Taiwan In NorCal

Earlier in May and June of this year, we reported from Taipei on the massive street protests which became known as the Bluebird Movement. These protests were the largest Taiwan had seen in the decade since the 2014 Sunflower Movement. The protests voiced the public’s concern with new amendments to the Law governing the Legislative Yuan or parliament's power and in particular, new investigative powers including the power to subject public officials to fines or jail time if they refused to attend hearings or provide information when asked to do so by Legislators. The Democratic Progressive party or DPP subsequently took a case to Taiwan’s constitutional Court contesting these new legislative powers and in late October the court struck down most of the expanded powers sought by the KMT. In this episode we report from a Nov 4th gathering of the Taiwanese American Federation of Northern California where we spoke to a number of the attendees as well as to the special guest Wang Yi-chuan (王義川) of the Democratic Progressive Party about recent political events in Taiwan as well as how the outcome of the US presidential election may affect US-Taiwan relations moving forward. #Taiwan, #DPP, #KMT, #TPP, #TAFNC