Chinese pressure stresses Taiwan’s democracy

Internationally, Taiwan is mostly celebrated for its success in building a liberal political system despite the persistent threat of PRC military attack.  “Taiwan’s democracy Is thriving in China’s shadow,” we read; “resilient,” “robust” and “vibrant,” “a triumph.”

But Taiwan’s political system has been in crisis since the 2024 elections. The two major parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progress Party (DPP), accuse each other of threatening Taiwan’s hard-won democracy.

And that strife is intensified by external danger – a foreign “black hand,” to borrow a phrase often used by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government.

In the elections last year, the independence-leaning DPP maintained the presidency, but lost control of the legislature to a pan-Blue alliance of the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP, led by former presidential candidate Ko Wen-je, who is now in detention awaiting trial for corruption).

Opposition legislators proposed cutting the government’s budget. This included reducing funding for defense, despite the fact that the new Trump Administration was calling on Taipei to increase defense spending to justify continued US willingness to intervene in the event of a Chinese attack against Taiwan.

KMT legislators also sought to shift the system of checks and balances against the DPP-controlled executive branch in favor of the legislature, including giving the legislature new powers to investigate and prosecute government officials. The KMT argued this was necessary to prevent corrupt behavior in the government, while critics feared the legislature would use these new powers to retaliate against criticism.

The changes passed despite complaints by the DPP and tens of thousands of protestors that pan-Blue legislators were rushing the bills into law without adequate transparency.

It took Taiwan’s Constitutional Court to overrule the changes as in violation of the constitution. The KMT responded by attempting to sideline the Court. Seven of 15 justices finished their terms in October 2024. The KMT got a new law passed that requires a quorum of 10 justices for a valid ruling, then blocked the Lai government’s new appointments to the Court.

The DDP supported civil society groups in pursuing a campaign to oust KMT legislators through recall votes. The campaign is unprecedented in scope. Up to now, Taiwan has had recall votes for a total of only four legislators in its history, with only one legislator ousted. In July, however, a whopping 24 KMT legislators will face recall voting. Meanwhile, a counter-effort by the KMT to recall 15 DPP legislators appears to have failed.

New President Lai Ching-te gets plenty of criticism for the political crisis from Taiwan’s pan-Blue opposition, from China, from the US and even from former President Chen Shui-bian, a fellow DPP member.

Chen gave a public speech in April, his first in 17 years, arguing that Taiwan’s politics have become excessively partisan.  Chen said that he disapproves of the recall campaign, that tolerance of contrary opinions is necessary in a democracy, that his party should not stigmatize political opponents as PRC collaborators and that the Lai administration should negotiate with the KMT to allow for effective governance. Chen even suggested that Lai is a dictator who has weaponized Taiwan’s judiciary.

Lai deserves a share of blame, but not all of it.

The single most attention-grabbing anti-China gesture by Lai this year came during his announcement in March of “17 strategies” to counter PRC efforts to influence Taiwan’s cross-Strait policy.

Lai said the PRC qualifies as a “hostile overseas force” under Taiwan’s Anti-Infiltration Act. That law, passed in 2020 before Lai was president, defines “hostile overseas forces” as “countries, political entities or groups” that “confront us with force” or “advocate the use of non-peaceful means to endanger the sovereignty of our country.”

Since confronting Taiwan with force and threatening to use military violence to prevent Taiwan from formally separating from China are long-standing PRC policies, Lai would seem to be simply stating a fact.

Remember also, given the frequent charge that Lai’s rhetoric is escalating cross-Strait tensions, that for over two decades the DPP has maintained the position that “Taiwan is already an independent, sovereign country.” Lai’s statements seem neither particularly radical nor ground-breaking.

The most valid criticism, perhaps, is that he rejects the idea that accommodating Beijing’s sensitivities is necessary to preserve cross-Strait peace. Lai and his advisors believe that the willingness of his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen to take a modestly conciliatory approach toward the PRC only resulted in additional Chinese pressure.

Taiwan is a de facto multinational state. Chinese nationalism, which sees Taiwan as part of “China” (but not necessarily the PRC), contends with Taiwanese nationalism, which sees Taiwan as a separate political entity despite the strong Chinese cultural influence.

For the former, Taiwan “separatism” is treason. To the latter, China is an existential threat. It makes no more sense for PRC officials to call Lai a “historical criminal” or to castigate him for “forgetting his roots” than it would make to criticize Americans for not having a monarchy.

Democracy is difficult to achieve and difficult to maintain.  According to Freedom House, there were no democracies in the world by today’s standards as late as the year 1900. (The US and UK were “electoral autocracies.”) Moreover, successful democracies can backslide toward authoritarianism. The quality of democracy in democratic countries has steadily declined over the last two decades.

An external military threat makes the task much harder. There is a natural and inescapable tension between upholding civil liberties and ensuring national security when a powerful enemy seeks ways to weaken a state’s resilience from within.

Taiwan took crucial steps toward democratization in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but that was during the “million-man swim” era – there was not a realistic prospect of the People’s Liberation Army capturing Taiwan by force. The external danger was not strong enough to overwhelm internal demands for political reform.

Lai’s critics argue that he is using China as an excuse to give his government dictatorial powers.  His supporters argue he is taking necessary steps to protect Taiwan from PRC subversion. The important point is that, regardless of the intentions of Lai’s actions, they are occurring largely as a result of PRC actions. Even if Lai is acting out of cynical opportunism, China has enabled him.

There is no question but that, in addition to exerting concrete military and economic coercion, Beijing is pulling various levers to subvert Taiwan’s society toward weakening its resistance to a PRC takeover.

Taiwan is an ideal target for United Front operations: a sizeable chunk of the population agrees with the CCP that Taiwan is part of China, and many Taiwanese are reliant on China for their livelihoods, which gives the CPP leverage over them.

Some elites in China reportedly are looking to the 1936 Xian Incident as inspiration. In that case, a warlord general aligned with Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT government, which was then at war with Mao’s Chinese Communist Party forces, arrested Chiang and demanded that he agree to cooperate with the Communists to fight against the invading Japanese in a “Second United Front” (the first being the Northern Expedition to unify China in 1926—27).

The obvious modern parallel to the Xian Incident is China appealing to today’s KMT leaders to take action against the DPP government in support of unification.

Taiwan’s National Security Bureau reports that suspected espionage cases are rising: from 10 in 2022, to 48 in 2023, to 64 in 2024.

The Chinese government colludes with organized crime groups on Taiwan, which are traditionally pro-unification. The infamous convicted gang leader Chang An-lo founded the Chinese Unification Promotion Party, repeatedly accused of dispatching gangsters to intimidate opponents of its pro-China agenda.

The owner of the China Times Media Group is a Taiwan billionaire who depends heavily on business in China and who says he wants to promote positive views of China. The Group allegedly consults with the PRC government in the shaping of its newspaper and television content presented in Taiwan.

China warns other Taiwan businesspeople they must support Beijing’s position on Taiwan if they want to keep making money on the Mainland.

The PRC government pressures celebrities from Taiwan to make pro-China statements. Chinese sources promote disinformation fed to the Taiwanese public, such as the claim that Taiwan military exercises are actually rehearsals for Taiwan’s president and other top officials to flee the island by aircraft in the event a war breaks out.

Blue-aligned commentators in Taiwan and PRC propagandists are promoting similar anti-DPP messages. During Taiwan’s 2024 election, both groups said a vote for the DPP was a vote for war. Both say Lai is imposing a dictatorship over Taiwan, and both repeat the specific insult of calling Lai’s government “green terror.” The phrase repurposes the term “white terror,” a reference to the political repression in Taiwan under an authoritarian KMT government during the martial law period.

The assassination of “troublemakers” by the PRC is apparently not off the table. The Czech government recently reported that Chinese diplomats plotted to intentionally crash a vehicle into the car carrying Taiwan’s Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim during her visit to Prague last year.

It’s a valid criticism to charge Lai with imposing his Taiwanese nationalism over the objection of those of his fellow Taiwan citizens who are Chinese nationalists. There is also a risk that Lai’s approach makes war more likely, as opposed to an approach that prioritizes peace at the cost of failing to fully satisfy Taiwanese nationalism.

Lai may be getting ahead of public opinion, as most Taiwan residents want to retain the status quo of de facto independence but also avoid antagonizing China into taking military action.

Beijing, however, deserves the stronger criticism. Its military pressure combined with aggressive efforts to cultivate defeatism effectually supply the rationale for Lai’s DPP to pull farther away from Beijing’s goal of voluntary unification. Of less concern to Beijing, the growing national security challenge is also straining Taiwan’s democracy.

Denny Roy is a senior fellow at the East-West Center.