While Taiwan considers itself free and democratic, under the DPP administration it has increasingly exhibited illiberal tendencies by taking such actions as shutting down TV news stations; pillorying opposition parties; badgering dissidents; politically interfering in the judiciary; staffing independent agencies with DPP loyalists; using domestic propaganda to mislead the public; and sowing the seeds of animosity among the population. Over the past two years amid the pandemic, the government’s ineptitude has been exposed through its inadequate vaccine procurement and disorderly rapid testing policy. The “proactive, advance measures” that the government likes to trumpet have proved ineffective, for people have still often had to wait in long lines for Covid prevention supplies. Yet the DPP administration along with the Internet bullies who support it have launched vicious attacks against those who question the effectiveness of its Covid policy, even going so far as to brand those with questions as pro-Beijing. By suppressing dissent, the DPP seeks to construct a quasi-party-state system that has the potential to morph Taiwan into an illiberal democracy and an elected autocracy. Concerning developments are many. The following are some of them：

1. On January 5, 2018, Kuan Chung-ming, a professor with the Department of Economics at National Taiwan University, was elected president of that university overwhelmingly by his fellow professors. But the Ministry of Education then acted to nullify his election, violating the University Act of Taiwan and generating popular outrage. More than one year later, in the face of severe criticism from the public and the opposition party, the Ministry finally relented, allowing Professor Kuan to assume office. This episode cost the Ministry three ministers, a first in the history of the Republic of China.
2. On September 12, 2018, Chang Tien-chin, Vice Chairman of the then-newly established Transitional Justice Commission, was revealed by the media to have likened himself to the head of the "Eastern Depot," a secret police agency under the emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Worse, he saw the transitional justice campaign as a tool for electioneering, intended to sabotage the Kuomintang’s New Taipei City mayoral candidate Hou Yu-ih. Public opinion was in an uproar, and he was forced to step down.
3. On June 17, 2019, President Tsai asked that the DPP caucus in the Legislative Yuan revise the Referendum Act, doing away with the then-prevailing practice of holding referenda and national elections concurrently. The new law mandates that the government hold a referendum every two years, specifically on the last Saturday of August every other year. This will dampen voter participation, thereby decreasing the chances of referendum passage. Given its rout in a 10-item referendum in November 2018, the DPP administration maybe intended this revision to spare itself another electoral embarrassment. But this shouldn’t distract us from the fact that this move egregiously contravenes the tenets of direct democracy set out in the Constitution.
4. On December 19, 2019, Hungdah Su, a professor of political science at National Taiwan University, publicly criticized the government’s policy on the Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum. Soon after that, the professor was summoned to a police station for allegedly violating the Social Order Maintenance Act, and was interrogated for several hours. This unprecedented badgering by the authorities, spawning public outrage as it became widely known, infringed upon Prof. Su’s right to free speech.
5. On August 28, 2020, President Tsai unilaterally announced her administration had greenlighted the imports of ractopamine-laden American pork (including offal)—despite the public’s opposition and without first consulting with the Executive and Legislative Yuans. This move triggered severe criticisms that the government deliberately ignored public concerns about food safety and disregarded the people’s freedom to choose their preferred foods. The Defense and Education Ministries as well as the Veterans Affairs Council immediately vowed not to include ractopamine-laden U.S. pork as an ingredient in meals served at agencies, schools, and military units under their jurisdiction, suggesting that these agencies had been in the dark about the affair.
6. On December 11, 2020, President Tsai, acting through the National Communications Commission, ordered the shutdown of CTi News (Channel 52). This incident marked the very first time in Taiwanese history that a TV news channel was put out of business by government—an egregious violation of press freedom.
7. On December 16, 2020, Doctor Su Wei-shuo, a member of an anti-ractopamine pork civic coalition, pointed out the toxicity of ractopamine pork. The Ministry of Health and Welfare then accused the doctor of spreading untruths and reported him to the National Police Agency. Harassments like this create a chilling effect on free speech.
8. On March 28, 2021, President Tsai ignored the fact that the “go green with nuclear” item in the 2018 referendum garnered some 60% public approval. Instead, she insisted on selling fuel rods from the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant to the U.S., in contravention of the will of the people.
9. On November 16, 2021, President Tsai essentially abrogated the decades-old DPP practice of nominating candidates for public office through intraparty primaries. Now the President gets to anoint DPP candidates for special municipalities.
10. In November 2021, the media revealed that a DPP female legislator was repeatedly subjected to physical abuse by her boyfriend. Worse, he secretly filmed intimate videos with her, and thereafter used them as a tool of coercion, thus inadvertently exposing the DPP’s use of Internet bullies to quash dissent. These cyber troops, who appear to have been sponsored by some government unit, are no different than the Gestapo or other secret police that governments in China and elsewhere have used throughout history. Internet bullying of people who dare to dissent from the government led a few years ago to the suicide of a distinguished Taiwanese diplomat in Japan.
11. On December 21, 2021, the ruling DPP initiated a surprise vote in the Legislative Yuan to extract the official budget section of the 2022 general budget from the committee, and forcefully passed it through its Second Reading. This was an unprecedented move in contravention of normal legislative proceedings, and deprived opposing legislators of their budget review power.
12. On December 29, 2021, Kaohsiung City Mayor Chen Chi-mai, a DPP member, admitted that the city government had sent letters to state-owned enterprises such as Taipower, CPC Corporation, and China Steel, as well as some private companies, requesting donations to the tune of NT$500 million for the reconstruction of Kaohsiung’s Shoushan Zoo. Government shakedowns of this sort have exceeded the normal boundaries of a democracy and violated the spirit of clean government. Once the news broke, public outrage ensued.
13. On February 8, 2022, the Tsai administration announced that, effective February 21, 2022, it would officially lift the 11-year ban on Japanese food contaminated by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. This move disregarded the 7.79 million votes (more than 60% of the electorate) against the import of Japan’s radiation-contaminated food in the November 2018 referendum. Moreover, it was premised on the same pretext that the DPP relied on in greenlighting the import of ractopamine-laden U.S. pork — the government stressed that allowing Fukushima food into Taiwan would be necessary if we were to secure a seat in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). This was despite the fact that Izumi Hiroyasu, Japan’s representative in Taiwan, said in 2021 that “the import of Fukushima food and Taiwan’s participation in the CPTPP are not linked.” According to a January 2022 poll by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation on the lifting of the ban on Fukushima food, 55% of the respondents expressed disapproval. Yet the Tsai administration remained recalcitrant, informing former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Taiwan would greenlight Fukushima food later this year. As usual, the government skipped the hassles of persuading the public before making a momentous policy pronouncement, making a mockery of the Legislative Yuan, public opinion—and democracy.
14. On February 20, 2022, Truth Alliance-USA, a pro-Taiwan independence organization based in the U.S., advertised in the New York Daily News demanding that President Tsai resign on the grounds that she “falsely claimed in public to have obtained a Ph.D. degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science. This scandal, dubbed the “ThesisGate” scandal by the media (it is currently under litigation because President Tsai has sued three professors in the U.S. and Taiwan for defamation), has been buzzing in the Taiwanese media for nearly three years. Over the course of this scandal we have seen the president abuse state power and stonewall the matter by acting in concert with the media and the civil service. By doing so, she has severely harmed the image of our civil service and the credibility of our nation.
15. On April 21, 2022, the Finance Committee of the Legislative Yuan reviewed amendments to the Accounting Act. The DPP, leaning on its overwhelming legislative majority, voted to decriminalize misuse of special state affairs funds, without reviewing each article individually. Former President Chen Shui-bian, who on charges of misusing special state affairs funds was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Supreme Court and was subsequently released on medical parole, had previously held an international press conference to advocate for overturning the case. President of the Legislative Yuan You Si-kun voiced his support for the former president’s cause on a radio show, stating that “the parties concerned can present favorable evidence for themselves” and calling on all circles to respect Mr. Chen. In response, the DPP caucus showed remarkable deference to Mr. Chen in proposing the amendment to the Accounting Act, and also abused its majority power by prematurely cutting short lawmakers’ inquiries. This was inconsistent with due process and constituted an egregious interference by the legislative branch in the affairs of the judicial branch.

    16. On April 28, 2022, the DPP, relying on its power as the head of a unified government, used the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee to bully and vilify the opposition party, even affecting some private companies. The Supreme Administrative Court overturned the original ruling by the Taipei High Administrative Court, confirming that the committee need not relent in its pursuit of more than NT$3.2 billion worth of KMT party assets. Under President Tsai, Taiwan has increasingly slid into democratic dictatorship and one-party rule.

16. CTS Television and Public Television, both of which belong to the Taiwan Broadcasting System, have made one mistake after another in news broadcasts, revealing problems in internal operations and quality control. Minister of Culture Lee Yung-te, however, has shown no intention of exercising oversight over the problems, and even bristled at questions posed by legislators. “It’s always a disaster to come to the Legislative Yuan (to answer lawmakers’ questions),” he said, thus displaying a rot that seems to be taking root within the DPP administration.

    18. On May 26, 2022, former Vice President Annette Lu pointed out in an interview on YouTube that her freedom of speech had been encroached upon, and lambasted today’s DPP, saying that it was simply savoring the fruits of freedom that had been handed to them by others. She noted that during the Chen and Ma administrations she had considerable freedom, yet with this DPP administration she was dismayed by the loyalty of much of the media to the powers that be. She even recounted that a TV producer directly told her that he had received an order not to invite her to his show.

17. On May 29, 2022, lawyer Chen Chang-wen wrote an article in a China Times column, recalling that during the Level-3 Covid alert in May 2021 and before clinical trials for vaccines had even been unblinded, President Tsai proclaimed that “the acquisition of domestic vaccines is a national strategic priority.” Chen Pei-Jer, an academician with Academia Sinica and a former member of the Domestic Vaccine Review Committee, resigned because he was worried that the committee would not be able to maintain its independence. He pointed out that “the biggest difficulty in reviewing domestic vaccines lies with President Tsai,” and that the Ministry of Health and Welfare had been subjected to undue influence from the president. The Tsai administration’s flagrant political interference in the medical field injected an autocratic bent into Taiwan’s pandemic prevention efforts. According to the global Covid Resilience Ranking released by Bloomberg on May 26, 2022, Taiwan was ranked 51—out of 53 countries.
18. On May 25, 2022, entertainer Antony Kuo placed a post on Facebook in which he quoted a doctor friend as saying that he had seen “many children perish.” All of a sudden he and many of his supporters were vilified as fellow travelers of the Chinese Communist Party. “They will be held accountable and investigated,” insisted Premier Su Tseng-chang. This was no different than National Taiwan University professor Hungdah Su being interrogated for several hours for his criticism of the administration’s cultural policy, which triggered a chilling effect. And revealed in both incidents was the sad reality that the judicial branch has become a weapon for government favoritism.