On July 26, Taiwanese citizens went to the polls and voted on whether to recall 24 of their 113 representatives—or 21 percent of the legislature. It was an unprecedented moment in the island’s democratic history. Citizens have recalled individual Taiwanese legislators in the past, but never before have they attempted to recall politicians en masse.
The recalls were ultimately defeated. But their very occurrence, and the months of campaigning that preceded them, highlight a fundamental challenge in Taiwan’s politics: deep polarization. Taiwan’s two main political parties, the center-left Democratic Progressive Party and the center-right Kuomintang, increasingly despise each other. Many DPP politicians have suggested the KMT is too sympathetic to China and may be collaborating with the Chinese Communist Party. The DPP’s leader, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, even said that recalling politicians was necessary to remove “impurities” from society. Numerous KMT politicians, meanwhile, have accused Lai of brutal, authoritarian behavior. During the campaign, KMT leader Eric Chu compared the DPP to the Nazis and Lai to Adolf Hitler. The island’s third-biggest party, the KMT-aligned Taiwan People’s Party, also deeply detests the DPP government. The TPP’s leader is facing corruption charges, and the party claims it is being politically persecuted.
Taiwan’s parties, in other words, portray their opponents not just as politically different, but as autocratic traitors. They see themselves, meanwhile, as democracy’s saviors. This deep-seated animosity has led to extreme governmental dysfunction—which is what prompted citizens to mobilize the recall efforts. The KMT and TPP control the legislature, where they consistently oppose Lai’s endeavors. Taiwan’s progressives, furious at the resulting obstruction, thus gathered enough signatures to vote on recalling roughly a third of the KMT’s legislators. Their failure means that extreme polarization will continue to plague the island’s government. In fact, the hatred and gridlock could intensify.
There is still an outside chance the DPP could win the six seats it needs to gain control of the legislature. Seven more KMT legislators are facing recalls at the end of August. But even if the recall efforts succeed, the island as a whole will remain riddled with divisions—which means it will be in a weak position to deal with growing geopolitical threats. Over the last several years, Beijing has become increasingly aggressive toward Taiwan. The People’s Liberation Army has conducted more drills around the island, and senior Chinese leaders have been more blunt about the possibility of military action. To handle this challenge, Taiwan’s citizens and officials will need to be willing to fight for all of the island, not just for their partisan affiliates. Taiwanese leaders will have to create a unified course of action. Instead, right now, they are prioritizing defeating one another over defending the nation.
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE
Across the United States and Europe, analysts and policymakers frequently cite Taiwan as a paradigm of democracy—an inspiring example of how a polity can transform itself from a brutal dictatorship into a thriving liberal state. There is, after all, much about the island to celebrate. It is rich and prosperous, with a powerful civil society and free and fair elections.
But that isn’t the whole story. Taiwan’s parties may respect the freedom of press and the results of contests. But they do not respect one another, and neither do their supporters. Taiwanese citizens suffer not simply from polarization but from affective polarization, where they actively resent people who hold different views and see them as less trustworthy at best and treacherous at worst. Citizens sharply disagree not just about policy but about their island’s core values and future trajectory.
Taiwan’s polarization encompasses many different issues. But it is most dangerous on the question of how best to handle Beijing. Only a small minority of citizens in Taiwan want to join the People’s Republic of China, and almost everyone believes they belong to a separate political entity. But Taiwan’s citizens do not agree on how to protect themselves from Beijing. For the KMT, Taiwan must maintain strong ties with the People’s Republic, leaning into the island’s Chinese heritage in order to assure Beijing of their shared-if-separate connection. The DPP, by contrast, believes there is no way to appease the mainland’s leaders. Instead, it thinks Taiwan can only survive by building a powerful military and strengthening ties with anyone other than Beijing, and particularly with Washington. The DPP also believes that close relations with China threaten Taiwan’s ability to maintain its own identity, distinct from the mainland’s.
The divide over China has fueled polarization in Taiwan for decades. But it has grown worse over the last several years—partially thanks to China’s growing threat. Now, the parties see their opponents as dangerous to Taiwan’s freedom. To much of the DPP, the KMT-TPP coalition has been systematically undermining democracy by pushing through a series of controversial reforms to increase legislative power over the president and by slashing and freezing large swaths of the national budget on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. The KMT and TPP accuse the DPP of being antidemocratic warmongers who are using their power to systematically silence opposition, giving Beijing an excuse to attack.
Both supporters and opponents of the recall elections see these issues as existential in nature. For supporters, the recall was, and is, a matter of national survival. The current crop of KMT legislators has failed to govern competently and is allowing the CCP to erode Taiwanese democracy. Opponents of the recall argued that the DPP seeks to remove the opposition so it does not need to compromise, and that full DPP control of the presidency and the legislature will remove checks and balances essential to democracy. As the recall has unfolded, the parties have further demonized the other side. Legislators have even physically attacked one another in the middle of parliamentary debates. Any sympathy for the other position is akin to treason.
UNITY OR UNIFICATION
Taiwan’s intense polarization comes at a particularly inopportune time. Over the last few years, China’s threats to the island have grown. Beijing is sending planes and ships into Taiwan’s airspace and waterways more often and for longer periods. The People’s Liberation Army now carries out regular drills around the Taiwan Strait. And China’s leadership has become more belligerent in its statements. Last year, for example, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that “the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family. No one can sever our family bonds, and no one can stop the historical trend of national reunification.”
Taiwan’s divisions make it very hard for the island to handle this menace. Consider, for example, the dispute over its budget. Lai and the DPP have called for increasing defense spending. The KMT-led coalition, meanwhile, has called for decreasing it. The dispute between the two ended up freezing billions in military spending, some of which remains locked. This freeze not only weakens Taiwan’s armed forces but also its relationship with the United States. The Trump administration has demanded that Taipei dramatically increase defense expenditures if it wants continued aid. The DPP and KMT, meanwhile, have increasingly different views on the United States. In an April poll, we found that 50 percent of DPP supporters see the United States as a trustworthy or very trustworthy ally, whereas just three percent of KMT supporters and ten percent of TPP supporters think so.
Taiwan will need a national consensus to respond effectively to threats from Beijing. If some citizens see others as evil, and some leaders are portrayed as villains, they may not feel the kind of patriotism required to fight together. If China invades under Lai’s tenure, for instance, many KMT and TPP voters and leaders will blame the president and his administration for provoking Beijing. They might then refuse to defend the island. In a survey conducted in March by Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, 85 percent of DPP supporters said they were willing to fight for the island in the event of an invasion, compared with 48 percent of KMT voters and 54 percent of TPP voters.
Many Taiwanese citizens actively resent those with different views.
Partisans, of course, might change their minds if the People’s Liberation Army starts bombing their neighborhoods. Nothing unifies a society quite like an invasion. But it would take time before Taiwan’s divided population rallied around the flag, and time is a luxury Taipei may lack. In fact, the island would need to rush into action even in the face of a lesser crisis. If Beijing quarantines or blockades Taiwan, for example, the island’s leaders would face a narrow political window in which to define the crisis and coordinate a timely response, before messaging from partisan media takes over. If officials fail to establish a shared narrative and voters retreat into their ideological echo chambers, Taiwan will lose strategic advantages.
Beijing would also do everything it could to foster internal disarray. For example, if the Chinese Communist Party cut off Taiwan’s access to outside communication, it could spread narratives claiming the UN supports its blockade and that no assistance is coming to the island. Beijing, after all, already carries out plenty of disinformation operations to deepen Taiwan’s polarization and foment division. For instance, in both the 2020 and 2024 presidential races, watchdog organizations in Taiwan documented mass social media campaigns from the mainland trying to convince voters that democracy is not worth it, or that a vote for the DPP is a vote for war.
Beijing’s campaigns have created plenty of headaches for Taiwanese officials. But the island’s society would be polarized over the question of China even without mainland efforts. Research on Beijing’s nonstop disinformation campaigns have found it has decidedly mixed effects on political opinion, often backfiring. Many of Beijing’s efforts to scare Taiwanese citizens invoke more cringe than panic. China, in other words, is often adding fuel to a fire that is already raging.
COME TOGETHER
Taiwan’s polarization is a serious security threat. But the island has shown resilience amid even greater challenges in the past. In less than 40 years, Taiwan has successfully charted a path from martial law and authoritarian rule to free and fair elections, despite its contested geopolitical status. There are good reasons to think it can surmount polarization.
The first is that not everyone in Taiwan is a staunch partisan. Polls show that roughly 40 percent of voters do not outwardly identify with any party. Not everyone in this pool is actually nonpartisan; plenty of voters say they are independents but, in practice, always vote one way. Still, there are plenty of Taiwanese voters who shift between camps or want compromise from their leaders. In fact, the recall movement has generated a small but growing sense of solidarity between moderate DPP supporters and moderate KMT ones. They are jointly frustrated over the legislature’s incompetence—and frightened by Beijing’s interference in Taiwanese democracy (which was evident throughout the recall campaigns).
The island’s leaders have also shown their ability to deliver when faced with emergencies. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan was able to present a remarkably unified front to combat the outbreak. Its political leadership quickly joined together in describing the virus as a national security threat, prompting a whole-of-society approach to prevent the spread of the disease. As a result, the island was quite successful at managing the pandemic, especially compared to the many countries, where governments struggled to get full public buy-in to health measures.
None of this means Taiwan’s leaders have to see eye to eye on how to deal with Beijing. There is room for healthy debate. But politicians need to avoid ad hominem attacks, accusations of treason, and demonizing swaths of society. The island’s leaders must show greater cooperation when it comes to matters of defense. Extreme or provocative rhetoric does not increase the relative level of peace in the Taiwan Strait. And by partially collaborating over China, Taiwan’s leaders might be able to broadly heal the island. Defending its current democratic system and way of life, after all, is the one thing that most Taiwanese agree is essential. Finding some points of consensus on this fundamental issue might thus be the first step toward overcoming polarization.
