Taiwan Church News

3831 Edition

July 28 ~ August 2, 2025

Weekly Topical

PCT Urges Taiwan Society to Respect Democracy and Seek Consensus After Recalls Fail

Reported by Lin Yi-ying from Taipei

The recall vote of 24 Kuomintang(KMT) lawmakers and Ms Kao Hong-an, a suspended Hsinchu City mayor, was failed on July 26. Rev Peng Chi-hong, assistant general secretary of PCT, who is in charge of the church’s public relations, said “PCT respects the result of this recall vote, for Taiwan is a democratic and free society which cherishes the freedom of speech. We should be open and listen to each other, in order to work together and seek consensus instead of confrontation.”

Analyzing the failure of recall vote, Rev Peng pointed out, “the result shows many people cannot step out of their own comfort zone or homogeneous circle!” “People incline to think the informations they receive every day are the truth of the world, but what they don’t know is that they are bombarded with too many partial or ideological reports, delivered by powerful algorithms of social media coupled with advanced big-data computing techniques, and finally lose an unbiased and deliberate judgment,” he remarked.

Rev Peng said, “democracy is a universal value, and the defeat of recall vote should be respected as it is a decision made by the majority.” He encouraged Taiwanese people to understand the views different from themselves and not to indulge in the same social group, which was not helpful to the common goods of Taiwan society. He also encouraged people not to lose their faith in God’s justice, just like the ancient Hebrew prophets standing firm with the rebellious Israelites and accompany them to go through the punishment and sufferings which they had to pay for after making disastrous decisions.

Rev Ng Tiet-gan, secretary of PCT Church and Society Committee, said that although the recall vote was initiated by civic groups, their campaigns focused more on lofty social media, which instead kicked off KMT’s sense of existential crisis evolving into a somehow very successful yet disgraceful mobilization of its grass-root supporters to deliver a very high turn out.

Facing issues such as chaotic proceedings amid Taiwan congress or the very suspicious fifth-column legislature submissive to China’s CCP regime, warned Rev Ng, “Taiwanese people seem do not feel these crises would do themselves any hurt. The absurd vote-buying bill of giving NT$ 10,000 per person at the last stage of recall campaign, dominated by KMT and PPT lawmakers, is very likely to be the main cause of the recall failure.”

Rev Ng expressed, “ideal of anti-communism chanted by civic groups is deemed as the biggest consensus accepted by Taiwan society, but it still stops short of knocking down KMT’s traditional mobilization rooted so deep among grass-root communities.” “No doubt the failure of the first wave of recall vote on July 26 will make KMT lawmakers more ruthless in future congress sessions,” he expressed his pessimism frankly that Taiwan’s society would turn into turmoil in the next two and a half years till 2028.

Remarkably, Rev Ng gave a ironical forecast that the chances of CCP’s invading Taiwan by force in 2027 would be very unlikely, “if Chinese Communist Party can actually control Taiwan afar from Beijing, with their fifth-column agents carrying on to wreak havoc in Taiwan society.” Such dire situation might came true, warned Rev Ng, “especially when Taiwanese people do not have any awareness of the national security due to the failure of the recall vote to expel those pro-China lawmakers.”

Rev Yang San-hsiong, director of Church and Society Committee of the Taipei presbytery, reminded “in the PCT there are members who do give their reasons to either support or oppose the recall vote.” “Our members are urged to respect each other as competitors in campaign, but not as enemies,” he advised in the interview, “we shall look forward to respecting different voices, putting down our opinions before the truth, and working together for peace, reconciliation and Taiwan’s national security!”

Translated by Peter Wolfe