Politics & Law
Taiwan Politics Review – European Commission report mentions Taiwan
Significant developments over the past month: Ko Wen-je investigation continues, Taiwan congratulates US election winner, Legislative Yuan budget impasse resolved, and more…
By Ross Darrell Feingold
Core Pacific City / Ko Wen-je investigation
On 1 November 2024, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) detention in the Core Pacific City investigation (see Taiwan Politics Review, 30 October 2024) was extended for two more months as prosecutors continue to search for evidence that Ko received a bribe while Taipei City mayor to approve an increase in the redevelopment’s floor area ratio, or that he facilitated an illegal gain for the developer. The Central News Agency published an English-language “Q&A” and “timeline” about the case. On 7 November 2024, prosecutors questioned Ko’s wife, retired paediatrician Chen Pei-chi (陳佩琪), and she followed up by publishing on her Facebook page her and Ko’s combined annual income between 2015 and 2023 based on their income tax filings.
Analysis: Ko did not appeal the extension, just as he did not appeal the District Court decision on 5 September 2024 to detain him. Despite the continued enormous amount of allegedly leaked inside information that some television talk shows or newspapers report, it still remains speculative whether Ko himself received a bribe to approve the increase in the floor area ratio.
Typhoon Kong-Rey recovery
On 31 October 2024 Typhoon Kong-Rey resulted in offices and schools closures throughout Taiwan. In subsequent days President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) inspected damage to agriculture and infrastructure in Yilan. As of Sunday, 3 November 2024, airdrops of relief supplies was necessary for residents of remote mountain towns including towns that remained inaccessible, and over 8,000 households were without power. Agriculture losses were estimated at NT$1.3 billion.
Analysis: Unlike some typhoons that result in angry residents complaining about the speed of rescue and/or recovery efforts, the central, and local, governments appear to have done a good job of rapid response to this typhoon.
Politicians sentenced, go on the run
On 1 November 2024, the Tainan District Court sentenced independent former Tainan City Council Speaker Kuo Hsin-liang (郭信良) to 13 years in prison for corruption. Kuo was also deprived of civil rights for eight years after being found guilty of violating the Anti-Corruption Act by extorting and receiving NT$13 million in bribes from an engineering consultancy with regard to a change in zoning for a land development project. Kuo was formerly a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) until the party didn’t support his run for Tainan City Council speaker in 2018. After being re-elected to the city council in November 2022, Kuo sought to retain his position but lost to the DPP's Chiu Li-li (邱莉莉), who herself was indicted in March 2023 for allegedly bribing councillors during the speakership election (Chiu was acquitted in April 2024).
Also on 1 November 2024, former Taiyen Green Energy chairman and former DPP politician Chen Chi-yu (陳啟昱) failed to show for a hearing in the district court after the high court upheld prosecutors appeal to a district court decision not to detain Chen. (see Taiwan Politics Review, 30 October 2024). At the time of writing, authorities are still searching for Chen.
Analysis: The Taiyen Green Energy case is yet another example of alleged corruption in Taiwan’s green energy sector, and Chen’s disappearance is an embarrassment for the relevant authorities. Unfortunately, there are several recent cases of corruption in a sector that is so crucial to Taiwan’s economic and environmental security.
Taiwan congratulates US election winner
Following Donald Trump’s election as president on 5 November 2024, President Lai, the DPP, the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT), and the TPP each issued congratulatory messages. A pre-election Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation poll found that 49.7% were concerned about the US election, 43.9% were not concerned, 4.9% had no opinion, and 1.5% didn’t know.
Days prior to the election, in an article in the Washington DC publication The Hill, Deputy Foreign Minister François Wu (吳志中) was quoted as saying that Taiwan is “very, very worried” about the US election (though The Hill subsequently revised how it quoted Wu).
Analysis: Taiwan’s concerns include demands from the Trump administration for greater defence spending and whether Trump repeats Biden’s oft-made commitment to send US troops to assist Taiwan if China attacks, as well as higher tariffs whether on goods manufactured worldwide or significantly higher tariffs on goods manufactured in China, which would include Taiwan-owned manufacturing in China.
Post election headlines reflecting worry in Taiwan included “Taiwan faces pressure to boost military spending”, “Trump's approach to Taiwan 'unpredictable'” and “Scholars divided on U.S. military support for Taiwan under Trump presidency”. Industry specific headlines reflecting worry included, “TSMC able to cope with Trump in White House”, “Taiwanese companies assess overseas strategies after Trump election win” and “Trump's tariff threats push Taiwan to help firms move production from China”. Optimistic headlines included “Economics minister upbeat about Taiwan's future despite Trump tariff threats”, “Taiwan key to 'making America great again'”, “Taiwan-U.S. semiconductor cooperation unlikely to change after election”, “Taiwan to devise new means of cooperation with US”, “America First, containing China focuses of Trump's new gov't: NSB chief”, and “Trump's national security advisor pick Waltz touts Taiwan's importance”.
Legislative Yuan budget impasse resolved
On 22 October 2024, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) proposed to increase funding for compensation to Indigenous peoples for a logging ban, as requested by opposition lawmakers, in a bid to break a long standoff over the 2025 central government budget plan. Cho stressed that the "concession" by the executive branch would be a one-off "exception." KMT and TPP lawmakers had demanded that the government budget the funding needed to support the logging ban compensation as a prerequisite for initiating the review of the entire central government proposed budget. Under amendments to the Logging Ban Compensation for Lands Reserved for Indigenous Peoples Act enacted by the Legislature in June, compensation for logging bans on Indigenous lands was increased to NT$60,000 (US$1,856) per hectare, but the proposed central government budget for 2025 only provided compensation of NT$30,000 per hectare.
The issue kept the NT$3.33 trillion 2025 central government budget from passing its first reading, with opposition lawmakers having voted it down five times since the new Legislative Yuan session began on 20 September 2025.
In an earlier effort to end the impasse, on 24 October 2024, Legislative Yuan Speaker Daniel Han (韓國瑜) and Premier Cho agreed that the premier would take questions from legislators about the budget on 1 November 2024 and 5 November 2024. Subsequently, on 7 November 2024, the Executive Yuan (or cabinet) agreed to opposition lawmakers' demands after Premier Cho met with leaders of the Legislative Yuan party caucuses, and on 8 November 2024 the budget was referred to the relevant committees for review.
Analysis: If there is one duty above all others that the Legislative Yuan must fulfil, it is to pass the budget on time. Although it was unlikely that the KMT and TPP would want to pay the political cost for a delayed budget, they successfully forced Premier Cho into conceding to their demands, which might embolden KMT and TPP legislators for future battles with the Executive Yuan.
Lai administration talks zones
On 25 October 2024, Premier Cho said a government plan to transform Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli into an integrated zone (known as the “Taoyuan-Hsinchu-Miaoli Great Silicon Valley Plan”) for the technology industry would lead the charge to equalize economic development in the nation’s administrative regions.
Analysis: Recent governments have all proposed their version of “zones” for manufacturing or other economic activity. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) proposed to create an “Asian Silicon Valley”, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) proposed “special economic zones” and the Taoyuan “airport zone”, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) proposed to make Taiwan a “Green Silicon Valley”, and President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) proposed the “Asia Pacific Regional Operations Center” (APROC) plan for multinational companies to site their regional headquarters in Taiwan. Still available on a government website are comments about the APROC plan made in 1996 by the then European Council of Commerce and Trade (the precursor to the ECCT) chairman Don Birch, who said that “the government is taking too long to put in place the laws, regulations, and other forms of administrative support necessary for the plan's success”.
Taiwan’s Hsinchu Science Park and Southern Taiwan Science Park are extraordinarily successful and perhaps provide the inspiration to create “zones” in other locations around Taiwan.
European Commission civilian and military preparedness report
On 30 October 2024, the European Commission published a report titled “Safer Together, Strengthening Europe’s Civilian and Military Preparedness and Readiness” authored by former Finland President Sauli Niinistö. The report declared that the “EU must signal to the US that it is prepared to pay its way on military and civil preparedness”. With regard to Taiwan, the report said there would be a "staggering" impact on European Union member states in the event of Chinese aggression against Taiwan, and called for the bloc to prepare for "a major contingency in the Indo-Pacific." The report is available in English here.
Analysis: Mentions of Taiwan in bilateral or multilateral reports or joint statements following summit meetings is increasingly the norm among western countries. For example, the “Joint Statement on the Consultations between European External Action Service Secretary General Sannino and United States Under Secretary Nuland” issued on 24 February 2024 included wording that “The United States and European Union affirmed the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and called for the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.” Similarly, the Joint Statement of Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the United States issued on 15 November 2024 after a trilateral summit said “We recognize that peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is an indispensable element of security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. There is no change in our basic positions on Taiwan, and we call for the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues.”
As these mentions of Taiwan have become the norm, we would not read too much into the mention of Taiwan in the Niinistö report absent specific European Union action in response.
European relations in focus
During the week of 28 October 2024, the Czechia national baseball team visited Taiwan and in addition to playing games against Team Taiwan, they had a photo opportunity with President Lai.
On 29 October 2024, Taiwan congratulated Lithuania on its recent election (and at a subsequent press conference, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said that Taiwan hopes cordial relations will continue). Also on 29 October 2024, a French Navy frigate transversed the Taiwan Strait.
On 30 October 2024, the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania and Lithuania’s Central Project Management Agency (CPMA) signed a memorandum of understanding in which Taiwan pledged to provide an additional US$5 million to work with the Lithuanian government to facilitate reconstruction work in Ukraine.
At the Geneva International Film Festival which began on 1 November 2024, the Taiwan government reported that two Taiwan directors’ films were selected to screen, “underscoring the country’s vibrant art sphere”.
On 1 November 2024, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said Taiwan has not recorded any exports of machine tools to Russia since it updated a list of restricted items in March 2024 in line with international export sanctions put in place over the invasion of Ukraine. The list of goods banned for export to Russia “was updated on 8 March and added 77 categories of machine tool-related items according to the Harmonized System (HS) codes used in global trade”, the ministry said in a statement (available in Mandarin).
On 1 November 2024, media reported that “through collaboration between the cabinet-level National Science and Technology Council and Academia Sinica, Taiwan has been approved as an associate member of the European Molecular Biology Conference, “marking a new milestone in the nation’s exchanges with European scientists”. Also on 1 November 2024, media reported that Matthieu Baudouin A Branders, head of the Belgian Office in Taipei, was the sole European representative invited by Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-Yen (盧秀燕) (KMT) to shoot a promotional video for attracting more foreign visitors and to announce the start of the Taichung Shopping Festival.
On 3 November 2024, the government confirmed that a Taiwan volunteer, Wu Chung-ta (吳忠達), died fighting in Ukraine, the second publicly known case after Tseng Sheng-kuang’s (曾聖光) death in battle in November 2022.
On 4 November 2024, the National Science and Technology Council and the French Office in Taipei held a cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and digital technologies workshop.
On 6 November 2024, diplomat Jeff Liu (劉永健) was announced as Taiwan’s new representative to Poland.
On 9 November 2024, MOFA criticized Russia President Vladimir Putin's recent comments that Taiwan was provoking China, saying they were a "distortion." Also on 9 November 2024, a Taiwan businessman announced a donation of 60 disaster relief vehicles to Ukraine.
During the week of 11 November 2024, the 2024 Germany-Taiwan Economic Policy Consultations took place in Taipei.
On 16 November 2024, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged that construction of a chip factory in a partnership with a Lithuanian company has halted, though the ministry claimed that cooperation in semiconductor development with Lithuania will continue.
Also in November, at the Embassy of the Republic of China to the Holy See, an exhibition presented modern art from Taiwan that incorporates technology and religious beliefs to convey universal values of beauty, goodness, and truth is underway.
Analysis: There is a possibility that the new government in Lithuania will request Taiwan revise the name of its representative office from “Taiwanese Representative Office” to the more commonly used “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office”. The motivation for doing so would be to repair trade and other relations with China which soured after the outgoing government agreed that the name could include “Taiwanese”. Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) on 7 November 2024 said the government does not oppose the incoming Lithuanian government restoring relations with China.
Abortion proposal backlash and then backtrack
On 1 November 2024, media reported a proposal by the Ministry of Justice to increase the penalties for abortions not performed in accordance with the permitted parameters under applicable laws. These laws include Article 9 of the Genetic Health Act (available in English and Mandarin) and Articles 288 to 292 in the Criminal Code (available in English and Mandarin). After women's groups voiced opposition, on 5 November 2024 the Ministry of Justice withdrew the proposal.
Analysis: It is unclear why the Ministry of Justice prioritised this issue at the present time, and there certainly was a failure to canvass public and non-government organisation opinions. The Ministry of Justice decision to quickly backtrack will save the government from any further public displeasure over the proposal. Estimates for the annual number of abortions in Taiwan range between 300,000 and 500,000, far higher than the number of births which was, from January to December 2023, 135,571, a decrease of 3,415 compared to 2022, and a new record low in Taiwan’s recorded statistics.
Other political issues to monitor
Among the other issues we are monitoring are a proposal by KMT politicians to set up “free-trade zones” on Kinmen and Matsu which certain non-government organisations oppose, the municipal government in Taichung is unhappy about the result of an environmental impact assessment for additional gas fired generators at the Taichung Power Plant, and multiple physical altercations in the Legislative Yuan over proposed changes to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (available in English and Mandarin) which governs how government public revenues are allocated between the central and local governments; vehement disagreement continued the week of 11 November 2024. There is also a controversy over the Ministry of Digital Affairs NT$300,000,000 expenditure on seniors’ digital literacy for which to date the associated website, according to TPP Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), was visited by less than a hundred netizens.
In addition, on 16 November 2024, a group of lawyers protested against a pending bill in the Legislative Yuan that would change how a Constitutional Court quorum is determined for purposes of issuing a judgement.
Analysis: The proposed change to the Constitutional Court quorum rules makes it appear that the KMT caucus has not forgiven the Constitutional Court for the recent ruling invalidating the expansion of the Legislative Yuan’s powers (see Taiwan Politics Review, 30 October 2024). However, the KMT and the TPP do not seem aligned as of yet on this bill; Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) (TPP - At Large) wrote in a commentary (available in Mandarin) that if passed into law it could result in a shutdown of the Constitutional Court.
Travel by Taiwan politicians
During the final week of October, Deputy Director-General Li Hsiao-hsia (李筱霞) of the Ocean Affairs Council’s Ocean Conservation Administration led a delegation to Japan for meetings with the Japan Clean Ocean Material Alliance, the Japan Clean Ocean Material Alliance, and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies.
During the week of 11 November 2024, Deputy Legislative Yuan Speaker Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) (KMT - Taichung 8th Constituency) visited the United States, followed by a visit with a Legislative Yuan members delegation to France. Also during the week of 11 November 2024, the head of the KMT’s International Department Alexander Huang (黃介正) visited the United States and the head of the KMT’s Overseas Department Charles Chen (陳以信) attended a forum in the Czech Republic. For the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties (known as COP29) in Azerbaijan that began on 11 November 2024, a delegation from Taiwan attended (Ministry of Environment press release available in Mandarin) and had meetings on the sidelines of the main event.
On 12 November 2024, senior presidential advisor Lin Hsin-i (林信義) departed Taiwan to represent “Chinese Taipei” at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Lima, Peru, where he exchanged pleasantries with President Joe Biden and met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
During the week of 18 November 2024, Foreign Minister Lin led a delegation to Lithuania of Taiwan drone manufacturers, and former Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jyn-ping (王金平) visited China and met with Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤).
Also during the week of 18 November 2024, former President Tsai visited Canada to deliver a speech at the Halifax International Security Forum.
At the time of writing, media has reported that President Lai may soon visit Taiwan’s three diplomatic allies in the Pacific (Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu), with stopovers in Guam and Hawaii.
Analysis: The ostensible reason for Foreign Minister Lin’s trip to Lithuania is to market made in Taiwan drones. However, he might also need to discourage Lithuania’s new government from requesting a name change to the representative office. Regardless, there is recent precedent for Taiwan’s foreign minister to visit Lithuania. In November 2023, then Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) visited Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania from 6-12 November.
Notable foreign visitors to Taiwan
During the week of 28 October 2024, foreign visitors included the managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan, Dutch parliamentarians, Estonian parliamentarians, members of the European parliament, and Finnish parliamentarians.
During the week of 4 November 2024, foreign visitors included the governor of Idaho, the president of the Paraguay senate, a delegation of Indian officials to discuss implementation of the agreement for Indian labor to work in Taiwan, and a delegation of United Kingdom trade officials for negotiations with Taiwan under the “Enhanced Economic Partnership” agreed to in 2023.
During the week of 11 November 2024, a delegation of Czech parliamentarians and a delegation of Danish parliamentarians visited Taiwan.
During the week of 18 November 2024, Guam Lieutenant Governor Joshua Tenorio visited Taipei to attend a United Airlines promotional event for new flights between Taipei and Guam starting on 2 April 2025.
Analysis: Following elections in the United States on 5 November 2024, it is likely that politician visits from the US will increase significantly in the coming months. A significant unknown is whether the Trump Administration will dispatch a cabinet member to visit Taiwan, as it did in August 2020.
Ross Darrell Feingold (@RossFeingold) is a lawyer and political risk analyst in Taipei.
Disclosures:
1. Mr. Feingold is a senior adviser to the Asia Pacific Youth Association (亞太青年協會, APYA) a Taiwan non-government and non-partisan organisation that encourages youth in Taiwan to be more involved in public policy issues. The honorary chairmen of the APYA are Mark Ho (何志偉, DPP and current Deputy Secretary-General of the Presidential Office), Charles Chen (陳以信, KMT and current Head of the KMT Overseas Department), and Andy Chiu (邱臣遠, TPP and current Acting Mayor of Hsinchu City); Ho, Chen and Chiu are all former members of the Legislative Yuan. The APYA periodically receives grants from the DPP, KMT and TPP to underwrite the cost of APYA events.
2. Mr. Feingold recently received an honorarium to appear on a YouTube program about geopolitical issues hosted by the TPP Foreign Affairs Department.
3. Mr. Feingold is special counsel to Titan Attorneys-at-Law, which represented the KMT Legislative Caucus in the litigation at the Constitutional Court over the expansion of Legislative Yuan powers, but he is not involved in the matter and the views herein are his own.
