Taiwan’s democratic exception.

The democratisation of [the Republic of China in] Taiwan represents one of the most successful cases of democratic transition in East Asia. It was neither the result of a mechanical diffusion of the Western liberal model nor of the sudden collapse of an authoritarian regime, but rather of a gradual process combining controlled liberalisation, social mobilisation, partisan transformation and identity reconfiguration.

This article argues that Taiwan’s democratic consolidation cannot be understood independently of three intertwined dynamics: the internal transformation of the Kuomintang (KMT) regime, the structuring role of social movements, and the permanent strategic pressure exerted by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in a context of unresolved sovereignty.

Chiang Ching-kuo and Controlled Liberalisation

The first phase of the transition is associated with Chiang Ching-kuo, son of Chiang Kai-shek and heir to the KMT’s authoritarian regime. Educated in the Soviet Union before joining the Nationalist security apparatus, he embodied a form of modernising technocratic authoritarianism. Three years after his father’s death in 1975, he was formally elected president by the National Assembly (which had itself retreated to Taiwan), within a still undemocratic one-party system.

His contribution to the democratisation process lay in implementing a strategy of gradual liberalisation without regime collapse. Under his leadership, the state embarked on a gradual political opening in response both to the loss of its international recognition [1] and to the island’s rapid socio-economic transformation (described as the “Taiwan Miracle”).

Between 1965 and 1985, the island’s real GDP grew by an average of 8% per year, while industrialisation transformed an agricultural economy into an export-oriented one. This development had major political consequences, including the emergence of an educated urban middle class and growing social and professional diversification, accompanied by rising public expectations for political participation.

Kaohsiung 1979 and International Pressure

The dangwai 黨外 (“outside the party”) movement emerged in the 1970s as an informal opposition. It was marked by episodes of repression, notably the 1979 incident in the southern city of Kaohsiung, which represented a foundational moment in the democratic protest movement. A demonstration organised around the dissident magazine Formosa was violently suppressed, and its main leaders were arrested and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

Contrary to expectations, the movement’s leaders were not executed but sent to serve their sentences in the prison on Green Island (lüdao 錄島), southeast of Taiwan. This restraint in the use of state violence is generally interpreted as the result of diplomatic and strategic pressure exerted by the United States, then Taiwan’s principal international supporter in the context of its rivalry with mainland China and, moreover, against the backdrop of the Cold War.

The lifting of martial law in Taiwan on 15 July 1987 constituted the institutional starting point of the democratic transition. In force since 1949 and leading to the period of repression known as the “White Terror” (baise kongbu 白色恐怖) [2] against the local population (147,000 arrests; 3,000 to 4,000 executions), martial law had become increasingly difficult to justify in the face of a more modern and politicised society. From then on, the transition would proceed gradually and without violence.

1986-1989: The Divergence of Chinese and Taiwanese Political Trajectories

From the mid-1980s onwards, the political trajectories of Taiwan and mainland China diverged structurally.

In China, student and urban mobilisations emerged as early as 1986 in the context of the “liberal” reforms associated with Hu Yaobang (1915–1989), then General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party on the mainland, before he was forced to resign by the CCP’s conservative wing.

These mobilisations (the so-called Tiananmen “democracy” movement) reflected growing demands for political reform and action against corruption. In 1989, these dynamics intensified and spread to around two hundred Chinese cities before being brutally suppressed in Beijing by the army on Deng Xiaoping’s orders.

Taiwan followed the opposite trajectory: cycles of protest were not suppressed but gradually incorporated into the process of institutional transformation.

Lee Teng-hui and the Transformation of the State

Lee Teng-hui, the first Taiwan-born president, educated in Japan and the United States, played a central role in transforming the regime. A member of the KMT but shaped by a distinct intellectual trajectory owing to his Hakka (kejia 客家) origins and his Japanese and later American education, he embodied the internalisation of the democratic transition within the former authoritarian party itself.

His fundamental contribution lay in the constitutional transformation of the state. Under his presidency, the reforms of the 1990s put an end to the fiction of a government representing the whole of China. The forced retirement of the mainland parliamentarians known as “frozen in office” between 1991 and 1992, followed by the introduction of direct universal presidential suffrage in 1996, completed the territorialisation of Taiwan’s political system.

For President Lee Teng-hui, relations between Taiwan and mainland China were to be regarded as relations between two distinct states (liangguolun 兩國論, the so-called “two-state theory”), rather than as an internal relationship within a single country, thereby making him the principal architect of the island’s institutional democratisation.

From then on, the state gradually redefined itself as a political entity rooted in Taiwan, through a process of institutional and symbolic Taiwanisation (taiwanhua 台灣化).

The DPP and the Politicisation of Taiwanese Identity

Despite the ban on political parties, the Democratic Progressive Party, Minjindang 民進黨 (DPP), was founded in 1986 and subsequently played a structuring role in transforming protest into a political alternative. Intellectual figures such as international law professor Peng Ming-min (“the father of independence”) contributed to the development of democratic thought linked to the redefinition of Taiwanese political identity [3].

Student movements were a central actor in this evolution. A major turning point came with the “Wild Lily Student Movement” (yebaihe xueyun 野百合學運) in 1990, when thousands of students occupied the square in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei to demand constitutional reform and an end to institutions inherited from mainland China. In contrast to his Chinese counterpart, President Lee Teng-hui chose to meet representatives of the movement, thereby incorporating protest into the institutional process.

The “Sunflower Student Movement” (taiyanghua xueyun 太陽花學運) of 2014 marked a new phase. By occupying parliament to protest against an economic agreement with China concluded by the KMT, which had temporarily returned to power (2008–2016), students challenged not only a public policy but also the trajectory of economic integration with Beijing. The movement strengthened the DPP and durably reshaped the political landscape.

Under the Constitution of the Republic of China [in Taiwan], the president is elected by direct universal suffrage for a four-year term, renewable once. Within this framework, every president elected since the transition has been re-elected for a second term. This regularity reflects the stability of the electoral system and the normalisation of alternation in power as a central mechanism of political legitimacy.

Chen Shui-bian and the Institutionalisation of Alternation in Power

Chen Shui-bian, a former human rights lawyer and figure of the democratic opposition, became in 2000 the first president to come to power through political alternation. A member of the DPP who emerged from the pro-democracy movements of the 1980s, he embodied the assertion of a Taiwanese identity distinct from mainland China.

His term in office marked the consolidation of electoral mechanisms and the growing politicisation of questions of identity and sovereignty. His attempt to hold a self-determination referendum at the same time as the presidential election nevertheless failed in March 2004, although more than 90% of voters supported it, as turnout remained below the legal threshold of 50%.

Ma Ying-jeou and Stabilisation through Economic Interdependence

Ma Ying-jeou, born in Hong Kong, a US-educated lawyer and rising KMT figure, was elected in 2008. His term was based on a strategy of normalising relations with mainland China through intensified economic and institutional exchanges, as well as through the “1992 Consensus”, according to which there is only “one China”, with each side free to have its own interpretation.

This phase contributed to temporarily stabilising relations between the two entities by creating a formula sufficiently ambiguous to allow dialogue to continue.

It encouraged economic rapprochement, but without resolving the fundamental political dispute between the two sides of the Strait.

Tsai Ing-wen and Democratic Consolidation under Pressure

Tsai Ing-wen, a UK-educated lawyer and specialist in international law, became president in 2016 and the first woman in Taiwan to hold the office.

Her principal contribution lay in consolidating a mature democracy under intense external pressure (China). Her status quo doctrine combines the view that any formal declaration of independence is unnecessary with an affirmation of Taiwan’s sovereignty. In doing so, she strengthened the institutional resilience of the democratic regime [4].

Lai Ching-te and Continuity in a Polarised Context

William Lai (Ching-te), a former physician, became president in 2024 after serving as Tsai Ing-wen’s vice-president, on a pro-independence platform. His election illustrates the institutional continuity of the democratic regime, but also the intensification of identity-based polarisation surrounding relations with China. He has adopted the position defined by Tsai: Taiwan is already a sovereign state under the name Republic of China (Taiwan); there is therefore no need to formally declare the island’s independence.

Lai’s election forms part of the continuity of this consolidated democratic trajectory. It confirms the institutional stability of the system and the normalisation of political alternation, but also the persistence of a fundamental divide over relations with China.

However, this internal consolidation is also taking place in an increasingly constrained strategic environment. Politically, domestic balances remain sensitive to cross-Strait dynamics, notably through the positions of the KMT and its initiatives for dialogue with Beijing (see the April 2026 visit by the new chairwoman of the Nationalist Party, Cheng Li-wun), which regularly revive debate over the island’s strategic orientation.

Above all, pressure exerted by the PRC now constitutes the central external factor in the evolution of the communist regime. It no longer relies solely on conventional military deterrence, but on a multidimensional grey-zone strategy: near-daily incursions by fighter aircraft into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns and diplomatic pressure aimed at reducing its international space. These actions are regularly accompanied by military exercises simulating blockade scenarios or control of maritime routes, and even invasion contingencies.

In this context, the future of Taiwanese democracy no longer depends solely on its internal consolidation, which is now firmly established, but on its capacity for resilience in the face of structural and enduring strategic pressure.

Taiwan thus appears as a fully institutionalised democracy under permanent geopolitical pressure, whose stability rests on a fragile balance between internal cohesion, social mobilisation inherited from the cycles of student activism (Wild Lilies and Sunflowers), and the management of an increasingly conflictual regional environment between Beijing and Washington.

Hong Kong as a Counter-Model

Added to this is the evolution of Hong Kong, which has experienced a gradual restriction of its political freedoms, culminating in the mass popular mobilisations of 2014 and 2019.

The “one country, two systems” principle, which Deng Xiaoping had also intended to apply to Taiwan, subsequently gave way to increasing restrictions on political space, particularly following the adoption of China’s National Security Law in 2020, contradicting the commitments made by Beijing in the 1984 Sino-British “Joint Declaration”. This declaration guaranteed the former colony a high degree of autonomy until 2047 (except in matters of defence and foreign policy), as well as the preservation of its rights and freedoms of the press, speech, assembly and religion [5].

Once again, this contrast with Beijing reinforces the perception of Taiwan as the only polity from the Chinese-speaking world to have achieved complete and lasting democratisation, thereby consolidating the process of Taiwanisation.

Structural Fragilities of Taiwanese Democracy

Despite its institutional consolidation, Taiwanese democracy nevertheless remains characterised by certain structural vulnerabilities.

The first is its geopolitical vulnerability, linked to China’s immediate military proximity and the absence of a formal security guarantee (see the ambiguities of the United States’ Taiwan Relations Act, which in theory guarantees Taiwan’s security, compounded by President Trump’s transactional approach), creating permanent strategic uncertainty that could potentially influence the future choices of Taiwanese voters.

The second lies in identity-based polarisation, which continues to structure political competition between competing visions of the nation.

Although the KMT is no longer hegemonic, it remains one of the two pillars of Taiwan’s political system, capable of alternating between government and opposition and influencing relations with Beijing, particularly as the Nationalist Party, together with its current ally, the Taiwan People’s Party (8 seats), currently controls the Taiwanese parliament (Legislative Yuan) in terms of seats, with 52 seats compared with the DPP’s 51.

Finally, Taiwanese democracy faces influence and disinformation operations conducted by mainland China, aimed at weakening its social cohesion and trust in institutions.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Taiwanese democracy cannot be understood without this dual dynamic: on the one hand, a rapid and relatively successful process of institutional democratisation; on the other, a gradual process of Taiwanisation that has redefined the identity foundations of politics.

Together, these developments have resulted in a stable and competitive democratic system, but one that is also marked by structural tensions related to the question of national identity and external pressure. Taiwan thus illustrates the case of a democracy built both from above (through reforms initiated by those in power) and from below (through pressure from society), whose vitality and stability depend on its ability to reconcile political pluralism and identity assertion in an increasingly constrained geopolitical environment.

[1] Marked notably by the expulsion of the Republic of China (RoC) from the United Nations on 25 October 1971 in favour of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), followed by the establishment of diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing in 1979.

[2] Following the incident of 28 February 1947, known as ererba 二二八, triggered by the mistreatment of a contraband cigarette vendor by government agents. This altercation acted as a spark among the Taiwanese population, which revolted and was subsequently violently repressed by the KMT regime.

[3] In 1964, Peng Ming-min and two colleagues drafted the “Formosa Declaration” (Taiwan liangguo lun 台灣兩國論), calling for an end to the Kuomintang dictatorship and the establishment of democracy in Taiwan. This text is regarded as one of the first structured calls for Taiwan’s democratisation and self-determination.

[4] See Tsai Ing-wen’s interview with the BBC on 14 January 2020: “We are already a functionally independent country. And we have our own government, we have our own elections, of course, presidential election, and that is a way to express that we do have sovereignty, and our people elect their own leaders. So, effectively we are a country already.” See President Tsai interviewed by BBC, 18 January 2020, english.president.gov.tw.

[5] Suzanne Pepper, Keeping Democracy at Bay in Hong Kong, 2007.

This publication reflects the views and opinions of the individual authors. As a platform dedicated to the sharing of information and ideas, our objective is to highlight a diversity of perspectives. Accordingly, the opinions expressed herein should not be interpreted as those of the Fondation France-Asie or its affiliates.