A recent move by Taiwanese representative offices to change their Facebook profiles to read “Taiwan” instead of some variant of “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office” has received some attention in Taiwan as a small push towards asserting Taiwan as an independent polity...
It seems highly likely that KMT city mayors will pursue a strategy of carrying out city-level exchanges with China going forward, a model originally pioneered by Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je that Kaohsiung mayor-elect Han Kuo-yu has also taken up. However, some DPP mayors may also be tempted to do the same, as observed in the example of Tainan mayor-elect Huang Wei-che expressing public interest in visiting China much like Ko or Han...
The Han Kuo-yu phenomenon continues full-steam, with constant coverage of Han in the Taiwanese media after his victory in the Kaohsiung mayoral election in late November. However, at the same time, a number of scandals have since emerged about Han’s past actions. And some controversy has begun regarding his early actions as Kaohsiung mayor...
Efforts to realize transitional justice and to address the KMT’s illicit party assets have encountered a significant obstacle in the form of a ruling by the Taipei High Administrative Court that the assets of the Chinese Women’s League must be unfrozen...
International views of 2018 local elections in Taiwan, unsurprisingly, have in many cases skewed towards the assessment that China may have been the ultimate victor in nine-in-one elections. The KMT is very likely to leverage on this fact in the near future, to try and push for a new round of efforts to facilitate exchanges with China by way of the city-based exchange model pioneered by Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je. This would be a means of circumventing the central authority of the Tsai administration...
There would seem to be no greater indicator of progressive civil society’s defeats in 2018 local elections more than its losses across the board in terms of the referendums it pushed for. However, the situation seems to set to get bleaker in the near future. Conservative groups have now realized that referendums may be one way for them to force their political agendas through...
Why did the DPP do so poorly in 2018 local elections? Many have proposed different theories on this in the past days and it is very likely that the DPP itself will descend into a civil war in the near future, regarding why it failed and what it can do to avoid being defeated in such a landslide again in the future...
Ko Wen-je barely clinched the Taipei mayorship yesterday night, winning by several thousand votes over KMT candidate Ting Shou-chung. According to the Central Election Commission (CEC), Ko won with 580,820 votes, while Ting lost with 577,566 votes. This puts Ko just over 3,300 votes ahead of Ting, a narrow victory by any means. How should we interpret this narrow win?...
The results of referendum voting will no doubt come as a great shock to progressive Taiwanese civil society with, quite literally, all of the referendum proposals they championed being voted down. On the other hand, all of the referendums they opposed passed. However, not all of these achieved the necessary 25% of voter participation needed to be legally binding...
Election results in 2018 local elections in Taiwan have been a surprise, with the apparent defeat of the DPP across much of Taiwan and a resurgent KMT. Referendum proposals pushed for by progressive civil society were widely defeated, but the NPP won 16 seats across Taiwan. The Taipei mayoral race has still yet to be called but is neck and neck between Ko and Ting...
