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. ...