after his unexpected victory in the 2014 Taoyuan City mayoral race, which broke the KMT’s long-standing stronghold over the region.

In the role, Cheng showed some impressive interpersonal skills and the ability to attract and unite various factions, including KMT supporters, attributes which made him one of Tsai’s preferred successors.

Tsai, likewise a pragmatist with a less rigid ideological stance, also reportedly valued Cheng’s knack for coalition-building—a skill she relied on to consolidate her own power within the DPP.

Lai, by contrast, has garnered strong support from the pro-independence factions within the DPP, who view him as Tsai’s rightful successor.

His steadfast commitment to Taiwan’s independence from the mainland resonates deeply with these groups, many of which found Tsai’s more moderate policies as frustrating.

In a surprising 2019 move, Lai challenged Tsai for the DPP’s presidential nomination, viewed at the time as a preemptive push for the presidency to avoid possible strong competition from Cheng in 2024.

Although Lai’s bid ultimately failed, leading him to join Tsai’s presidential ticket as her vice presidential running mate, it acted to intensify his rivalry with Cheng, as Tsai showed clearer signs of favoritism toward Cheng in the run-up to this January’s election.

This tense personal history has pushed Lai to “punish” Cheng after gaining power. But how can we be certain that Lai was behind Cheng’s detention on corruption charges given that prosecutors are supposed to operate independently from politics?

One strong clue is the timeline of the case. Initially established in 2017, the investigation was quickly dropped due to a “lack of evidence.”

It’s thus highly suspicious that a case was dormant for seven years during Tsai’s administration suddenly re-emerged with enough evidence to detain Cheng shortly after Lai assumed the presidency.

Another telling sign was Tsai’s decision to skip the DPP national congress on July 20, citing an unlikely “schedule conflict.” This congress was crucial for reshuffling the DPP’s internal power structure, and her absence likely signaled discontent with Lai following Cheng’s detention.

By targeting a powerful figure within his own party, Lai set a significant precedent for a Taiwanese president in their first 100 days: prioritizing internal power struggles over battles with the opposition.

This decision is particularly striking given the DPP’s vulnerable position facing a hostile, opposition-controlled parliament. Cheng’s detention could severely damage the DPP’s image, as it validates one of the many corruption allegations that the party has consistently denied in recent years. Yet, Lai chose to remove Cheng regardless, signaling that he was willing to bear the cost.

The most significant takeaway from Lai’s early actions is that, despite being elected with a minority vote, the DPP may be far stronger than it appears.

The party seems confident that in an era defined by an authoritarianism versus democracy narrative—a notion that resonates strongly in Taiwan—its hardline stance against China will continue to be favored by Taiwanese voters over the alternatives: the pro-Beijing KMT or the fledgling TPP, which is currently mired in election funding scandals.

While a shift away from entrenched partisan divisions is essential for the future progress of Taiwan’s democracy, Lai’s initial focus on intra-party struggles may not necessarily signal such a trend.

Rather, it could indicate that Taiwanese politics is moving beyond the cyclical battles between the two major parties and entering a new era of long-term DPP dominance.