Can Trump’s Tariffs Make the KMT Great Again?
The KMT is threatening a constitutional nuclear option amid Taiwan’s recall wars. It’s so stupid it just might work.
Look, I understand. The world is falling apart. I know it’s a big ask to ask you to pay attention to the quaintly insane world of Taiwanese domestic politics right now. But believe me…this is juicy. Buckle in.
Recall that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won a record-breaking third term in a row. However, they lost their majority in the legislature. The opposition Kuomintang (KMT) didn’t get a majority either. This means the upstart Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) gets to play Kingmaker, even though they only have 8 seats.
The KMT/TPP are not friends but they soon formed a surprisingly nimble alliance of expedience and started denying the DPP any possible wins at the legislature. With partisan tensions this high, collegiality went out of the door. This is why you might have noticed some particularly epic brawls coming out of the legislature of late.
Both sides found the situation utterly intolerable. The KMT/TPP seethed that Lai got elected at 40% of the vote because they split each others’ votes. Meanwhile the DPP found itself taking L after L, completely stymied at the legislature. Oh how they missed the Ma years, they lamented. The KMT back then was so much more reasonable and collaborative and handed the minority some wins. They kinda forget that they repayed that kindness with 8 years of merrily steamrolling over the KMT minority during the Tsai years as soon as the shoe was on the other foot.
Setting the Stage for a Showdown
President Lai Ching-te’s deep and abiding desire for Taiwanese independence is probably the worst-hidden secret in cross-straits politics. He’s waited a long time for the presidency and he’s not a patient man. A failed palace coup attempt to primary Tsai Ing-wen during the low ebb of her popularity in her first term resulted in the comeback queen putting him in the political freezer as her veep. Alas, the queen had no strong political heirs and Lai finally got her top spot…but not her legislative majority.
I believe this is why the DPP triggered the crazy plan of recalling enough KMT legislators to win back the legislature. They would have to successfully recall at least 6 KMT legislators and win the subsequent by-elections. But hey, why not, right? Recall elections are funny things in Taiwan. It’s not about punishing misconduct, they are more like do-over elections.
The most famous example was probably Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s 2020 recall. He hadn't done anything illegal at all. Kaohsiung voters were just upset because he tried to run for president right after being elected mayor, a major faux-pas in Taiwanese politics.
Firing up the Hate-o-meter
Recall elections are not about persuasion, they’re about mobilization. In short, you have to really give people a reason to take the time out of their busy day to end you. Furthermore, in Taiwan the threshold to recall a legislator is low — just 25% “yes” votes if the “yes” votes outnumber the “no” votes.
This means if you are a lightning-rod like KMT legislator Hsu Chiao-Hsin (許巧芯) who has earned the nickname “honeybadger of the legislature” for her aggressive and meme-able antics, you can be elected with a very comfortable margin yet still be plausibly snipe-able. Her “hatred value” (仇恨值) is through the roof.
But what if the DPP can crank up the “hatred value” not of any particular voter but of the KMT in general? All of a sudden, maybe that 6-seat gap is not totally uncloseable. How do we do that? Paint the entire KMT party as Pandahugging traitors of course.
“The first thing we have to do is to get rid of them because they are not loyal to Taiwan. Can you imagine Ukrainian legislators going on a visit to Russia? It is intolerable,” said one DPP recall volunteer to me at a rally.
I’ve been to multiple DPP as well as KMT/TPP rallies. And let me tell you…as a TPP supporter the vibes at the DPP ones are just so much better. Both sides hate the other, but at the DPP rallies the hate (for the KMT) was elevated by love. Genuine love for Taiwan, for independence and for freedom. It’s the wave of cheers rippling through the young volunteers when a woman said she’ll sign a petition. The Taiwanese, Japanese and American flags all waving together in solidarity. The shining eyes of supporters telling me “I love Taiwan. We are not afraid. And we will not surrender!”
At the KMT/TPP rallies, the the hate for the DPP is equal. But it is somehow unleavened. The other dominant notes are anger, fear and loathing. I say that as a supporter and it cuts me. But it is what it is. And the lack of a positive vision is ballot box poison.
Even though polls pretty consistently say more Taiwanese are against the recalls than for them, I have a feeling I know who’s more motivated to get out on Voting Day.
Dead Voters’ Petition
The KMT is launching recalls for DPP legislators too. However, they are going much less smoothly than the DPP’s recall efforts for KMT legislators. Not only could they not reach anywhere near the numbers of successful recall petitions, they came under intense legal scrutiny for fraudulent signatures on the petitions, including suspicions that some of the signed petitions are from deceased individuals.
Fraudulent signatures on petition are a perennial scourge in Taiwanese politics. Both sides get in trouble for it, but it’s much of a problem for the KMT.
To try and reach the petition threshold to launch a recall election, there’s a lot of outsourcing to grassroots groups. The KMT have their old-school patronage networks that work like a loosely confederated alliance of local fiefdoms that are hard to control. Meanwhile the DPP have spent decades embedding itself into civil society…which is another way of saying it’s basically 10,000 NGOs in a trench-coat. They have more discipline and resources. But hey, rules are rules, right?
The Taipei District Prosecutors Office went full bore, raiding the KMT’s Taipei City headquarters and brought in the local party chair for questioning. KMT cried foul, saying past instances of fraudulent signatures by DPP were not pursued with the same amount of zeal. Is that true or not, I leave you to judge. But the situation have put the KMT in such a bad place that they are considering the nuclear option: Pushing over the Cabinet (倒閣).
A Wild Sun Yat-sen appears
Recall that Taiwan is still technically the Republic of China and its founder Sun Yat-sen had some pretty innovative ideas about how a constitution should be put together. Five branches of government, not three! Intricate mechanisms to make sure they checked each other’s power!
The Premier was originally envisaged to be a far more powerful and independent role. So to check the Premier’s power, Sun added the ability for the legislature to do a vote of no-confidence in the Premier, compelling the President to either replace the Premier or dissolve the legislature and call fresh elections in 60 days. This move is colloquially known as Pushing over the Cabinet.
Actually now Sun’s constitution has been watered down so much the President can fire the Premier at will anyhow. So what’s left is political brinksmanship so stupid it’s like playing Russian Roulette on yourself and hoping the other person dies.
Think about it: The KMT (with their TPP allies) already have the legislative majority! The DPP recall even assuming the judiciary have a thumb on the scale is a massive long shot! Why would they give up this advantage to trigger a complete do-over? Especially as it stabs their TPP allies in the back, which I guarantee will cause the tiny amount of trust that’s been built to collapse. Tactically, strategically and logically it is a brain-dead move!
And yet there’s a chance it just might work.
The Orange Deus-Ex Machina
I don’t think the KMT is playing 4D Chess here. Just like another entitled fading power who feels desperate and cornered, it is Chimping Out. I am of course talking about the Trump tariff gambit threatening to upend the world economy right now. But ironically, Trump’s suicidal and overconfident Hail Mary Pass could somehow save the KMT’s.
You see, a hydrogen bomb is about to explode on Taiwan’s economy 2 months from now, probably. Not just Taiwan’s, of course, but everyone’s. But Taiwan is uniquely unable to take shelter. The US is forcing everyone to take sides like Don Corleone but everyone who’s tried to kneel down and kiss his ring so far has been slapped in the face. Especially Taiwan.
Lai Ching-te have basically given up all of Taiwan’s good cards already. TSMC is Taiwan’s industrial Crown Jewel and he has basically offered it up to Don Trump on a platter. Take $200 Billions of investment! Let TSMC do a Joint Venture with Intel! What other military equipment can we buy? We’ll do anything! Then we were slapped with jaw-dropping 32% “reciprocal” tariffs. What cards does Lai have left? But we haven’t even started with negotiations!
What’s even worse is that Taiwan’s supply chains are so entwined with China’s that the massive (up to 245% or whatever comedy number it is) China tariffs are going to impact a lot of Taiwanese companies pretty directly.
This is why everybody is Pandahugging like crazy right now. The Vietnamese usually loves Americans and are wary of their bigger neighbor. They laid out the whole Red Carpet for Xi’s recent visit. Even countries that can’t directly Panda Hug are at least backing away slooooowly from America and towards China. Taiwan is the only country in the world (hey…we’re on listed on Trump’s Tariff Board as a country, ok?) that does not have the option. We can’t even talk to the panda. That’s treason! That’s why we have to recall all those KMT legislators for! Because they’re pandahugging traitors!
And this is when people might start to think. Wait.
Did it have to be like this?
There’s a lot Taiwan can learn from its favorite son, Jensen Huang, about the art of swimming between two whales. Taiwanese-American Huang, founder of Nvidia, didn’t wait to book a ticket to Beijing right after being told not to sell chips to China.
It doesn’t mean he’s chosen a side. It means he knows what he and Nvidia is worth and what leverage he has. Taiwan could be doing the same.
Instead, we’re so Stockholm-syndromed we’ve convinced ourselves that even to dare “doubt America” is to be disloyal to Taiwan. Even after America has convinced the world that it has plans to bleed all its “allies” dry.
Taiwan’s not ready to be more like Jensen yet. Our eyes are still shining. We are still waving American flags. We can still take more betrayal.
But people are not stupid.
But IF the KMT decide to Push Over the Cabinet and Lai decide to dissolve the legislature and the subsequent elections coincide with massive economic pain coming from the direction of our only serious, if ambiguous, security guarantor, the result just might just be a lot more KMT legislators.
I used to believe in America. A (mostly) benevolent world power who understood the fundamental bargain of leadership: that the leader have responsibilities as well as benefits. Maybe the whole thing is kayfabe and we were just vassals all along. But we didn’t think so. We believe truly that we were partners, even as we also kinda knew what the deal was. Whatever. It worked for us, until very recently.
I think there was also an implicit bargain that the US will be the Last Superpower not because it will be an everlasting empire but that the world would genuinely evolve into a system governed by principles and higher, more evolved bodies where we don’t need the Hegemon with the stick to keep everyone in line anymore. Was it an impossible dream all along? I don’t know. I could have sworn just a few years ago it felt like inevitability.