As Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te (賴清德), was inaugurated this Monday, Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan achieved the unlikely feat of overshadowing the whole event. Fights erupted inside the legislature last Friday as Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators attempted to disrupt the progress of a “contempt of Congress” (藐視國會) bill which could allow the legislature to punish members of the government who don’t provide information it asks to view. The bill is viewed by the DPP and others as dangerously broad. Protests outside the Legislative Yuan are ongoing.
In the context of a year in which over half of experts polled by the Center for Strategic and International Studies have said a crisis on the Taiwan Strait is likely, such an eventful week provides an apt opportunity to ask young people in Taiwan what they think. So, we’ve interviewed three young people we previously spoke to after this year’s elections in the hope of gauging their mood. Eric Wu (吳奕昀) is a 23-year-old who has gone to the U.K. to study for an MA in marketing. Luo Yu-Ching, (羅俞晴) is a 24-year-old National Open University (國立空中大學) student. Alston is a 25-year-old IT technician, who preferred to use only her English name when speaking about controversial political issues.
Views on the Protests — ‘I Don’t Really Follow the Fights‘
The most immediately striking thing that emerges from talking to all three interviewees is that despite large crowds of young-looking people protesting outside of the legislature in recent days, these young people remain outside of the partisan terms of that debate.
Writing via a messaging platform, Wu opened with “I don’t really follow the fights” inside the legislature. His main response beyond this was a procedural complaint, saying it was “really disappointing” to see the fighting, because it would encourage equivalent behavior elsewhere. “Overall, I just don’t understand why [they can] fight in such a place where everyone should be serious and ready,” he said.
Also writing via a messaging platform, Alston was more cynical. “I think what happens inside [the legislature] is more like a show so my only thought is [it’s] hilarious,” she said of the fighting. As for the protests outside, she supports the right of the protesters to be there, but says she “doesn’t quite” understand why they want to. “[In my opinion,] most protests are suppose[d] to be anti-government activities, but their position is anti-KMT and TPP, which is a bit weird for me,” she said.
Luo, who voted for the TPP’s candidate at the last presidential election but not for the TPP in the legislative election, was most supportive of the protests. Writing via messaging platform, she said, “Of course I agree [with the protesters]. It’s not like I agree with them on everything. But I agree with the ideas.” However, again, rather than a really deep engagement with the issues at hand, her support ultimately rests on the idea of a democratic right to protest. “They can do what they think [is] good for the future of Taiwan. As a democratic country, people need to cherish what they have,” she said.
What’s interesting about all three of these positions is that despite the sense of partisan camps solidifying in Taiwan, and the sense of the protests being a major political event, each of these sits at a distance from that. Perhaps this will change if the protests are sustained. But for the moment this is perhaps a minor corrective to any sense that everyone in Taiwan is eagerly picking sides in this debate. A new Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation poll partially supported this, with slightly more than 56% of respondents somewhat agreeing or disagreeing with the bill, having no comment, or saying they “don’t know,” and slightly less than 44% occupying the more definite positions of “really agree” or “really disagree.”
Views on the Next Four Years Under Lai, and China Relations — ‘I Don’t Really Think He Will Do Much‘
Looking further ahead to the next four years, there was a mixture of pessimism and resignation that things will largely stay the same from each of the interviewees.
Wu leaned toward pessimism. For him, the “DPP always use [being] against China as the main tool to win the election, and they have used it for a really long time.” Despite China’s “punishment” drills around Taiwan this week, he doesn’t believe an invasion will happen, and his frustration with that whole discussion translates into wanting to see change for its own sake. “I want to hear something new and something I don’t know, also feel the difference even [it’s] painful.”
But he isn’t nihilistic. There are specific issues he wants to see addressed. He feels the DPP’s main achievement is that China hasn’t invaded yet, but believes other parties may have been able to achieve the same thing and says he cares most about economic gains for young people. “When China invade[s] Taiwan, I [would] rather die in my own house but not die in someone else’s 40-square-meter suite. And I [will] still need to pay the rent even [if] I’m dead, because they normally want people to pay [in advance],” he joked.
Luo expressed a similar view. Though she said she didn’t believe the U.S. would support Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion attempt, she trusts Lai Ching-te’s experience to keep the peace. Like Wu’s, her pessimism really came out when talking about other policy areas. “I feel [things will be] the same. I don’t really think he will do much,” she said of Lai’s domestic agenda.
Finally, Alston expressed a very similar form of pessimism. She said she felt “whoever is the president doesn’t really matter” and that Lai’s history in politics meant he would not enact “significant reforms.” She predicted more of the same from China, saying: “I don’t think China would actually attack us because there would be no practical benefit to doing so.“
Where Alston differed from the other two was that she allowed room for the possibility China might invade. “[I]f they’re talking about odds, then yes, Lai would make that possibility [of an attack] the highest it’s ever been. Also, [China has learned] from the Ukraine and Russia wars that the United States is not going to send soldiers into any war [and] that might increase their confidence in taking down Taiwan,” she said.
Are There Any Patterns Here?
There are a couple of takeaways here. Firs, these views certainly seem to represent a continuation of views expressed during the election, in which young people favored the idea of “pragmatism” offered by the TPP. The form “pragmatism” takes is a desire to break from supposedly petty partisan politics, and to focus on domestic issues rather than relations with China, which again appear not to worry this generation as much as the previous one. Others may very much disagree with the idea that this is a pragmatic position, but the point is that this is how those who hold it view it. There also continues to be a tendency to dismiss Lai Ching-te as representing the status quo — which again is no surprise, given that is how he has often sought to present himself.
But there is one final thing to look at here. The most interesting angle might be that, despite the TPP acting as kingmakers in the Legislative Yuan, giving the KMT the majority that enables it to push through the controversial “contempt of Congress” bill, in this very small sample size the party isn’t suffering any serious blowback. None of our three interviewees sought to implicate it while expressing their frustration or cynicism around partisan fighting, despite it playing a key role in a bill that pulls political energy away from domestic economic issues and toward partisan fighting.
On top of watching the actual events play out, this lack of reaction will be something to look out for in coming months and years, as various experts have predicted the party’s ability to float above the fray may not hold up as it makes contact with power.
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