Taiwan’s Ruling DPP Will Continue Nuclear Phaseout Against the Will of the People

Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) made public a revised national energy policy to continue a nuclear energy phaseout despite a vote by the people of Taiwan to continue using nuclear power.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has determined that the No. 1 nuclear power plant will be decommissioned as scheduled, the service times of the second and third will not be extended, and the project of the fourth will not be restarted.

DPP Leading Taiwan to Power Shortages

Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin warned that Taiwan will suffer power shortages from 2021 due to increasing demand.

DPP President Tsai Ing-wen will stick to the goal of making Taiwan a nuclear-free by 2025 despite repeated calls to restart the fourth nuclear power plant and the results of the Nov. 24 referendums on the issue.

What Will Happen in the 2020 General Election?

There will be new General elections in Taiwan in 2020. Ignoring the will of 59% of the Taiwanese population who voted for nuclear energy seems like it will cause a bad result in the 2020 election.

Nextbigfuture Covered the 2018 Taiwan Election

Nextbigfuture had live blogging coverage on the night of the 2018 Taiwan election. Brian Wang was visiting Taiwan and watched the live broadcast of the voting.

Taiwanese votersdecisively rejected the government’s phase-out of nuclear power, 59% to 41%.

Taiwan 2018 Election Results

The DPP has lost seven of 13 cities and counties.

The KMT had a terrible 2016 election where they lost the Presidency.

China cut relations after the 2016 election.

The KMT was in favor of closer relations with China and has pro-business policies.

President Xi of China threatened Taiwan with a violent reunification. This has caused both KMT and the DPP to reject reunification.