Failed bid to oust Taiwan opposition gives China new leverage

TAIPEI – A failed campaign in Taiwan to unseat lawmakers has handed Beijing and the island’s opposition new ammunition against President Lai Ching-te, potentially deepening a political deadlock that prevents his government from strengthening defences against China.

All 24 Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers survived recall votes over the weekend, dealing a blow to Mr Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party and its hopes of regaining a parliamentary majority. Analysts had expected at least some of them to lose their seats.

“China will likely use Saturday’s (July 26) result to amplify the narrative that Taiwan President Lai Ching-te and his government don’t have the support of the majority of Taiwanese people and try to use the narrative to discredit Lai’s policies,” said Mr William Yang, a senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the Crisis Group.

The outcome amounted to a landslide defeat for a movement that has been accusing the KMT of collaborating with China, which claims the self-ruled democracy as its own territory. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) initially kept its distance from the campaign – initiated by ad-hoc civil groups – but eventually supported the effort.

Overturning the opposition’s legislative control would have given Mr Lai more freedom to advance his policy agenda, including increasing military spending. That would have helped placate US President Donald Trump, who has said Taipei needs to pay the US for its protection.

Now the Lai administration might need to offer policy compromises to gain opposition support, analysts, including Mr Yang, said.

The recall results may also embolden Beijing, which has sought to isolate Mr Lai while maintaining channels with opposition parties that favour closer ties with China.

“The outcome of this recall vote might lead Beijing to believe that Lai Ching-te’s anti-China stance has hit a bottleneck,” said Professor Chang Chun-hao, from the Department of Political Science at Tunghai University in Taichung. 

This may encourage Beijing to keep up its economic pressure on Mr Lai’s government and give the KMT an opening to advocate for greater cross-strait exchanges, Prof Chang said.

A day after the election, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said the voting results revealed that “the DPP’s political manipulation” lacks popular support, accusing the party of “practicing authoritarianism in the guise of democracy”, according to a China Central Television report.

The outcome preserves the opposition’s 62-51 seat advantage in the legislature, keeping its veto power over the President’s key initiatives, including his target of raising defence spending to over 3 per cent of gross domestic product.

While the opposition has approved some military spending increases, it has imposed stringent oversight mechanisms that the DPP argues are slowing critical defence projects, including Taiwan’s indigenous submarine programme. With the recall threat now neutralised, the KMT may feel even more confident in challenging future military allocations.

The failed recall could also remove any immediate pressure on opposition lawmakers to moderate their positions. Since taking control of the legislature in January 2024, the opposition bloc has passed a series of controversial Bills that DPP supporters say are weakening the administration’s authority and democratic governance.

In the opposition’s latest effort to derail Mr Lai’s administration, legislators from the KMT and its ally, the Taiwan People’s Party, on July 25 again rejected all seven of the government’s nominees for Taiwan’s highest court. The repeated rejections have left the Constitutional Court with only eight sitting justices, fewer than the 10 legally required for the body to operate.

DPP Secretary-General Lin Yu-chang acknowledged the failure of the recall effort at a briefing on July 26 while downplaying its significance as a partisan showdown, saying instead that the vote reflected the spirit of democracy.

He also repeated accusations that Beijing had interfered in Taiwan’s internal affairs, including in the lead-up to the vote. “This unprecedented civic movement was driven by anti-communist sentiment and a desire to safeguard Taiwan,” Mr Lin said.

In a Facebook post, Mr Lai, who is also DPP’s chairman, urged Taiwanese people to respect the result of the recall election and to unite in the spirit of democracy.

The one-sided outcome surprised many analysts.

Political science professor Su Tzu-chiao, at Soochow University in Taipei, said the result showed that the campaign’s central theme – protecting Taiwan from China and communism – failed to resonate with most voters, who he said are more concerned about livelihood and economic issues.

Others pointed to voter fatigue with the DPP after nearly a decade in power. 

Prof Chang said it could also reflect “frustration over the party’s unwillingness to accept last year’s electoral results” where the DPP lost its legislative majority despite winning a third consecutive presidential term.

The recall bid targets 31 of KMT’s 52 legislators over two rounds, including seven who face the vote in August. The failure to unseat any of the 24 on July 26 means the DPP will not immediately regain control of the legislature even if all of the other seven lawmakers lose their seats. Bloomberg