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The Current State of Social Movements in Taiwan’s Recall Wave
About the Mass Recall Movement
The Mass Recall, also known as the Recall Wave, is a political and social movement in the Republic of China (Taiwan) during 2025, with the primary goal of recalling elected public officials across Taiwan. The recalls target legislators from both the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Legislators from the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) are all at-large members and therefore cannot be subjected to citizen-initiated recall. At the local level, the targeted officials include the TPP-affiliated mayor of Hsinchu City. In total, the campaign encompasses dozens of legislators and local officials, making it the largest recall movement in Taiwan’s political history.
Parliamentary Controversy
In the 11th Legislative Yuan elected in the 2024 general election, the Kuomintang (KMT, Blue camp) holds 52 seats (plus 2 independents who joined the KMT caucus), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, Green camp) holds 51 seats, and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP, White camp) holds 8 seats None of the three parties has a majority. However, the Blue and White camps gained a majority advantage through cooperation, while the DPP lost its parliamentary majority and became a minority government, described as “small ruling party, large opposition” . The 11th-term legislators took office in February 2024.
During the first session of the Legislative Yuan (February–May 2024), KMT and TPP legislators successively introduced amendments to the Act Governing the Exercise of the Powers of the Legislative Yuan, with related procedures and provisions sparking controversy. After the bills passed, parts were declared unconstitutional and invalid by the Constitutional Court justices. Subsequently, the KMT and TPP pursued amendments concerning the Constitutional Court and, in December 2024 and June 2025 respectively, voted down the vast majority of nominees for justices [Note 3] to prevent constitutional interpretation. This move was viewed by pan-Green figures as paralyzing the judicial branch of the Five-Power Constitution and causing a constitutional crisis.
During the second session of the Legislative Yuan (September–December 2024), the KMT and TPP caucuses proposed amendments to the “three major bills” (the Constitutional Litigation Act, the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act, and the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures), cuts to the FY 2025 (Republic of China Year 114) central government general budget, and amendments to the Police Personnel Act, all of which triggered controversy.
In response to the parliamentary controversies, the public launched protests. Starting May 17, 2024, the “Bluebird Movement” began outside the Legislative Yuan. During this period, some protesters on Threads initially explored the possibility of changing the structure of the legislature, and recall groups gradually formed. Beginning December 18 of the same year, civic groups and the DPP launched the “Winter Bluebird Movement” . Civil society organizations and the DPP caucus argued that the KMT and TPP caucuses repeatedly violated parliamentary rules to push contentious bills, ignored public opinion, and subverted the constitution and governance. Their appeal was that “no deliberation is not democracy” . The two opposition parties, for their part, contended that the principle of “minority yielding to the majority” should be upheld and that launching mass recalls against the opposition harms democracy .
Editor-in-Chief of a Taiwanese cultural magazine: Huang Li-qun
“The ‘pen’ in the hashtag isn’t mine. The pen is yours. All my writing will eventually be digested by the long continuum of human time and will mean nothing. But please go sign the petition—hold a real pen, write your name upright. That is the turning of the five planets; that is the Central Mountain Range; within it there is a trembling giant spirit. When the giant spirit gathers heaven and earth to roar, there will be a great recall, a great success. We Taiwanese have never ceased to stride forward with proud courage.
—Huang Li-qun, ‘I’m Thinking About What Else I Can Say’ (from ‘Passing the Pen, Recall to the End’)”
Huang Li-qun said that doing these so-called “public affairs” isn’t because she’s the editor-in-chief of New Vitality. “I could just as well do nothing—quietly make the magazine, and it’d be fine. Honestly, no one’s policing it.” If so, there must be some force pushing her forward, right? Huang Li-qun answered: “Because the Chinese Communist Party is causing trouble every day!”
She believes that even in Taiwan’s current situation, difficult as it is, one must still strive and try. “When I say ‘it’s useless,’ I mean that what we’re doing won’t make Xi Jinping think more clearly, and it won’t turn the CCP into a reasonable political organization. We can’t change a massive political entity through these scholarly debates—there are just too many factors involved!” She also believes that the most dangerous mindset for “scholars” or “men of letters” like her is thinking they can change the world—“but in fact, they have no chance of changing it.”
Citizens’ Bookstore in Taipei City
After the Lunar New Year, a “mass recall” movement gathered momentum, and Citizens’ Bookstore opened to collect petition forms on behalf of the campaign. But what role should a bookstore play in this civic action? The team went through several rounds of discussion. The first consideration was the potential pressure on bookstore staff. ’o’ol noted, “After all, everyone’s civic literacy differs, and this will inevitably create some additional emotional labor for the clerks. That’s undeniable.”