Taiwan, or the Republic of China, is a small autonomous island that lies southeast of the People’s Republic of China. Recent global headlines have positioned Taiwan as a possible target for an invasion conducted by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. While such news has become increasingly common in Western media after Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election, many Americans are still unaware of the types of threats to Taiwanese democracy that the island faces on a domestic level. This essay will use materials on democratic erosion as well as texts on Taiwanese internal affairs to provide a clear, concise, and accurate representation of how Taiwan has faced and debunked aspects of democratic erosion.  This paper also aims to provide a glimpse into the relations between Taiwan and Mainland China and how cross-strait relations impact the state of Taiwanese democracy as a whole. 

Understanding Taiwan in the present requires understanding what Taiwan was in the past and how it arrived at being considered a highly developed democracy. Taiwan was settled by indigenous people six thousand years ago and then was colonized by the Dutch, Spanish, and later by the Han Chinese in the 1600s. In the 19th Century, Imperial Japan conquered Korea, parts of China, as well as Taiwan. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Republic of China’s government, the Guomindang (KMT), was the ruling entity of Mainland China. It worked in conjunction with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to oust the Japanese from occupying China, thus removing the Manzhouguo (Manchurian) puppet state and restoring full power back to the KMT. This reign by Chinese Nationalists was short-lived, as the Chinese Civil War between the KMT and CCP took place, resulting in the CCP gaining territorial control of Mainland China, resulting in the KMT evacuating the mainland and continuing their political control in the newly liberated island of Formosa, what is now commonly referred to as Taiwan. During the 20th century, the KMT ruled Taiwan, yet had goals of unification. The KMT implemented martial law across the island, but eventually democratized after the 1971 UN resolution that decided to refer to the People’s Republic of China as the one and only China. This foiled the KMT’s initial plans of unification, where “the official Taiwanese position on unification was that China should be unified, but under the government of the Republic of China, not of the People’s Republic of China” (Bailey, 2020). 

In present-day democratic Taiwan, the KMT is no longer the only prominent political party. The DPP, or Democratic People’s Party, has held executive office and large amounts of legislative power in the Republic of China from 2000 to 2008, and again from 2016 until now. The party is more left-leaning than the KMT and aspires to forge an individual national identity for Taiwan. Unlike the KMT, the DPP does not wish to reunify Mainland China and Taiwan under the control of the Republic of China. This divergence of Taiwanese political viewpoints is where the first glimpses of democratic meddling within internal politics can be seen. The CCP favors the KMT, often delegitimizing the DPP, and that is due to legislation pushed by the KMT that directly contributes to democratic backsliding. 

When analyzing democratic backsliding in the case of Taiwan, it is essential to understand that “Democratic backsliding is the weakening or disassembling of a given set of democratic institutions. This can sometimes occur with the intention of deepening rather than destroying democracy” (Bermeo, 2016 p.16). Such democratic backsliding that originates from good intentions can be observed in KMT-supported legislation that was rammed through the Legislative Yuan in early 2024. “The legislation is meant to handcuff the executive by allowing the legislature to investigate all executive actions and compel military officers and senior diplomats to reveal sensitive state secrets, under threat of heavy fines and other legal pressure. This would make Taiwan a far less credible partner since any large-scale military or intelligence cooperation is at risk of discovery” (Crospey et al, 2024). Such legislation that aimed for more institutional transparency, in turn, put Taiwan at risk of being perceived as a more volatile economic and military partner to its Western allies. While this case is fairly new, and similar cases have not occurred frequently before, this instance shows that the Taiwanese political landscape is not immune to all forms of democratic backsliding.

While democratic backsliding has not been a significant issue in Taiwan, other aspects of democratic erosion have taken root across the island as political polarization has shown the strength of the fabric of Taiwan’s democratic government and institutions. Polarization is most commonly seen through the KMT and DPP’s differences in viewing Taiwan’s national identity. The KMT believes that Taiwan and Taiwanese people are Chinese, while the DPP strives to create a Taiwanese identity separate from Chinese Nationalism. While it is known that  “Polarization can worsen through mechanisms and processes that are institutional rather than ideological or sociological” (Arugay et al, 2010 p.124), Former Taiwan president Tsai Ying-Wen (蔡英文) has reversed polarization between the two parties by “[embracing] the Republic of China constitutional framework and frequently uses the term “Republic of China Taiwan” to refer to the name of the country.” (Templeman, 2022 p.17). Templeman suggests that Taiwanese polarization, while existent around identity issues especially relating to indigenous groups, is improving, thus kicking off a reverse to the damage polarization has to democracies.

Polarization caused by the Taiwanese population’s mixed opinions on national identity and independence is not the only form of democratic erosion that Taiwan’s institutions have persevered against. During Taiwanese election cycles, disinformation perpetuated mainly by the CCP has posed a large problem for free exercises of democratic processes. During the 2024 Taiwanese Presidential Election, disinformation proliferated online through a widely shared video, where “a woman recording votes mistakenly enters one in the column for the wrong candidate. The message was clear: the election could not be trusted. The results were fake” (Klepper et al, 2024). 

While disinformation has been a long-term worry among Taiwanese regarding their elections, the concept is relatively new. Taiwanese response to disinformation was effective in exposing the rumors to be false, as the video was shared mainly by Chinese officials. Foreign government institutions do not stand as the only breeding ground for disinformation, it can also be found created and spread by “trolls, bots, fake news websites, conspiracy theorists, politicians, highly partisan media outlets, [and] the mainstream media” (Tucker et al. 2018 p.22). Disinformation was resolved in this election, but it is increasingly believed among political analysts and scholars that,“unfortunately for democratic practice, disinformation will likely continue to be a fertile and important topic for future political communication and research” (Freelon et al, 2020 p.151). Taiwanese methods of debunking disinformation in the 2024 election through fact-checking show the government’s ability to resist forms of democratic erosion perpetuated onto itself by foreign adversaries.

While Taiwan has been able to brave the winds of democratic erosion effectively in the past as well as in the most recent presidential election, there are growing concerns about bills passed in the Legislative Yuan as well as the continued proliferation of disinformation during election cycles. In addition to this, the increasing pressure that is generated from tense cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan adds another layer of complexity to many of the problems that the pro-democratic Taiwanese face in maintaining their democratic state. Analyzing different aspects of democratic erosion such as polarization and the management of disinformation has shown that Taiwan has and currently is showing resilience in the face of adversaries foreign and domestic that aim to weaken the democratic bonds that hold the Republic of China’s confidence, stability, and legitimacy together. This conclusively suggests that Taiwan is able to hold its democracy together in times of political and military uncertainty, but the longevity of such efforts is continually tested as China sets its eyes on the island and Western allies commit more security guarantees to the ROC government. 

Photo by Michael Cowden