While Eyes Are on Takaichi, Taiwan's Lai Is Quietly Redefining the Status Quo

Summary

This month, Sanae Takaichi put the whole region on edge during a debate in the Diet’s Budget Committee. She explicitly categorized a Chinese blockade of Taiwan as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan—the legal condition triggering the right of collective self-defense—thereby shattering decades of strategic ambiguity. Beijing’s reaction was visceral. The escalating war of words between China and Japan has captured everyone’s attention.But across the Taiwan Strait, a shift with far more profound consequences for the status quo has already taken place. It did not occur amidst missile launches or presidential addresses, but stemmed from a single administrative order in a rural township in eastern Taiwan.The Purge in Fuli TownshipThe central figure of the story is Teng Wan-hua, who until recently served as the village chief of Xuetian Village in Fuli Township, Hualien County. Teng is a “Mainland spouse” (Lupei), one of approximately 350,000 individuals from mainland China who have married into Taiwanese society. She has lived in Taiwan for 28 years, held a Republic of China (ROC) ID card for 17 years, and in 2022, was elected village chief by her neighbors for the first time.But in early August of this year, Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior issued a directive that effectively ended her career. They demanded she provide proof that she had renounced her citizenship of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). When she could not provide this—because the PRC does not issue such documents to those it considers its own nationals—she was removed from office.Teng appealed, and at the end of last month, the Hualien County Government effectively took her side, revoking the removal order on the grounds that the central government was demanding the impossible. But the Lai Ching-te administration did not back down. In consecutive days recently, the Ministry of the Interior and the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) struck back hard, issuing a new, rigid interpretation: If you cannot...