Taiwan Unrest Further Damages Shaky Economic Prospects

Taiwan Unrest Further Damages Shaky Economic Prospects

Last weekend, tens of thousands of protesters rallied in Taiwan against President Ma Ying-jeou, who has become deeply unpopular after a series of scandals.

In the latest scandal, Ma, whose approval rating is now below 10 percent, used wiretap data from the Special Investigation Division to demand that Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng step down. Wang, whom Ma has tried to strip of his membership in the ruling Chinese Nationalist party or Kuomintang (KMT), is a political rival of the president’s.

But the sources of Ma’s unpopularity run deeper. “Ongoing unrest in Taiwan has both political and economic factors, and will certainly impact the 2016 presidential elections,” Shihoko Goto, Northeast Asia associate in the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, said in an email interview. “Certainly, the momentum is in favor of the opposition DPP”—the Democratic Progressive Party—“but it is still a long time before voters can take to the polls.”

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review