I don't want to write this thing about the recall

I wonder if this guy is really pan-blue, or just looking to make a buck. I wonder this at every rally, for every party.

I don't have a better title, either. I don't keep a blog because I'm trying to be the news; I'm usually not even trying to be objective. Taiwan is my forever home, or at least I intend for it to be; I have a personal stake in what happens here. 

The recall result is gutting. Not from an analyst's perspective, per se, but from the perspective of a person who calls Taiwan home -- a person who has grown more pro-independence the longer she lives here, and the more history she reads. 

Nobody thought all 24 legislators would be recalled today, but most of us expected it to be anywhere between 4 and 8. Given the hype, the high number of petition signatures, the number of politicians up for recall who'd barely won their seats, and the general distaste for the KMT's recent pro-China actions, this seemed reasonable.

I personally had been hoping it would be Hsu Chia-hsin (徐巧芯), Lo Chi-chiang (羅智強), Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) and Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇). Not for any strategic reason: there were probably better choices to want recalled than these, who might have flipped a district. I just hate these four on a gut level. 

I didn't want to admit it to myself, but in the weeks leading up to the recall, I'd heard more and more people saying they thought it was too much, or that the DPP had been in power for too long (overriding their previous common-sense that the KMT is dangerously in bed with China). I knew that there were many voters who might not love the KMT, but dislike recalls being used in this way even more. 

It's a fair argument for anyone but the KMT to make -- arguably this isn't the best use of the recall mechanism. It just rankled to hear the KMT make it, seeing as they tried scveral times to use the same mechanism against the DPP. 

I'd hoped that perhaps voters would see beyond this, and understand that at least some of the legislators up for recall deserved to lose office. Hsu, Lo, Fu and Wang, specifically. As a friend noted, the problem here is that not everyone follows politics that closely; we know why they should go, but there are people who genuinely don't remember that Fu, for example, is a criminal, and Wang is a hypocrite.

I'd hoped they'd realize that the KMT's screaming about the DPP being "dictators" and "not democratic" was absolute nonsense, seeing as they were screaming it from the prime rally spot on Ketagalan Boulevard the night before the vote. Dictators don't let the opposition have the best rally position, or any rally at all. I'd hoped they'd realize that this showed the KMT's fundamental unseriousness. 

I was wrong to hope for this. 

I'd hoped that they wouldn't believe the KMT line that the recalls were a DPP-initiated attack. Again, I was wrong to hope for this. The DPP certainly supported it, but they didn't instigate it. A lot of people don't seem to realize this, however -- the KMT framing of the recall worked. Whether or not one agrees that the legislators in question should have been recalled (some should have, others less so), that's a shame. It simply wasn't true. 

Unless the KMT does something to massively screw up in the next few years, today's result may well look bad for the DPP in the next election, even though the DPP weren't the main organizers of the recall initiative. If the KMT is smart, they'll let the voices who don't sound insane take the lead (think: Lu Shiow-yen -- I'd almost certainly hate her as president, but she doesn't sound like a nutter). They already had a good chance to win in 2028. If they do this, they'll have an even better chance. 

In the meantime, the KMT-led legislature has three years to continue undermining Taiwan. Today's win might have given them enough confidence to speed it up. If they win in 2028, there is no obvious way to stop their priming Taiwan for annexation by their good buddies in the CCP.  

With voters seeming a bit sick of having the DPP in power, but no good alternatives that aren't the KMT or their TPP accomplices, there's no obvious way to stand up to the KMT that doesn't necessarily keep the DPP in power. Smaller parties such as the New Power Party, Social Democrats, Green Party and Statebuilding Party have tried and mostly failed to provide non-KMT alternatives to holding the DPP accountable. Many (though not all) of their stars have been recruited into the DPP; great for the party, but not great for building non-KMT choices. 

And can I really hang my hopes on a future-maybe-someday President Miao Poya (苗博雅)? She deserves it and is smart enough for the job, but probably not. 

There aren't very many bright sides, although I am trying to look for them. Unlike the president of the United States, the president of Taiwan isn't a pedophile? I guess that's an upside. 

Can we do better? It's a very good thing that the DPP didn't get to optically involved in the recall campaign. Trying to convince the electorate, already a bit tired of the DPP,  would have been idiotic strategically. The DPP were smart enough to realize that. Good. 

They likely wouldn't have gotten more voters out to support the recall than the activists, who did a great job. At least in my district, you could feel the ire: those recall campaigners were everywhere, even parts of town that didn't really welcome them. I was seeing pro-recall banners in public housing (國宅) typically occupied by the 1949 diaspora and their descendants. The DPP wouldn't have made much headway -- they can barely show their faces there! The KMT regularly holds rallies in public housing courtyards in Da'an; the DPP never, ever does. 

Anyone who truly believed in it would have voted anyway; anyone who didn't wouldn't have. I doubt it would have changed the outcome much; if it had, it would have harmed it. But if they'd been the main instigators or been more obviously involved, it would have been humiliating for them. They'd be on TV bowing and apologizing, rather than making statements that this isn't a defeat or a battle between political parties.

In Da'an, at least, there is a substrate of voters who won't necessarily vote for the KMT -- they regularly elect Miao to the city council and she regularly takes second place -- but would never, ever vote for something promoted by the DPP. There are also KMT voters in Da'an so blue that they're angry about how 'red' Lo Chi-chiang has become. The activists ultimately didn't persuade enough of them, but the DPP wouldn't have stood a chance. 

I'm speaking only of Da'an here, but the same points are likely salient for other districts. The crowd at the rally last night was energized by the fact that this wasn't a DPP-led campaign (it was merely a DPP-supported one). They were singing the anthem of the Sunflowers, not any of the more DPP-coded songs. 

Perhaps I hoped a little too hard that Lo would be ousted because outside the public housing complexes, the area doesn't feel particularly blue. It's important to remember that a lot of the university students who make Da'an interesting aren't registered to vote here. It doesn't matter at all that they're usually not KMT voters.

Another bright spot is that there isn't likely to be another mass recall movement anytime soon. That's not only good because the law isn't well-balanced for what it's meant to achieve, but also because it's so tiring. Voters clearly don't like it, and I wouldn't be surprised if the law was changed yet again (there were changes passed earlier this year). We've now learned it doesn't work in this way, regardless of which party is being targeted, and regardless of who instigates it. 

It doesn't work this way because voters don't want it to work this way. Despite the fact that I desperately wanted the worst KMT legislators kicked out, I suppose that's a win for democracy. Next time someone tells you the DPP is "undemocratic" or "a dictatorship", please remind them of this. 

I know that sounds contradictory: I wanted it to work this time because I specifically dislike many of the people up for recall, but think it's a positive that we're probably done with new recall campaigns for the foreseeable future. Yeah, that's right, I do hold two somewhat-opposing viewpoints in my head at the same time. 

A final bright spot: the KMT probably feels victorious tonight. Sure, okay, they've "earned" it, I guess. Don't forget, however, that tonight only happened because the KMT's own recall initiative against the DPP -- a party-led intiative, unlike this one -- failed miserably. They were the ones who should have been embarrassed, back when it came out that they were putting their own dead moms on the petition. The KMT is unable to feel shame, so they didn't act embarrassed by this, but they should have. 

I don't have much else. This isn't good, and no amount of whiskey, Indian food or looking for brights pots will make it good. 

But it's over, and there are not-terrible things we can say about it. 

There are more recalls coming up in August, but honestly, if Taiwan wasn't willing to oust a convicted frauster, I'm not sure they're going to oust a credibly-accused traitor.

It would be a bad decision to let someone like Ma Wen-chun stay in office, but then it was a bad decision to let a criminal like Fu Kun-chi stay in office. It was a bad idea to elect either of them in the first place. 

But what do I know? I can't vote. I just live here. 

Weekend Recall and Budget Not-So-Shorts

We're at a threshold of sorts in Taiwanese politics, so here's a picture of a cool door from Xianse Temple (先嗇宮) in New Taipei. 

There are a variety of issues I want to talk about, all of which deserve a short post. All of them, however, are immediately important in my opinion. So, let's go with one big post. The end goes a little off the rails but there are trash bags and fake Chinese poetry there for you to enjoy.

The KMT is trying to bribe you

The KMT-led legislature, along with their TPP lapdogs, have just passed an NT$10,000 tax rebate for every citizen. It's unclear of foreign spouses and permanent residents will be included -- this is often decided later and, despite being taxpayers, we sometimes are (as with the COVID vouchers and NT$6,000 surplus cash back) and sometimes aren't (as with the 2008 rebate). 

This comes after debate over the proposed national resilience budget and Taipower grant (more on that later). The KMTPP -- Huang Kuo-chang in particular -- have expended a lot of energy screaming about "high taxes" under the DPP (taxes aren't high) and that the DPP budget proposals were bloated (with the legislature initiating deep cuts while calling it "returning money to the people").

The KMTPP's budget cuts were a major catalyst of the recalls that are creating a mini-election season in Taiwan, so of course now they want to add goodies into the budget that bloat it right back up, right after blaming the DPP for over-spending and over-taxation. 

Basically, the KMTPP doesn't know what it wants, except to not be recalled. There is no clear direction or agenda: either the DPP's budget sucks and needs to be cut, or oh no, please don't recall us, here's NT$230 billion extra in the budget so you can all have some money. It's not vote-buying, it's a tax rebate because the DPP is bad, see? We're spending money because they spent too much money, or something!

From Taiwan News: 

The DPP also accused the Kuomintang of using the promise of a tax rebate to try and fend off recall votes targeting 26 of its lawmakers. The opposition defended its addition of the tax rebate to the bill by pointing at the tax surplus of NT$1.87 trillion accumulated over the past four years. 

Cool, so -- um, quick question. More of a comment than a question really. If we have that big a surplus, then why were you so adamant before that the DPP budget needed to be cut?

They give reasons for the rebate, but none of them make much sense. I can't find a linkable source, but apparently one idea was to take it from the national resilience budget. As a friend remarked, "great, that'll pay for two months of jiu-jitsu classes which will be super helpful if I have to fight the PLA in hand-to-hand combat."

Another reason given are the Trump tariffs, saying that these rebates are needed for economic relief. Maybe, but Trump's rhetoric is notoriously unreliable. Shouldn't we have a clearer picture of how tariffs may impact Taiwan before we add NT$230 billion to the budget?

Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), whom I can't believe we all once thought was a great orator (what?) said this (translation mine): 

If we follow the DPP’s logic, then weren’t Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Su Chen-chang (蘇貞昌) also wrong when they said they wanted to issue cash rebates in 2008? The DPP’s current standard is that taxpayers’ money is [their] money. It can only be given out of the DPP says so. If the DPP says it should not be distributed, then it can't be. If this is not dictatorship, then what is?

Excuse me, but...what? First, weren't the 2008 rebates a Ma Ying-jeou thing? Am I missing something here? Since when were they Tsai and Su's idea? How does that equate to tax rebates only being given out when the DPP supports them?

The DPP did give out stimulus vouchers and tax rebates when they were the ruling party because, well, they were the ruling party. Of course they could pass something like that. How is that dictatorship? 

Regardless, those were given out in the midst of a global financial crisis. Does Huang want to remind Taiwanese voters that they get money when the economy sucks, right after the KMT were the ones to insist on deep budget cuts? Does he really think the DPP only opposes the rebate because it wasn't a DPP idea? It's NT$230 billion, when we're not quite in an economic crisis (yet). 

As for what is and isn't a dictatorship, here's a primer: a dictatorship is when the people in power stay in power, and there are no elections to choose or change leadership. If there is a change in leadership, it's done by those already in power, or it's a coup, not an election. Generally speaking there are limits on freedom of speech and other human rights.

Taiwan is about to have a round of voting. Some legislators up for recall will likely survive it, others will have to step down. Then the respective districts who chose to recall their representatives will vote on new ones. Some will likely vote in another KMT candidate, not a DPPer. The legislature might tip green, or it might not. Either way, the people choose.

In 2028, there will be another election. There's a reasonable chance the KMT will win it. 

Through all of this, the KMT and TPP are free to say just about anything they want in speeches, rallies and anti-recall campaign signs. They control the legislature, for now. 

So no, the DPP is not a "dictatorship". I would have thought Huang would have understood the definition of that term as he was once a professor, but it seems not.

Is Huang Kuo-chang even okay? Perhaps he should see a doctor? 


There's enough money for tax rebates, but not for Taipower?

Taipower is perpetually low on funds, and there are questions over how their budget is used. I doubt they run a highly-efficient organization; both they and Taiwan Railway are somewhat notorious for doing quite the opposite. They spend a lot of money as infrastructure ages despite long lists of people on the payroll. 

The KMTPP, however, is adamant on rejecting an NT$100 billion grant for Taipower in the budget. There was some talk of approving it, but as of today, it seems the provision did not make it through. 

I suppose we'll need to get ready for summer blackouts and the KMT, who rejected the funding, blaming the DPP for them.

I'm not sure, however, that denying them funding is going to fix either that, or Taiwan's power grid issues. Utilities in general, including electricity, are quite low-cost for consumers. Perhaps they're too cheap, and higher rates would force more circumspect consumption. There is, however, a floor of how little power one might consume, especially in increasingly hotter weather, and with inflation creeping up and pay not keeping pace, I would imagine many people simply don't feel they can afford to pay more for utilities. 

Because of this, and the fact that Taipower is a government concern, whether or not utility prices should rise is a perpetual political issue. Voters obviously don't want to pay more, so politicians don't want to approve price increases. Nobody thinks it's well-run, but it's difficult to restructure. But then it never quite has enough money, and the party in power gets blamed for strain on or failure of the grid. 

I have no idea how to fix this, and I don't think full privatization would make it much better. Look at the US grid, which is mostly (entirely?) privately-owned. It's falling apart; it's absolute chaos, and there will almost certainly be a tragic large-scale failure at some point. Electricity prices sure are high though!


The KMT's take on the recalls is...a take

The KMT held a press event the other day to discuss their position on the recalls. You'll be shocked to hear that, as their own recall push failed so spectacularly that someone put their own dead mom on the petition, they are unhappy. 

Here are some choice quotes from Thompson Chau's piece in Nikkei: 

At the same briefing, KMT official Tony Lin called the no-confidence votes a "threat" to Taiwan's democratic system. "We're against Lai Ching-te's dictatorship," he said.

So, when you do recalls it's acceptable -- and you've tried twice now -- but when the DPP does it, it's "a dictatorship"?

Oh Tony, do we need to review the definition of "dictatorship" is, like we did with Professor Huang? It usually doesn't include people voting, nor does it include you being free to call the current leader a dictator and openly speak of opposing them. 

You know what can be defined as a dictatorship? The thing your party did from 1945 to 1996 in Taiwan, if we define "elections" as including a presidential election.

Get in touch, Tony. I'll gift you a dictionary. It's on me, seeing as the KMT is such a walking disaster that it probably can't afford its own. I'll even buy two: one for you, and one for Huang Kuo-chang.

KMT Chairman Eric Chu also branded the no-confidence votes "a disgrace to Taiwan's democracy," and accused the president of acting like Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, remarks that drew backlash from foreign diplomats in Taipei in May.

Oh shit I guess I gotta buy three dictionaries. I'd say you can share but I don't associate the KMT with sharing much of anything.

Again, though, was it not a "disgrace to democracy" when the KMT and their allies did them? The current recall initiative is mostly through civic groups, though of course the DPP is encouraging them and if anything, surprised by the strength of the public's positive reception. Furthermore, the KMT and allies have tried more than once to use the current, perhaps overly lax, recall regulations to take down pan-green legislators. In the latest instance, they broke the law several times trying to go after the DPP. And not just civic groups allied with the KMT -- senior KMT officials themselves have been indicted. 

I guess the KMT thinks it's fine to break the law to get what they want because they spent so many decades as dictators, even though the apparently don't know what the word means.

It gets worse: 

When asked by reporters whether the KMT would reconsider its China policy in light of the recall campaign, Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia said the party would stand by its core position that Taiwan is part of a broader Chinese polity.

"We will be following the constitution -- which is a 'One China' constitution -- and we will be following the 1992 consensus," Hsia said in a briefing, referring to the understanding reached under former President Lee Teng-hui that acknowledged each side's existence.

Okay, so, you hate the recalls, and you hate that the public doesn't seem to like you very much, and you hate that you lost the last presidential election and didn't quite win the legislative one, but you are completely unwilling to re-think the main party platform that has caused you such difficulty with voters? The main reason why they dislike you in roles of national governance? And the main reason why, every time they give you a chance, you fuck it up?

It's almost as though forcing Chinese identity on all Taiwanese is the core reason for the KMT's existence, and if they give it up in favor of a pro-Taiwan approach, they'll lose the only thing that differentiates them from the DPP. Huh.

Chau's a great reporter though. He rebuts the idea that the ROC constitution is "one China": 

The notion that the constitution endorses the "One China" concept is a subject of considerable debate in Taiwan. Professor Hsu Tzong-li, formerly Taiwan's chief justice, has argued that a 1991 constitutional amendment redefined the two sides of the Taiwan Strait as "two Chinas" engaged in "state-to-state relations."

On Wednesday, Hsia reiterated that both sides believe in the "One China" notion. "To Beijing, it's the People's Republic; to Taipei, it's the Republic of China," he said. 

He could have also pointed out that the 1992 Consensus wasn't a consensus at all, but this is still fantastic. His boilerplate is also acceptable: 

China claims Taiwan as part of its territory. 

Succinct and true, and the context of the rest of the article clarifies that Taiwan is sovereign.

It's worth mentioning that regardless of what Hsia insists, every elected president of Taiwan except for one has called Taiwan a "country", and neither president since Ma Ying-jeou has endorsed the notion that the "Republic of China" has a claim on any territories beyond it currently governs.

Hsia is terrible at making a good point: 

Hsia, who served as a senior diplomat and later as minister for China affairs under KMT President Ma Ying-jeou, defended the legacy of his former boss.

For eight years under Ma, Taipei and Beijing had "a stable, peaceful, prosperous cross-strait relationship," Hsia said. He pointed to Taiwan's attendance at international meetings at the time and the signing of trade deals with Singapore and New Zealand as proof of Ma's diplomatic credibility.

Yeah, because Ma was a unificationist and the CCP liked that, so they talked to him. He was actively and intentionally readying Taiwan for unification with China. It wasn't "peaceful" dialogue between two sides, it was capitulation. Besides, the DPP had been perfectly able to hold peaceful dialogue with China, until the KMT collaborated with the CCP to actively undermine them.

And now for some fun recall bits

This building on Minquan East Road is a battleground both for and against the recall of Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇), who is a word nobody should call a woman, but she is one nonetheless. The top billboards support her recall, while the blue and yellow ones oppose it:

You might disagree with what the cartoonish larger billboard has to say about Wang, though I'm not sure why you would. It's basically calling her a CCP collaborator, which is what she is. It's not even the only thing that makes her a terrible person!

At least that billboard makes a case for recalling her. The smaller ones from her supporters don't say anything at all except "come vote against the recall", "don't agree" and "support Wang Hung-wei" -- which isn't an argument. Can they not otherwise defend her?

In other news, New Taipei legislator Chang Chi-lun (張智倫) apparently handed out trash bags as free gifts to voters. Chang's district is traditionally deep blue, but he's facing recall. 

This is objectively hilarious. Also, Chang doesn't look much like his photo, which is common in Taiwanese politics.

It's such a dumb choice of gift -- practical, but the pink color given that he's an accused CCP collaborator and the fact that it's a trash bag both send the wrong message -- that I actually checked to make sure it was real. 

In honor of Chang's choice putting a smile on my face, I wrote some fake classical Chinese proverbs for you (and had the first one checked by a friend). Let's start with Li Bai: 

全世界最奇怪的

就是垃圾自備垃圾袋

-- 李白

We can't forget Sun Tzu: 

如果你的想法不好，

不管你的樣子看起來什麼樣，

把自己像垃圾袋一樣呈現給世界，

光滑的塑膠面

隱藏裡面的東西。

-- 孫子

Finally, we have Du Fu, although this one hasn't been checked by a native speaker:

時代落日

山河綠

古代皇帝就像

他們帝國的殘骸

黃昏粉紅色光芒

-- 杜甫

Anyway.

Wang and Chang are both in blue districts. I think Chang's is deeper blue, as the DPP regularly runs strong candidates in Wang's, which means they think they can flip it, but it's also never gone green since its inception. Fun fact: one of its former legislators was Taipei mayor Chiang Wan-an's (蔣萬安)'s father, John Chang/Chiang, who is legally considered to be the son of former dictator Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). 

Anyway, there's a reasonable chance that if they are recalled, another KMTer will be elected in their stead. I think Wang is more likely to be voted out than Chang, because her district seems like more of a battleground, and she's far more public of a shambling mess. I don't know much about Chang, though. 

My main concern with these blue districts is not that a KMTer will take the place of whomever might be recalled. In fact, perhaps it will scare the KMT into better behavior, at least for awhile. 

Instead, I worry that they'll elect someone who seems better-behaved on the surface, more humble, doesn't exude drama and mess, isn't obviously a CCP collaborator...but who totally is, because the KMT has decided to throw its lot in with the CCP, and the CCP is happy to help get collaborators elected. 

It'll be harder to spot, though, because they'll have learned to keep it down. Then we have to fight that, and be called delusional for thinking these new collaborators are doing anything wrong, and around and around it goes.

A neighborhood perspective on the recall campaigns

There's even a bus decked out with an ad in favor of recalling Lo Chi-chiang (from Da'an Reboot)

The recall votes are less than a month away, and I've been keeping an eye on the campaigning both for and against the removal of my own district's legislator, Lo Chi-chiang (羅智強). I cannot possibly write this without bias so let me be clear: I can't stand Lo, and even though I can't vote, I hope he is recalled.

Small updates (July 9th): I saw the recall bus, and Da'an Reboot put out a schedule for pro-recall rallies. The one on Sunday at 7pm at Tonghua Night Market will feature guest speaker and DPP legislator Huang Jie: 



                   

Frozen Garlic recently wrote an interesting piece on his classification of the different types of districts (or in some cases legislators) facing recall. My district is in his third group: legislators who have been so controversial that anger against their antics has underpinned the overall recall drive. It also happens to be a deep blue district; the KMT has never lost Taipei 6 since it became a single-member district in 2008. Even if Lo is recalled, his replacement will almost certainly be KMT. The best we can hope for is that they'll be a better-behaved, humbler KMT legislator. 

Frozen Garlic noted that the KMT has generally chosen to fight the recalls. In my district that's certainly the case. While it may not always make sense -- low turnout might benefit the sitting legislator in some districts -- it does here. The question isn't whether the KMT has a strong base here, it's whether those furious with Lo can garner a higher turnout than the "vote blue no matter how delulu" crowd.

I'm not an elections expert, but I thought I might add some color to this observation. What does it actually look like to see Lo Chi-chiang fighting for his career in a place where his seat should be so easy to keep that it's essentially a lifetime commission, and yet he's still managing to screw it up?

A little backstory to Lo's election: I get the impression it was the most competitive in this district...well, ever. Miao Poya (苗博雅)  ran a surprisingly strong race against him. She's accused Lo of being something of a drop-in candidate, having resigned his seat on the Taipei City council to run for mayor of Taoyuan against the KMT's wishes, and returning to Da'an/Wenshan in order to run for the legislature in an election which was delayed long enough to allow him to run. There was also a question of when he (re?)obtained residency in the district vis-à-vis the primary.

Regardless, Lo won, because that's what Taipei District 6 does: it elects the KMT. 

Lo sued Miao over these comments during the election, saying she was trying to "prevent him from being elected". That strikes me as a bit odd -- isn't that the whole point of running against someone in an election? To me, Miao's talking points seemed fairly typical campaign talk. The courts agreed, and the lawsuit was dismissed. Keep this in mind for now.

My first inkling that Lo was fighting the recall (or perhaps scared that he might lose) was the deeply unprofessional "newsletter" he handed out in March. The disinformation-laden article at the top of an otherwise boring political flyer pointed toward an effectively-defunct newspaper that seems to be owned by pro-unification actors, through which a fair amount of donations to Taiwanese political campaigns flowed in one direction, and government contracts (?) flowed in another. The Hong Kong-based parent company of this "newspaper" was disbanded in 2022, so the sources of its funding and political donations are, shall we say, unclear.

I can't say for sure to whom those campaign donations went, but considering which legislator handed me that "newsletter" topped with a year-old article from that "newspaper", I can guess. 

Recently, I've noticed more of Lo's anti-recall efforts in the real world, whereas more pro-recall talk online. This is more a reflection of my subjectivity than reality. Of course I'd see more anti-recall action here in Iron Ballot Land (Lo's 鐵票區), and more pro-recall talk on social media, where I preserve my sanity by following the recall effort, but not Lo himself. 

My neighborhood has been inundated with the most useless of all campaign workers: Sign Holder-Uppers. They don't really interact with passerby as far as I've seen -- no conversations, no handing out flyers, not even really smiling or waving. Not at me, nor at any other pedestrians or cyclists I've seen. They're only slightly more obvious than billboards, but a lot more labor-intensive. I imagine they give this job to the most-disliked volunteers.

                     


The recall activists have also been scouring the district, often in the form of scooter crews with pro-recall flags, though I haven't actually seen one. I did come across these flyers, which aren't specific to Lo Chi-chiang. It was handed to me on the street, not stuffed in my mailbox. According to friends who've received it, has been distributed more widely than Lo's district.

The text is comprised of fairly standard pro-recall points. The black and red one with the pro-recall ballot on the other side states the the Legislative Yuan cannot be held hostage by (deputy speaker) Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) and pro-communist forces. This makes sense from a campaign perspective: Fu is widely hated across Taiwan; even people I know who don't follow politics are quick to say they can't stand him or "he's got to go". This includes people who find legislative minority leader Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) irritating -- to quote one person I know, "Ker is annoying but Fu...oh my god!"

The four headings say of the legislators up for recall: "Destroy the Constitution and Trash the Government"; Pro-China, Pro-Communist"; "Weaken National Security" and "Hollow Out Taiwan". 

The white flyer with Fu Kun-chi looking terrible on the opposite side lists six reasons to support the recall: 

1.) The Red Media (that is, pro-China media outlets) are strong and spread conspiracies every day

(This strikes me as absolutely true; the CCP has got its tentacles into quite a large chunk of Taiwan's media, including formerly pan-blue media that has gone completely pro-China. I frequently hear their pro-China nonsense regurgitated by my mostly pan-blue neighbors)

2.) A number of imported Chinese products have hidden origins

(I hadn't heard about this happening specifically but it wouldn't surprise me.) 

3.) Chinese immigrants obtain legal status and 'wash' the population

(This means that the number of pro-China voters is increasing as the KMT seeks to make it easier for Chinese citizens, usually spouses, to immigrate to Taiwan. I'm generally against making it any easier for a foreigner from China to become Taiwanese than a foreigner from anywhere else; on the other hand I worry about rising xenophobia. I'd be more concerned about deliberate CCP influencer plants in Taiwan than spouses.)

4.) Declaring a 'state of civil war' between Taiwan and China

(This discusses the proposed Cross-Strait People's Relations Ordinance" amendments. It's interesting, as many people assume that the ROC and PRC are still technically in a state of civil war. I'm not a legal scholar, but I would assume that despite there being no official treaty ending that war, the constitutional amendments of the 1990s effectively ended it for the ROC side. The government seems to imply this, as well, by positioning the civil war as in the past and highlighting where the ROC government claims jurisdiction.)

5.) National Security Weakened

(Yes, that is exactly what the KMT/TPP alliance is doing through budget cuts and proposals to amend various national defense acts.)

6.) The President's National Security Decision-Making Is Hollowed Out

(This notes that the KMT/TPP proposals regarding the National Security Strategy Act take power away from the president and give it to the Legislative Yuan, which is a violation of the constitution. Having read the constitution several times, I believe this would indeed be unconstitutional. Good thing for the legislature that they hobbled the constitutional court!) 

I particularly like the six-point flyer, because it offers specifics on exactly what these legislators are doing to merit their recall. Sure, it includes an unflattering picture of Fu Kun-chi, but really, the point is that these people are using the legislature to make it easier for China to harass and even invade Taiwan, while proposing clearly unconstitutional laws that it will be harder to roll back with a crippled constitutional court. And these are the people who claim to be the great defenders of the ROC and its sacred constitution!

The hypocrisy of it all makes me sick.

The set-up for Lo's rally

Lo held a morning rally not far from my home in order to get his base fired up about supporting him on July 26th. I didn't go because I have self-respect, but from what I could hear, it started out sounding like a church service (?), then some shouting, and then a rousing playlist of ROC patriotic schlock. 

As I left home to go do more interesting things, I passed some neighbors coming home with what looked like free food and beverages. Although the legal limit on campaign gifts is NT$30 per item, which is why tissues, masks and little notepads are so popular, basic free food items at rallies are allowed. I didn't get a good look at what my neighbors had, but it seemed to be dumplings and drinks. Perhaps not enough, however, to go very obviously against bribery laws.

Online, Da'an Reboot (大安強強滾, which means both "strong roll" and uses a character from Lo's name) is pretty much the only thing I follow on Threads. They have a podcast, too, but I haven't listened to it yet. 

There are several pro-recall songs, too. One of these sounds like a standard pro-Taiwan rock ballad in Taiwanese. Another is a weird AI creation of a Bollywood-style song, which I'm a lot less fond of. The AI Bollywood recall song, however, is still catchier than any of the crap played at Lo's rally. I suspect my neighbors might disagree, though. These songs don't target Lo specifically, though the groups trying to remove him have been posting them to social media.

Lo, for his part, has acted somewhat less insane these days, unsure question mark? He seems to be aware that his seat is in real jeopardy and is, at least online, acting with what seems to be a bit more dignity. I assume it does not come naturally to him. 

That said, remember the part where he sued Miao Poya for saying this election was handed to him through dodgy means? Well, he's also suing the recall campaign for saying he prank-called Ker Chien-ming. He insists he didn't prank Ker, and frankly I don't really care if he did or not. It's his selling Taiwan out to China that matters. 

I do think it's funny that he's suing over it. Prank-calling is childish; maybe he did it, maybe not. But suing someone for saying you did is even more childish. It also shows he takes them seriously enough to try to hobble them with a lawsuit, which is obviously a stupid move.

I haven't heard anything about this since June, so I can only assume Lo realized he made a tactical error that caused him to look like a blubbery tantrum baby and has chosen to no longer emphasize the whiny poopy diaper aspects of his personality. Grow up, dude. 

Frankly, I support the recall because I simply do not think Taiwan should be sold to China, and these legislators are out of line.

This goes beyond Lo spouting deranged nonsense and having dodgy ties to questionable media, beyond Fu being an accused sex pest and convicted felon, beyond the fact that Han Kuo-yu (not up for recall this time, but seriously, fuck that guy) was convicted of negligent manslaughter and Wang Hong-wei equivocates on what is and is not sexual harassment.

They're just plain old filthy hypocrites who are selling out the very "Republic of China" they claim to defend. They're allegedly taking money from the CCP while calling the DPP "communist bandits" -- every last one of them should go.

And not even to tip the legislature back to the DPP, though I wouldn't be mad if that happened. Just to scare the KMT into behaving themselves for awhile, if they're able.

Even though districts like mine will probably just elect another KMTer, I want that legislator scared of losing the job they've just won. I want them to be well aware that one of the bluest districts in Taiwan just kicked out the KMTer they elected, and to act accordingly.

And I want Lo to get his just deserts.

Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) handed me a Bullshit Gazette today

I was sitting at a picnic table in central Da'an trying to enjoy the balmy weather and a mediocre latte earlier today when I was approached by Legislator Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) -- not someone working for him, but Lo himself. He was handing out "newsletters" that, when folded, looked like a newspaper.

Beyond the top third, however, the rest was just generic campaign pap to make Lo look good. I mean, it's mostly nonsense, but it's also nothing we haven't seen before. It's the least interesting thing about Lo's weird fake newspaper and I don't have much to say about it. This Threads post critiques it if you're curious. Some of it is typical district stuff (budgets, social housing, helping the elderly), and some of it is playing up his worst acts as legislator as though they're praiseworthy achievements.

I almost threw the thing in the trash where it belongs, but the fake newspaper caught my eye. Why this design choice? It came with a real article, although the print was so small that it was almost impossible to read. I doubt any of the older people he was handing it to bothered to try. 

But first, a bit about the recalls.

Lo isn't running for re-election yet, but he is facing a recall campaign that has real momentum. Of course, the Bullshit Gazette failed to directly address this. The fact that he walked around in person to hand these things out in solidly KMT-voting Da'an, in a neighborhood where he should be very popular, indicates that he's worried that against all odds, the recall might actually succeed. 

While not particularly likely, it's also not impossible. Activists running the recall campaigns have achieved surprisingly strong results even in the deepest blue KMT strongholds -- including the public housing complex where I was enjoying my coffee.

Even KMT-affiliated pollsters find that the right to recall is popular, and Lo is frequently attacked for unprofessionalism, a lack of substance and prioritizing influencer-like drama over real policy chops. Here's an example: during a questioning session with the chairman of the National Communications Commission (NCC), he screams "do you know what question I want to ask?" and when the chairman responds that he doesn't, he screams "get off the stage!" repeatedly, like a bratty toddler who needs a nap. Apparently, he shouted for 19 full seconds. The Bullshit Gazette mentions his participation in questioning sessions, but not the temper tantrums.

One of his biggest platforms is something he calls "media freedom" (my words, not his), but is entirely limited to fighting for the resumption of CTiTV (中天), a pro-China news network that lost its license over repeated violations, including taking editorial direction from the CCP via pro-China businessperson Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明). CTiTV still has a Youtube presence.

This person in a T-rex costume holding a "recall Lo Chih-chiang" sign looks more professional than that. I'm also a fan of this diss track, though it doesn't have many views.

And that's not even getting into accusations that he's in deep with the CCP, like all of the KMT legislators targeted for recall. He served under Ma Ying-jeou, resigning over the judicial interference kerfuffle with Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘). He tried to run for the presidency, and two city mayorships but the KMT, seeing him as a weak candidate, pushed him aside. He spent awhile in the Taipei city council before running in a district where it would be difficult to lose.

Now, between screaming at the NCC chair and fighting to keep the death penalty, he spends quite a bit of time defending the trips to China of convicted criminal, CCP collaborator and accused sex pest Fu Kun-chi.

In the last election, Luo faced stiff competition from Social Democratic Party candidate Miao Po-ya (苗博雅), who garnered the best result a non-KMT candidate has ever seen in this staunchly blue district, proving that Da'an doesn't have to be a KMT stronghold, per se. Lo should have been able to crush her, but he won by a narrow margin by Da'an election standards.  The DPP isn't doing terribly; they seem to be holding onto popularity better than the KMT.

Where did the article come from, though? Is The Commons Daily (民眾日報) still in print? I'd thought not. Hadn't it at one point taken editorial stances challenging the KMT's Martial Law? Why does it report on statistics with so much circumlocution? (We know the answer to that last one, of course). 

Technically it still exists, but the story is wild. Once a local stalwart, it was bought out by the deeply corrupt Pingtung politician Tsai Hau (蔡豪) who, in 2010, invaded the paper's office claiming ownership rights (it's unclear if he actually had such rights). It was then bought by a Hong Kong company called Yitong (一通科技股份有限公司), which apparently went defunct in 2022. Yitong apparently still owns it (how?) but control was transferred to someone named Tsai Yun-yin (蔡雲夤) under a company with no public profile to speak of. I don't know if Tsai Hau and Tsai Yun-yin are related. 

There are two websites with something similar to that name, neither of which try to hide their pro-unification stances and neither of which appear to have the workings of a whole newspaper behind them. 

They do, however, seem to make political donations and various government tender bids. Huh. 

It's not a lot of money by political influence standards, but I wonder where the money is coming from, and who it's going to.

The article comes from the first of these "The Commons Daily" links, but the logo comes from the second. Tsai apparently runs the first, but writes occasional local news articles for the second. I don't think there's any meaningful difference between them. There's also a barely readable third site with a similar name and content to the first, and probably more.

He seems to spend most of his time advocating for unification. It's just another example of Taiwan's media being intentionally hollowed out by unificationist forces creating pro-China "news" outlets. 

An article from this extremely sketchy source formed the top third of Lo's "newsletter" isn't proof of any direct connection, but it does perhaps imply one. Why choose this article from a shell newspaper controlled by a company that only seems to have one employee -- Tsai Yun-yin -- whose parent company appears to be defunct (so who's funding it?), and whose main activities seem to be running pro-China news sites using the 民眾日報 name and making various political donations? Where is the donation money coming from?

it does imply a level of "newsiness" to an otherwise nonsense article. Rather like the TPP deliberately choosing the name 「民眾黨」as a callback to Taiwanese history, this paper with a similar name and a long history in Taiwan makes a very deliberate implication. The name, the paper's history and the once-local focus give it an air of Taiwaneseness that it no longer has. This is intentional.

The header and article are both from March 2024 (note the year). It name-checks data from the KMT-affiliated Taiwan Public Opinion Center (TPOC or 台灣議題研究中心) which are AI-generated and based on online data -- it's a type of data, but not a poll or survey in the traditional sense. The "top ten" in terms of "voice" that the article references are not ranked in terms of popularity but some algorithm of online impressions and interaction. 

The March 2024 data is here, but what's more interesting is the 2025 version, and Lo doesn't rate. 2025 data also show the DPP has a lot more mobilization.

I found a similar poll from 2024, but from a different source, but Lo's favorability is shown as quite a bit lower than the article's claims (0.41 rather than 0.6). Not that data from 2024 means anything today -- a lot has happened since then.

That's not even getting into the odd presentation of the statistics. If Lo were popular, he wouldn't have to claim (questionably) that he had the highest favorability among this set of politicians in 2024. He could just say he's got high favorability now.  

There don't seem to be any statistics on his current favorability: at least, I couldn't find any after both searching and asking around. This poll from January says 60% of his constituents oppose recalling him, but the recall movement has gained momentum since then, and that's not a favorability ranking. What's more, it's from Lo's own think tank, so there's a conflict of interest there.

I did find this from the TPOC and it doesn't look good, but I doubt it means much: 

Let's talk a little about these think tank names. In a similar vein to using "people's" (民眾, not 人民 which has a bit of a "China" flavor) as a callback to a 1920s political party that advocated democratic reform and home rule, I can't help but notice that Lo's organization, the New Congress Think Tank (新國會智庫), sounds seemingly intentionally like the Taiwan Braintrust in Mandarin (新國會國智策庫). There are no results for Lo's think tank that I can find, but a search implies that the two think tanks are the same. They most certainly are not. 

The TPOC (KMT-affiliated, mostly uses AI-generated data of online influence reported widely by pan-blue media) and TPOF (an actual pollster reported widely by everyone else) have similar naming issues in English, but are more easily differentiated in Mandarin.

Lo's choice of article is also telling: nobody reads the newspaper he copped the article from anymore. It doesn't prove that Lo is in cahoots with the unificationists who hollowed out The Commons Daily to turn it into a pro-China mouthpiece, per se. It doesn't really matter, though; he has about as much substance as the website his "newsletter" quotes, and he's got similarly pro-China rhetoric. It doesn't matter if they're in the same circle of traitors and sellouts; their end goal is essentially the same. 

I'm not the only one to have noticed all this, but I am the only person writing in English who decided to go down this rabbit hole. 

It's quite a bit of effort to try to convince one's constituents that you're popular and influential and fighting for their rights rather than collaborating with Taiwan's biggest enemy. 

But if Lo needs to take an article from an extremely dodgy pro-China source from 2024 to help make his case, he hasn't got a case to make at all. 

The Roach King is now in charge of handling roach infestations

The hilariously unconstitutional expansion of legislative powers has now passed its third reading under the guidance of a hypocrite, an idiot, and a guy who went to jail for corruption. Seriously, this new legislation is the worst game of fuck marry kill one could ever play. 

Honestly, the best thing I can say about caucus Whip Fu Kun-chi is that despite being a sex pest, it's not even the thing he's most famous for. 

So now Fu, a guy so corrupt his name is actually shorthand for corruption -- is now announcing a task force to root out corruption. And there are still KMT and TPP supporters out there who don't see the problem with that. You can be sure, however, that his new "anti-corruption task force" will only target corruption in the DPP. It certainly can't go after corruption in the KMT or TPP, because the guy leading the task force is also one of the most corrupt people in government. We just put King Roach in charge of roach extermination.

Someone asked me today why the KMT would put someone like Fu in a position of power, if he's so awful. My response was "that's an excellent question, you really should consider why the KMT would do that." 

You could say the same for Han Kuo-yu, the presidential nominee who failed so spectacularly that he couldn't even keep his day job as Kaohsiung mayor afterward, who beat up Chen Shui-bian over a misunderstanding and actually killed a guy.

Indeed, why would the KMT elevate men like this? Why would it encourage them to pass sweeping bills extending the legislature's power? There are many possible answers, and none of them look good for the party.


               

And this is why one should be immediately suspicious of legislation meant to "root out corruption": not because taking measures to stop it are inherently bad or useless, but because such initiatives are so often covers for one political group or party to target another. If it reminds you of Xi Jinping's "anti-corruption campaign", which is barely even a cover for destroying anyone who might challenge his reign...it should. The two share very similar goals, and Fu's announcement only cements that. 

The comparison to China is perhaps apt: the DPP have been accusing the KMT and TPP of passing this legislation as a result of collusion with the CCP. I can't prove that the KMT and TPP have been taking direct orders from China on this specific legislation, but dissidents have said that Chinese agents do attempt to undermine Taiwan's democracy, and one even states that China did in fact plan this, or something like it. 

                   


What's more, KMT lawmakers meet with Chinese officials openly and TPP leaders now lean strongly pro-China, no secrecy involved. Fu's recent trip isn't even close to the first one, and senior KMT leaders such as Ma Ying-jeou pretty openly work with the CCP and against Taiwan's interests. 

Frankly, the only reason I wouldn't call that collusion is because that term carries a strong connotation of secrecy or deception. Is it even collusion if they're not trying to hide it? I think the more appropriate term might actually be "treason", but you can be sure that King Roach's new task force isn't going to do anything about that. 

Some might say that the DPP accusing the KMT of collusion with China is baseless; I strongly disagree. I can't say the extent to which such an accusation would hold up in court, but in terms of saying it out loud, there seems to be plenty of evidence. In fact, I'll say it here: although the specific order to pass this specific bill may not have been directly given, the KMT are indeed colluding with the CCP to undermine Taiwan's democracy, and both the DPP and the protesters are smart to see it for what it is. 

Now that I've let out some of my anger about these developments, and I've finally got some free time after the protests, I wanted to look at some of the accusations flying against the DPP. The first is that they proposed the same legislation in the past, so they have no reason to oppose it now. 

                

As with much disinformation, there is a kernel of truth here (the best fake news is often at least partly correct, complete fabrications are less convincing). The DPP did propose legislative reform in the past, and some of their ideas look similar, at least superficially, to what the KMT just passed. 

Here's where critical thinking comes in, to indicate that there might be some disinformation here: if the proposals were exactly the same, then the KMT passing them now implies that they agreed with the core ideas. So why didn't the KMT accept them when the DPP proposed them in 2012? If the DPP wanted this, why didn't they pass it in the eight years they were in power? And if they still want it, why didn't they support the KMT and TPP in passing it now? 

None of that adds up, therefore, there are most likely differences between the 2012 proposals and the current legislation. 

For one, proposals and actual passed legislation are very different things. Proposals are almost by nature imperfect. They undergo discussion and revision and rarely, if ever, make it to law without major changes. Comparing a proposal to a passed law is at its core disingenuous. It's like comparing a clunky rough draft to a published novel. Higher standards must necessarily apply to the latter. 

You can read some of the pertinent documents in a tweet here. Although I can read Mandarin, my government-ese isn't quite sufficient, so I asked a translator friend to double-check (as I don't want to rely on AI tools for this). They do propose formalizing the legislature's investigative power, and do propose punishments for witnesses who lie or fail to appear. However, they do not appear to me to be exactly the same as what has just passed.

An infographic from the DPP outlines the differences between their proposals and the new legislation:

While it would be better to have this from an unbiased source, this is not bad. And this one I can actually read. It compares the DPP's 2012 proposal with the KMT's new slate of laws. 

The DPP proposal: 
- did not mention 'contempt of the Legislature'

- did not mention 'abusive counter-questioning' (these are both called 'vague' legal concepts)

- does not allow for 'continuous penalty'

The KMT-TPP bill: 
- allows the legislature to decide what constitutes 'contempt' or 'counter-questioning'

- allows the legislature to impose multiple penalties (this means they can penalize a witness with fines or jail time for more than one offense during questioning)

- allows the legislature to decide what is and is not punishable

So far, this is true. Nothing I can find from any of the DPP proposals mentions not allowing counter-questioning (although I've struggled to access the legislature's website recently, forbidding counter-questioning has been a major topic of discussion during these protests). 




In fact, I'd go so far as to say this first section is worse than it sounds. If the legislature gets to decide itself what is and isn't "abusive counter-questioning" and "contempt of the Legislature", and can impose consecutive fines or penalties for these, then does each penalized act count as its own case? If you wish to appeal, does each penalty become its own court case that you then have to fight? 

Because that sure seems like an excellent way to  big down people you simply don't like, even if you lose every case. It also sounds like a fantastic reason to fight this bill, and a major deviation from previous proposals. 

The DPP proposal also: 
- limits the existing 'document access rights' to previous judicial interpretations of the scope of the legislature's power (the constitutional court does outline the limits of the legislature's investigative powers, you can read it for yourself)

The KMT law: 
- expands the legislature's ability to subpoena "government agencies, military units, legal persons, groups, relevant persons in society"

- such power constitutionally belongs to the Control Yuan

This too checks out: the new bill does, from my non-lawyer perspective (again, not a lawyer, don't come at me), violate constitutional interpretation #585 above. It does overlap with the Control Yuan's power, and it's no surprise that now the KMT, which pretends to care ever so much about Sun Yat-sen's vision for the ROC government, is now discussing abolishing the Control Yuan.

The Control Yuan has also issued a statement. From Focus Taiwan: 

In response to the passage of the amendments, the Control Yuan issued a statement stressing that investigative powers are exclusively exercised by the Control Yuan under the Constitution and the expansion of the Legislature's powers violates the separation of powers.

The Control Yuan therefore cannot accept the decision, it said, urging the public to take the issue seriously.

You can read the statement in Mandarin via this tweet.

The KMT has tried to quell rumors that this new law can be used to subpoena just about anyone it wants and then punish them based on, well, vibes. However, that's not what the law actually says -- "relevant persons", "legal persons" -- these basically mean anyone. If you think they mean only government officials, you've gravely misunderstood what has just passed.

                   

The KMT has also tried to insist this is an issue of "balance of power", but it's not really: I haven't heard many people say that the legislative reform is entirely unnecessary. As we can see from the DPP"s 2012 proposal, they're not against it either. The KMT would sorely like you to believe that the DPP simply abhors reform, and wants to continue with its corrupt, violent and dissolute ways, and so doesn't want the legislature to have any real power. But if that were so, why did they previously propose reforms? It's simply not true. 

And as for being corrupt and violent, if you want to compare parties here, I suggest you look at the entire history of the White Terror and tell me which party has inflicted more corruption and violence on Taiwan. Because the party that created a bunch of nationalized industries, appointed their nepo babies and crony mafia buddies to ineptly run them as thinly-disguised money funnels, and then committed decades of mass murder when the people protested it is perhaps the more corrupt and violent party, no?

In fact, the legislator who suffered the worst injuries was Puma Shen of the DPP, and at the protests outside all I see is peaceful demonstrators and highly-organized volunteers and civil society groups. What violence, exactly? 

Does this look violent to you?

According to interpretation #585 above, the legislature does have investigative powers as they relate to its functioning, and which do not overlap with those of the Control Yuan. I personally don't have a fundamental problem with formalizing those powers, as long as they are within the scope of current law and the constitution. 

This is...not that. 

In fact, until recently, I didn't really have an opinion on whether the Control Yuan should continue to exist, but now, the alternative seems far worse. This isn't a balance of powers thing, this simply gives a lot more power to one branch of government. 

Parts of it are, as Frozen Garlic points out, almost certainly unconstitutional. The legislature doesn't have the power to compel the executive branch, so they certainly cannot force the president in for a 'state of the union' followed by questioning. In fact, if they do so, can they then decide that the president is not answering those questions well enough and thus can be held 'in contempt'? Is this an attempt at an end-run around the difficulty in impeaching a president under the ROC system?





I don't entirely agree with Frozen Garlic's assessment -- the existence of the Control Yuan and the exceedingly broad writing of the legislation, especially allowing the legislature to decide what is and is not "contempt" or "counter-questioning" make me extremely wary of the whole thing. But he is right about the balance of power issue, and he's right that if substantive discussion had actually taken place, these issues could have been ironed out. 

He is right, however, that there are a lot of unconstitutional elements of this new legislation. It will surely be challenged on those grounds and much of it will, at least in my estimation, be struck down.

As we can see, the DPP is open to legislative reform. They once proposed it! If their proposals had been given any time at all in these 'discussions', if the bill had been examined more deeply in committee, and if the final version being voted on were more available to legislators and the public alike, perhaps all of thise could have been avoided. 

To be honest, if the DPP had tried to pass a law like this, including the broadly-written clauses that give the legislature essentially White Terror-like powers to go after their political opponents, I would have protested it then, too. Even if I had to do it shoulder-to-shoulder with KMT voters.

So the final question remains: clearly the KMT and TPP wanted this to be a public fight. But why? They must have known that this would arouse such massive discontent, that the outcry would be Sunflower-level huge. They know that while their milkshakes don't bring the protesters to the yard, the DPP can and does.

So why bring that on themselves?

Again, this is an excellent question.