Can Taiwan's KMT stay relevant with long-shot bid to unseat island's leader William Lai?
Taiwan's main opposition party, the
Kuomintang (KMT), has launched a push to unseat Taiwanese leader
William Lai Ching-te in what analysts characterised as a desperate bid to reverse its deepening crisis amid a sweeping recall campaign targeting its lawmakers.
Advertisement
Over the past several weeks, the Beijing-friendly KMT has seen a surge in recall petitions led by pro-Lai supporters, targeting its 35 district-elected legislators. At the same time, dozens of local KMT officials have been arrested for allegedly forging documents in counter-recall efforts against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers.
Prosecutors also raided KMT local chapter headquarters across the island – from Taipei and New Taipei to Keelung, Yilan, Taichung and Tainan – seizing stacks of documents that could be used in future legal proceedings.
Legislators from the KMT and Taiwan People's Party (TPP) – who together have held a narrow legislative majority – have faced mounting criticism from Taiwan-centric civic groups for obstructing the Lai administration.
Lai's team has repeatedly accused the opposition coalition of weaponising
legislative tools to slash government budgets and expand parliamentary powers. The moves have sparked not only domestic disapproval but also drawn concern from the United States and its allies, who have described the tactics as unreasonable and disruptive.
Advertisement
As the opposition has become increasingly embattled, many have questioned whether Taiwan still has a functioning opposition capable of holding the executive to account.
In one of his boldest political moves, the KMT's chairman, Eric Chu Li-luan, led a group of party officials and lawmakers in a protest outside the Taipei District Prosecutors Office on April 17, defying repeated police warnings. The demonstration followed the arrest of the leader of the KMT's Taipei chapter.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
5 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
US Treasury chief slams ‘unreliable' China at House hearing on Trump trade policy
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent slammed Beijing on Wednesday for its aggressive export policies, urged it to be a more dependable partner and depicted China's disjointed economic structure as hurting not only the US but the entire globe. 'China currently has the most unbalanced economy in the history of the world,' Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, told the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. 'They cannot be allowed to export their way back to prosperity, not only for working Americans but for working citizens around the world.' Noting his return hours earlier from two days of negotiating with China in London, Bessent said this week's bilateral agreement offered Beijing a chance to become a more balanced economic player. The deal could also help China boost its domestic consumption rather than extend a long-standing pattern of excessive production distorting the global economy, according to the Treasury secretary. But Bessent urged vigilance. 'China has proven an unreliable partner,' he testified before adding that 'we will see' if it is more reliable this time.
South China Morning Post
7 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Viewed from China, Trump's crackdown on LA unrest seems a risky ‘political gamble'
Chinese analysts have been closely monitoring the Los Angeles unrest , which they said had been exploited by US President Donald Trump for political theatre, jeopardising public safety and stability. One high-profile commentator also predicted that Trump's heavy-handed tactics could escalate into a constitutional crisis. The remarks followed days of protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids, which led to a curfew in some downtown areas of the city aimed at cracking down on vandalism. The comments also came after a breakthrough in US-China trade talks on Tuesday, when the two countries agreed on a framework pending approval from their leaders. The Los Angeles demonstrations have prompted Trump to mobilise thousands of National Guard troops and the US Marines The protests, held in response to a sweeping operation to arrest and deport unauthorised immigrants, have spread to other US cities, including San Francisco, Chicago, Houston and New York. Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Beijing's Renmin University, said the deployment of troops by Trump made his 'despotic nature' much clearer to Americans and added nothing to his domestic prestige.
South China Morning Post
9 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
Tech war: Huawei founder Ren's remarks illuminate China's strategy to overcome US curbs
Recent comments from Huawei Technologies founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei regarding US chip restrictions have shed light on China's strategies to overcome Washington's sanctions, according to analysts. Advertisement In a front-page interview published on Tuesday by the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, the 80-year-old Ren expressed confidence that there was no need to worry about China's access to advanced chips, asserting that the nation could achieve computing capabilities comparable to the best in the world, even though its individual semiconductors still lagged 'one generation' behind those from the US. His remarks came amid widespread speculation on whether China has successfully defied US restrictions by secretly developing a self-sufficient semiconductor supply chain, even though it lacks access to advanced chip manufacturing tools like the lithography systems produced by Dutch company ASML. Ren's view aligns with those of industry insiders suggesting that Huawei's artificial intelligence (AI) chips, enhanced by improved software and algorithms, can deliver adequate computing power to support China's tech development. President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Huawei's Ren Zhengfei during a meeting with entrepreneuers in Beijing in February. Photo: Xinhua Liu Qingfeng, chairman and founder of Chinese voice recognition company iFlytek, said recently that the training efficiency of Huawei's Ascend 910B chips used by his company had surged to 73 per cent of Nvidia's A800 processors, up from just 25 per cent at the end of last year. Advertisement Huawei's initiative to leverage its engineering expertise to address the limits in single-chip performance is evident in its CloudMatrix 384, a comprehensive AI accelerator and rack-scale architecture solution unveiled in April.
