For the past 18 months, the biggest puzzle in Taiwan politics has been the curious behavior of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP). In the 2024 elections, the TPP did very well for a third party, winning 22 percent of the party list vote and eight seats -- enough to break through the DPP-KMT duopoly to deny either of the two major parties a majority for the first time since the Chen Shui-bian era. That made it the kingmaker in the Legislative Yuan and gave it significant bargaining power over the other two parties in this term -- if they were able to exploit it.

The puzzle is that the TPP does not appear to have maximized its leverage in the current legislature. The party's leaders turned down opportunities to grab the speaker or deputy speaker positions or to negotiate for cabinet positions in a Lai government, and over the last year they have instead prioritized opposition to the DPP administration rather than conditional cooperation with the ruling party. More surprising still, they have publicly aligned themselves with the KMT on many of that party's most controversial policy initiatives -- even when those policies are broadly unpopular. 

This transformation of the TPP in the public eye from a centrist swing party to a "pan-blue subsidiary" has generated a widespread sense of angst and betrayal among pan-green commentators, who have accused the TPP of "subordinat[ing] itself blindly" and "march[ing] in lockstep with the KMT," and even tacitly cooperating with the CCP to oppose the DPP and the Lai administration. The TPP's public image has shifted so dramatically that many observers of Taiwan politics now simply assert that the legislature is "KMT-controlled."

The problem with this assertion is that it's wrong. The TPP legislative caucus is not actually marching in lockstep with the KMT on every issue, as I'll argue in what follows. On the contrary, it holds preferences that are quite distinct from the KMT, it has acted as a significant check on that party's legislative caucus, and its public cooperation with the KMT against the ruling DPP will be temporary and limited, rather than comprehensive and indefinite. But for their own reasons, neither the KMT nor the TPP want to advertise this fact. For the moment, they both would rather have everyone believe they are a unified pan-blue team cooperating to stop DPP overreach.

​No other explanation is consistent with the political outcomes of the last 18 months. 

On December 20, amid shouting, shoving, fistfights, and broken furniture, Taiwan’s opposition-controlled legislature passed by a show of hands three controversial bills that threaten to kneecap its government. The first raised the threshold to recall elected officials. The second required the Constitutional Court to have a 2/3 quorum to hear constitutional cases and imposed a supermajority threshold to invalidate a law. And the third shifted the central-local revenue-sharing formula to give local governments (mostly KMT-run) 40 percent of all government revenues, up from 25 percent, at the expense of the DPP-run central government.
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Four days later, the same opposition majority in the legislature voted down all seven of President Lai’s nominees to the Constitutional Court, leaving it with only eight justices and unable to meet the new quorum requirement for hearing a case. It is now effectively paralyzed. The DPP government has nevertheless requested that the court meet and rule anyway on whether the amendments to the Constitutional Court Act are themselves unconstitutional. This increasingly destructive partisan political conflict has put Taiwan on the brink of a constitutional crisis with no obvious way to resolve it. 

This confrontation is also taking place in a democracy that Freedom House last year ranked as the second-best in Asia, behind only Japan, and significantly above the United States and most of Europe. Taiwan's political system has proven remarkably resilient to PRC influence operations over many years, and it has a capable and effective state and vibrant economy despite its diplomatic isolation. So why is it facing a political crisis now?

​The simplest answer is divided government. For the first time in 16 years (and only the second time in its democratic history), Taiwan's legislative and executive branches are controlled by different parties: the Chinese Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People's Party (TPP) together hold a majority in the Legislative Yuan, and they are locked in a fierce power struggle with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government.  

This conflict was not inevitable. In the January 2024 presidential and legislative elections, the DPP's Lai Ching-te (賴清德) won the presidential election but with only 40% of the vote, and the DPP lost its majority in the legislature. The KMT ended up with 52 seats (plus two blue-leaning independents), the DPP won 51, and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je's (柯文哲) centrist TPP won eight (all via the party list vote). That left no party with a majority and made the TPP the crucial swing voting bloc in the LY. In theory, the TPP could have exploited that leverage to extract significant concessions from the ruling DPP -- on policy, legislative leadership, or cabinet positions. But instead, negotiations between the DPP and TPP went nowhere, and President Lai missed his chance to head off the last year of partisan warfare.   

The formation of battle lines first became apparent on February 1, when the new legislature was seated. Its first order of business was to elect a speaker and deputy speaker. Curiously, the TPP  ultimately decided not to support either of the major party nominees -- the party's eight legislators voted for TPP member Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊) in the first round, and abstained in the second.  As a result, the KMT's Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) won the speaker's race, and KMT legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) was elected as his deputy. Despite providing crucial help to the KMT, the TPP did not manage to win even the deputy speaker as the price for their support. Nor did they strike a deal with the DPP, either, although that should have secured at least one of the leadership positions for the party. Given that the TPP held the crucial votes that could have denied control of the legislature to either major party, this outcome seems like a major missed opportunity for both them and the DPP. 

I've heard competing explanations for this bargaining failure. One story is that the refusal came from the DPP side -- ruling party legislators were engaged in quiet conversations with the TPP about a possible power-sharing deal, but Lai Ching-te intervened to stop the negotiations. Reporting at the time suggested that the TPP's price for cooperation in the run-up to February 1 was for the DPP to support Huang Shan-shan for speaker -- a price the DPP was apparently not willing to pay, but which in hindsight they probably should have. That interpretation is also consistent with the public comments offered by party caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) that "A DPP-TPP partnership is only possible if the TPP voluntarily comes to us."​So maybe this was a strategic mistake by the DPP caucus (and ultimately, Lai himself), and they are suffering the consequences. 

But another possibility is that the TPP was just never seriously interested in cooperating with the DPP no matter what they offered -- even before  Ko Wen-je's detention in a corruption investigation several months later turbocharged the TPP's animosity toward the DPP government. Although the KMT-TPP negotiations for a joint presidential ticket broke down in spectacular public fashion in November 2023, the two parties did still enter into a pre-election coalition for the legislative races and even campaigned together, so perhaps TPP leaders had already made up their minds to team up with the KMT after the elections, too, and there really was no chance the DPP could have enticed them to defect.  

Whatever the reason, ever since the new legislature was seated on February 1, the TPP has consistently chosen to act as the KMT's junior partner and supported the opposition party's confrontational approach to the DPP government. And as the partisan divide has hardened, it has also transformed into an inter-branch conflict between the KMT-TPP majority in the legislature and the DPP in the executive. The partisan maneuvering that has followed has escalated over the last year to a level of open political warfare that is posing a severe test for Taiwan's democratic institutions. And it is a test they are failing.

On behalf of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and The Global Policy and Strategy Initiative, the Hoover Institution invites you to Taiwan After the 2024 Elections Annual Conference, Thursday, May 23, 2024, from 8:30 AM - 5:15 PM to Friday, May 24, 2024 from 8:45 AM - 2:00 PM in HHMB 160.
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Taiwan’s next president William Lai (賴清德) takes office on May 20, 2024. His victory in the January 2024 elections ensures that the ruling Democracy Progressive Party (DPP) will hold the presidency for an unprecedented third consecutive term. But Lai won only 40 percent of the presidential vote, and the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) together now control a majority of the seats in the legislature. President-elect Lai’s new administration is also likely to face continued pressure from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and he will have to deal with an increasingly complex and uncertain international environment.  
 
Join us as we bring together a diverse group of experts to discuss the policy challenges and opportunities that the incoming Lai administration will face. It will feature panels on the 2024 election results, governance challenges, the future of Taiwan’s economy, security and defense issues, US-Taiwan-PRC relations, and perspectives of key U.S. allies and partners on the U.S.-Taiwan relationship.
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This conference will bring together a diverse group of experts to discuss the policy challenges and opportunities that the incoming Lai administration will face. It will feature panels on the 2024 election results, governance challenges, the future of Taiwan’s economy, security and defense issues, US-Taiwan-PRC relations, and perspectives of key U.S. allies and partners on the U.S.-Taiwan relationship.

On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution held a Taiwan Roundtable Discussion On Cold War / Martial Law Formations of Taiwanese America on Monday, May 13, 2024 from 2-3:30 p.m. PT in Stauffer Auditorium. 

This event features Wendy Cheng, Professor of American Studies and core faculty in the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies at Scripps College. She is the author of Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism (University of Washington Press, 2023) and The Changs Next Door to the Díazes: Remapping Race in Suburban California (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), and coauthor of A People’s Guide to Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2012).

From the 1960s to 1980s, more than a hundred thousand Taiwanese students migrated to the US for graduate study in science, technology, engineering, and medicine fields as part of the special Cold War relationship between the US and the authoritarian Kuomintang (KMT) government in Taiwan. This same time period overlapped with a 38-year period of martial law in Taiwan, during which the KMT surveilled and terrorized Taiwanese nationals not only in Taiwan but also in the U.S., Japan, and other locations around the world. In the U.S., this occurred with the full knowledge and tacit permission of the US state.

With information drawn from extensive interviews and archival research, we'll discuss how Taiwanese students were politicized and organized themselves on U.S. university campuses under these dual conditions of selective Cold War migration and martial law, and how their politics were more heterogeneous and far-reaching than how they are typically remembered today.

My opening remarks are below: 

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On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution invites you to a Taiwan Roundtable Discussion on Thursday, March 7, 2024 from 2-3:30 p.m. PT at Stauffer Auditorium. 

​The Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region invites you to join a private roundtable discussion with Ingrid Larson, the Managing Director of the American Institute in Taiwan - Washington office, and a 20+ year member of the U.S. Foreign Service. She previously served as Director for Taiwan Coordination at the State Department. Director Larson will speak about the current administration’s policy towards Taiwan as well as the purpose and evolution of AIT’s unique role and structure in the current era of
US-China relations. 

On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution invites you to Taiwan’s 2024 Presidential and Legislative Elections: What Happened and What It Means on Thursday, January 25, 2024 from 4:00 - 5:30 PM PT. 

On January 13, the Taiwan voters delivered a split verdict: the DPP’s Lai Ching-te won the presidential election and secured an unprecedented third consecutive term for the ruling party. But 60 percent of voters cast ballots for someone else, and the DPP lost its majority in the legislature. The biggest shift in voting patterns was the rise of third-party candidate Ko Wen-je, the former mayor of Taipei, who received 26 percent of the vote and did especially well among young voters. Ko’s Taiwan People’s Party will also hold the balance of power in a closely divided legislature.

In this event, three panelists discuss what happened, why it happened, and what it means for Taiwan’s domestic politics, cross-Strait relations, and the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region. 
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ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS
Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor, by courtesy, of political science and sociology at Stanford. He co-chairs the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region.  
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Kharis Templeman is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and part of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific. Templeman is a political scientist (Ph.D. 2012, Michigan) with research interests in Taiwan politics, democratization, elections and election management, party system development, and politics and security issues in Pacific Asia.

Stephen Tan is Managing Director of International Policy Advisory Group, a Taipei-based consulting firm, providing corporate clients with solutions to issues relating to geopolitical risks, strategic planning on supply chain, regulatory policy and government relations matters. Stephen was President of Cross-Strait Policy Association in 2016-2022, Visiting Fellow of Brookings Institute in 2018-2019, and Partner of Baker McKenzie from 2004 to 2016. He previously served as a board member of American Chamber of Commerce Taiwan for more than a decade, and is currently sitting on the board of directors of a handful of non-profit organizations as well as listed companies based in Taiwan.  Stephen frequently appears on Taiwan’s television, radio and other programs as a political commentator, and shares his perspectives on issues including Taiwan-US relations, cross-strait relations and Taiwan’s domestic policy issues. He is a graduate of National Taiwan University, University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and Carnegie Mellon University School of Business.

Tiffany (Chun-An) Wang is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Applied Physics at Stanford University. Her research interests focus on novel material synthesis for electronics and energy applications. She currently serves on the board of directors at the North America Taiwanese Engineering and Science Association (NATEA) (2022–present) and was the president of the Stanford Taiwanese Student Association (STSA) (2021–2022). She founded Stanford Salon PSI and has organized g0v Silicon Valley civil-tech hackathons since 2023.

On November 2, the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, the Center for East Asian Studies, and the Stanford Taiwan Science and Technology Hub co-sponsored a film screening of the documentary Invisible Nation, a poignant examination of Taiwan's contested status during the era of Tsai Ing-wen, the current President of the Republic of China (Taiwan). 

This Stanford Democracy Day 2023 event featured a Q&A with director Vanessa Hope and a pre-recorded introduction from Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang.

Synopsis
With unprecedented access to Taiwan’s sitting head of state, director Vanessa Hope investigates the election and tenure of Tsai Ing-wen, the first female president of Taiwan. Thorough, incisive and bristling with tension, Invisible Nation is a living account of Tsai’s tightrope walk as she balances the hopes and dreams of her nation between the colossal geopolitical forces of the U.S. and China. Hope’s restrained observational style captures Tsai at work in her country’s vibrant democracy at home, while seeking full international recognition of Taiwan’s right to exist. At a time when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated the ever-present threat of authoritarian aggression, Invisible Nation brings punctual focus to the struggle of Taiwan as it fights for autonomy and freedom from fear.​​

Director Biography
Vanessa Hope is an award-winning producer and director. Vanessa has produced multiple acclaimed films in China including Berlin International Film Festival selection, Wang Quanan's The Story Of Ermei and Cannes Film Festival selection, Chantal Akerman's Tombee De Nuit Sur Shanghai, part of an omnibus of films, The State Of The World. She has also produced her own short films, including China In Three Words, an official selection at DOC NYC. Hope’s additional producing credits include Zeina Durra’s The Imperialists Are Still Alive! and Sarah and Emily Kunstler's feature documentary, William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe and the award-winning film, Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America. She served as Executive Producer of Paula James-Martinez’s Born Free.
Hope made her directorial debut with the documentary All Eyes and Ears, an exploration of the complex links between the U.S. and China told through the stories of U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman, his adopted daughter Gracie Mei, and civil advocate Chen Guangcheng. Hope’s latest film, Invisible Nation, is about the first female president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, and the story of Taiwan’s geopolitical predicament, with dangerous parallels to Ukraine. Vanessa and her husband, Ted Hope, share a company, Double Hope Films, with many independent fiction and documentary features and series in development. Vanessa is on the advisory board of the Equal Rights Amendment Coalition and the Fund for Women’s Equality.

Come work with me! The Hoover Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region has an opening for a student research fellow for the 2023-24 academic year (Fall, Winter, Spring quarters) at Stanford.

​The Hoover Student Fellowship Program (HSFP) offers Stanford students a competitive opportunity to participate in important work at the Hoover Institution across both key research initiatives and organizational areas. The program is a 3-quarter-long paid fellowship in which students will be paired in topical areas of their preference with Hoover fellows or staff members.

Students in the fellowship will provide research and operational support, while also benefiting from mentorship and partaking in exclusive programming for the fellowship cohort. Students should expect not only guidance from their mentors and research supervisors, but also a chance to learn more about research, policy, and public affairs from influential leaders at Hoover and beyond. The fellowship will take place in-person throughout the academic year.

Applications due: Thursday, August 31, 2023 @ 11:59 PM.

Apply here. (You will need a valid Stanford email address to apply). Note that this is one of many possible research opportunities listed on the program website. The Taiwan project description is below: 

​Governing Taiwan: Making Democracy Work
The student fellow will provide research assistance on a book-length project to examine the evolution of Taiwan’s political institutions after its transition to democracy. The project seeks applicants with an interest in Taiwanese politics, East Asian Studies, political institutions, or the Taiwanese legal system. The successful candidate will have near-native reading proficiency in Chinese and some prior familiarity with Taiwan’s political history and institutions. A background in legal or political studies is a plus.

On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution invites you to a book talk on Divided Allies: Taiwan, the United States, and the Hidden History of the Cold War in Asia, with Hsiao-ting Lin on Thursday, June 1, 2023 from 4:00 - 5:00 PM PT.

Register here to attend this virtual talk. 
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Professor Lin’s book explores the challenges which faced the United States and Taiwanese alliance during the Cold War, addressing a wide range of events and influences of the period between the 1950s and 1970s. Tackling seven main topics to outline the fluctuations of the U.S.–Taiwan relationship, this volume highlights the impact of the mainland counteroffensive, the offshore islands, Tibet, Taiwan’s secret operations in Asia, Taiwan’s Soviet and nuclear gambits, Chinese representation in the United Nations, and the Vietnam War. Utilizing multinational archival research, particularly the newly available materials from Taiwan and the United States, it reevaluates Taiwan’s foreign policy during the Cold War, revealing a pragmatic and opportunistic foreign policy disguised in nationalistic rhetoric.

About the Speaker
Hsiao-ting Lin is a research fellow and curator of the Modern China and Taiwan collection at the Hoover Institution, for which he collects material on China and Taiwan, as well as China-related materials in other East Asian countries. He holds a BA in political science from National Taiwan University (1994) and an MA in international law and diplomacy from National Chengchi University in Taiwan (1997). He received his DPhil in oriental studies in 2003 from the University of Oxford. He has published extensively on modern Chinese and Taiwanese politics, history, and ethnic minorities, including Accidental State: Chiang Kai-shek, the United States, and the Making of Taiwan (2016); Modern China’s Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the West (2011); and Tibet and Nationalist China’s Frontier: Intrigues and Ethnopolitics, 1928–49 (2006).

On May 25, I'm going to join a panel of American Taiwan-watchers at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., for a discussion of cross-Strait and U.S.-Taiwan relations and the upcoming January 2024 presidential and legislative elections. The event will be live-streamed. Details below.  

After eight years under President Tsai Ing-wen, the people of Taiwan will elect a new president in January 2024. The new leader will face major choices about Taiwan’s internal situation, cross-Strait relations, and Taiwan’s ties with the United States and other international actors. How Taiwan navigates these issues will inform its future trajectory.
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On May 25, the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution will host a public event featuring a conversation with top Taiwan scholars Richard Bush, Bonnie Glaser, Shelley Rigger, and Kharis Templeman, moderated by Brookings Senior Fellow Ryan Hass. The panel will examine the future of Taiwan domestic politics, cross-Strait relations, and U.S.-Taiwan relations.
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Online viewers can submit questions via e-mail to [email protected] or via Twitter at #TaiwanFuture.