Fighting in the Legislature, Protests in the Streets with Michael Fahey

The Strait Up Podcast with Chris Gorin

Fistfights between lawmakers in the legislature. Protests in the streets. Chinese military exercises in the seas around Taiwan. Not to mention a new president. If you’ve been watching news about Taiwan in the last week, that’s probably what you’ve been seeing and hearing. But with so much going on, it can be quite confusing to follow the plot of what’s happening here, and I have an excellent guest to help explain at least part of all this.

My guest is Michael Fahey. Mike is a longtime resident of Taiwan, and makes his living as a lawyer and legal consultant, but he is also a quite influential Taiwan watcher for the English speaking world, and has a great twitter account, which is @shu_wang_gong. Luckily for us, he’s a close follower of Taiwan’s legislature, and his knowledge in that area I think can really help clarify what the issues are in the controversial legislative reform bills at the center of all the chaos in the legislature.

This episode is a long one that covers a lot of ground. We talk about the background issues that led up to this showdown in the legislature, the separation of powers in Taiwan, the basic arguments of the two sides regarding the reform bills, the culture of performative violence in Taiwan’s legislature, why the KMT and TPP seem to be in such a hurry to pass these bills, the KMT’s perceived collaboration with China, how China’s military exercises has affected the debates in and around the legislature, the similarities and differences of the current protests with 2014’s Sunflower Movement, and other topics.

One final note. This is a fluid situation here in Taiwan, and things may change quickly. We recorded this on Saturday May 25th, which I forgot to mention during the recording. There is more action scheduled for Tuesday the 28th both inside the legislature and in terms of protests, so we’ll see how much has changed by then.

Links:

Mike’s Twitter: @shu_wang_gong

Open letter signed by Mike and 29 other scholars about the bills: https://thediplomat.com/2024/05/international-scholars-sound-the-alarm-over-legislative-reforms-proposed-in-taiwan/

Nathan Batto’s blog post about the culture of fighting in the legislature: https://frozengarlic.wordpress.com/2024/05/

Interview with DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming: https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/Taiwan-s-most-senior-lawmaker-says-opposition-wants-another-Hong-Kong

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