Hou You-yi

Policy Presentation for Parties Divides Along Familiar Lines

Brian Hioe
The first-ever policy presentation for political parties was held on Wednesday. This saw some controversy, with the Taiwan Statebuilding Party, Taiwan Obasan Political Equality Party, and Green Party Taiwan demonstrating that they were given less time to speak than larger more electorally viable parties such as the DPP, KMT, and TPP. While there were sixteen parties represented, the following article will only focus on some of the parties...
EnglishJanuary 2023Politics6 min read

Taiwan’s 2024 Presidential Candidates: How Do They Fare On the Climate?

Chia-wei Chao
When it comes to the climate, all three candidates in Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election have emphasized the importance of taking action and committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. The main driver behind this mainstreaming of climate policy is the fact that supply chain requirements have made the country’s export competitiveness highly connected to climate performance. Therefore, we must scrutinise the comprehensiveness of each candidate’s policy proposals, rather than solely relying on whether they are climate denialists, to distinguish their positions. Taiwan Climate Action Network (TCAN), a collaborative advocacy platform organized by five NGOs, has thus produced a climate commitment tracker to compare their positions on seven key climate-related policies: (1) 2030 emissions reduction target, (2) carbon pricing strategies, (3) 2030 power mix, (4) renewable energy development plan, (5) industrial decarbonization, (6) public participation, and (7) just transition. In this article, we will focus specifically on their 2030 pledges, carbon pricing strategies, and just transition policies...
EnglishJanuary 2023Politics8 min read

Taiwan’s Energy Policy at the Crossroads in the Presidential Election in 2024?

Anthony Ho-fai Li
Energy policy remains a highly controversial policy arena in Taiwan after democratization, given its importance for Taiwan’s security, environmental sustainability and economic development. Under the presidency of Tsai Ing-wen, the agenda of “Nuclear-free Homeland 2025” (2025非核家園) proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party in 2016 has been subject to political challenges, which involved the debates about the use of nuclear energy beyond 2025 and the reduced capacity of coal-fired electricity plants for air pollution mitigation. The policy strategy to replace nuclear energy with rapid solar energy development has also faced enormous social challenges as its large-scale installation conflicts with the existing land uses...
EnglishEnvironmentalJanuary 2023PoliticsSocial Movements12 min read

KMT Leans Into Allegations that Missile Alert was Orchestrated by the DPP

Brian Hioe
The KMT has begun leaning into political attacks on the national text alert sent out by the Ministry of National Defense yesterday. These attacks have increasingly taken the tenor of alleging that the text message alert was not a mistake, in that the English wording of the alert referred to the satellite launch as a "missile" launch, but a fake incident entirely concocted by the DPP for the sake of elections. The KMT has focused attacks on this rather than criticizing the substance of the text message alert, which led to confusion, or the Tsai administration itself’s apparent confusion. The incident takes place mere days before the presidential election is to take place on Saturday...
EnglishJanuary 2023Politics8 min read