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Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te marks two years in office on May 20. In recent days, Taiwanese media have reviewed Lai Ching-te’s major policies and controversies since taking office, noting widespread dissatisfaction in Taiwan over the administration’s handling of various livelihood issues and cross-strait relations. Island public opinion criticizes that, after two years under Lai Ching-te, his governance is mired in hardship: Taiwan has lost energy independence, judicial trust, cross-strait peace, and social harmony.
Taiwan’s “United Daily News” summarized multiple problems, including “opposition between ruling and opposition parties dragging down administration,” “widening wealth gap becoming a worrying issue,” and “rising debt making everyone foot the bill.”
Ahead of Lai Ching-te’s two-year anniversary in office, the Kuomintang (KMT) recently released a new cultural promo video titled “Love Is Greatest,” reviewing controversies sparked during the DPP’s years in power. The video’s opening uses a dining table and its dishes to allude to food safety concerns on the island, such as the “Brazilian rotten eggs” and “sprouting potatoes” controversies. The footage then focuses on pitch-black streets following major blackouts in Taiwan, features disorderly scenes of abandoned solar panels in the mountains, and previously, the helpless sight of southern residents using tarpaulins to patch their roofs after typhoon disasters. The video ends by mocking Lai Ching-te: “On your two-year inauguration anniversary, we hope you still remember how to love.”
The KMT states that from Tsai Ing-wen’s inauguration in 2016 to Lai Ching-te nearing two years in office, for nearly a decade, the DPP has proclaimed “love Taiwan” the loudest. But ten years have passed, and it’s worth asking: what exactly is the so-called “love” touted by the DPP? Is it letting Taiwanese people consume risky foods, or telling people to “learn to be understanding” when blackouts occur? The KMT bluntly says that if the DPP thinks this is love, they should look at the helplessness in young people’s eyes. True love should mean letting Taiwanese live in peace, and letting the next generation see a future — “not just paying lip service to loving Taiwan while leaving all the costs for every Taiwanese to bear.”
KMT legislator Lo Chih-chiang said that the promises the DPP made to Taiwanese people ten years ago have not been kept. At the beginning of his term, Lai Ching-te said he would improve childcare, long-term patient care services, social housing, and so on, but none of these have been realized. Lo Chih-chiang sharply criticized Lai Ching-te for showing only arrogance, claiming his combative personality is the root cause of constant conflict between government and opposition.
KMT legislator Lee Yen-hsiu said that with this year’s “nine-in-one” elections, Lai Ching-te, facing poor governance performance, “can only continue to rely on confrontation and ideology to solidify unity within the Green Camp.” She stated that over the past two years, whether in cross-strait relations or ruling–opposition relations, while the DPP claims “communication and reconciliation,” in practice it is constant confrontation and deadlocks: “The people’s ballots will be the ultimate judgment.”
Taiwan’s TVBS News Network recently released a poll showing that for Lai Ching-te’s governance over the past two years, Taiwanese dissatisfaction exceeds satisfaction — satisfaction is at 38%, dissatisfaction at 45%, and 17% expressed no opinion. Additionally, the poll shows that over half of the public lacks confidence in Lai Ching-te’s future governance.
In the two years since Lai Ching-te took office, he has advanced multiple policies. The TVBS Poll Center tracked public satisfaction for 11 major policies, including cross-strait relations, economic development, judicial reform, a healthy Taiwan, sustainable development, energy policy, anti-fraud efforts, among others. The results indicate the public is most dissatisfied with “combating fraud”: 56% of respondents are dissatisfied with the administration’s anti-fraud performance, followed by “judicial reform,” with a dissatisfaction rate of 55%. For cross-strait relations, over half disapprove of the government’s approach.
The TVBS poll shows that public dissatisfaction with Lai Ching-te’s energy policy stands at 53%. Some analyses suggest that this dissatisfaction among more than half the public may be due to concerns over power supply stability, rising electricity prices, and the energy transition.
Public opinion holds that Taiwan’s issues of high housing prices, high cost of living, low wages, and labor shortages have yet to be effectively addressed. Structural crises like a falling birth rate and the loss of medical and nursing staff are growing ever more severe, and escalating cross-strait tensions urgently need to be eased. If Lai Ching-te does not properly adjust course and allows the situation to spiral further, “by the end of his term in two years, he may not only accomplish nothing, but may also bring disaster to the people.”