Why should Taiwan soon vote on the return of the atom?

At the end of August, the population of Taiwan must decide on the revival of a nuclear power plant closed recently. The votes on the atom generally require thoughtful decisions and a long -term risk assessment. With Taiwan, the shadow of China in addition.

Taiwan must complete its exit from nuclear this year. A few weeks ago, the island also closed its last center. Led by the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), the center-left government reached the goal it had set itself in 2016, “a nuclearless country” in 2025.

But in a few days too, the Taiwanese and Taiwanese will have to decide by referendum on the restoration of the Maanshan-2 power station. How did we get to this situation on the island?

Director of the Research Department on Relations between China and Taiwan at the University of Zurich, Simona Grano recalls that “nuclear energy has always been an important theme in Taiwan”. And the often object of referendums. “The question of nuclear has a long history which concerns the entire political class,” she explains.

Referendum vs direct democracy

This vote is also similar to a counterattack of the opposition party, Kuomintang (KMT), which relies on direct democracy to make its voice heard.

Allied with another opposition formation, the KMT holds a majority of seats in the national parliament. But it was threatened, because in parallel with the ballot on nuclear power plants, several votes calling for certain elected officials and certain elected officials of the party were organized. These parliamentarians were accused by their opponents of maintaining too close ties with China.

Last spring, in the defensive, the KMT had retaliated to these attacks by offering four objects in the referendum, including one on the death penalty. However, the electoral commission has only authorized the holding of one, that concerning the restoration of the Maanshan-2 nuclear power plant.

Then at the end of July, the KMT won these so -called “revocation” votes, thus avoiding the dismissal of its deputies. The ballot in the power plant is to come, but it is now the governmentExternal link Taiwanese who is on the alert.

Strength of progress praised under the kmt diktat

The nuclear theme remains closely linked to the democratization of the island. The KMT, a pro-Chinese nationalist party which led the country for a long time before it converted to democracy, once presented nuclear as a progressive solution contributing to making Taiwan an economically strong country.

At the time of the dictatorship, the opposition “could not attack the KMT head -on but has taken up nuclear and environmental issues to thwart its political projects,” recalls Simona Grano.

This trend continued throughout the 1990s. “At the time, social movements and political opposition which were repressed chose theme of antinuclear as an angle of attack to criticize the state,” she writes in her workExternal link titled «Environmental Governance in Taiwan» (Environmental governance in Taiwan).

To this is added that after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 in Japan, the population also began to be very critical of the atom.

In addition, the construction of a fourth central was accompanied at the time of a series of corruption scandals. In March 2013, around 200,000 people had demonstrated to claim the work stopping.

What would the island do in case of Chinese blockade?

The PDP, which constituted the main opposition force, then conquered power in 2016, and continued its nuclear release program. The fact that a majority of the population decided by referendum in 2018 to question this law has changed anything and the agenda remained the same.

But the PDP has put a little water from its wine from a little by being less fiercely anti -nuclear than before, confirms Simona Grano. “Geopolitical changes in the world today push the government to be more pragmatic and less ideological,” she depicts.

On the island, fossil fuels continue to compose the large part of the energy mix. In 2022, 80External link% electricity came from coal and gas. And the raw materials are imported, a dependence that weakens the island. “Natural gas is imported. Everything is imported. If China decides a blockade, the island would have a big problem in terms of self-sufficiency, “she said.

Coal comes mainly from AustraliaExternal linkof Indonesia and Russia. As a reminder, tensions with China, which does not recognize the independence of the island (and slows down other countries to do so through its single China policy), have intensified in recent years. A comment from the online media The diplomatExternal link Up to qualifying the exit from nuclear to Taiwan as “self-inflicted Achilles heel”, believing that nuclear power is the only source of energy that China would dare not attack in the event of an invasion.

The file also has an economic dimension. Taiwan is indeed one of the main producers in the world of semiconductors, a product whose manufacturing is very greedy in energy. However, for some time now, the power cuts have multiplied on the island.

Simona Grano would not be very surprised that at the end of this month a majority of the population opted for the maintenance in service of the Maanshan-2 nuclear power plant, which has been active since 1985.

The agenda before politics according to an ex-diplomat

David Huang, diplomatic representative of Taiwan in Switzerland until the end of July and political scientist, said, for his part, comparing with the Swiss power station of Beznau active since 1969, that the risk of storms and earthquakes is much higher in Taiwan than in Switzerland. (The safety of the Beznau power station, whose commissioning dates back to the first steps on the Moon, is also targeted by oppositions, notably GermanyExternal linkthe power station being located near the border).

But David Huang adds that referendums are little focused on concrete policies in Taiwan, unlike Switzerland. “The agenda is more important than the project itself defended by referendum,” he says. He also recalls that in his country referendums have long been organized simultaneously in elections, and therefore used as a tool for mobilization by political parties. “It is quite different in Switzerland where the issue of a referendum lies in the question asked,” he summarizes. Since 2019, a law has however eliminated these simultaneous votes, but this tradition continues to weigh on elections.

Popular votes in Switzerland, on the other hand, have their own agenda, offering the possibility of blocking government decisions. And the parties to campaign according to their favorite themes. If many popular initiatives fail in Switzerland, they allow at least to pose certain subjects on the table and exert a form of pressure. But Taiwan is still a young democracy where instruments specific to direct democracy are not necessarily tradition.

Direct democracy and energy policy in Switzerland

In Switzerland, it was also following the Fukushima disaster that the Federal Council decided to get the country out of the atom. The pro-nuclear lobby took up the vote in Taiwan as soon as the announcementExternal link has been published. Since 2017, the construction of a new power station has been prohibited in Switzerland. But the government has committed to repeal this ban to compensate for possible shortages due to the passage of renewable energies.

In early July, the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences (SCNAT), however, demonstrated in a report that this strategy will take time. A new power plant could not be put into service in Switzerland before 2050, several political stages having to be crossed upstream.

For the political scientist Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen, who participated in the report, direct democracy as practiced in Switzerland would be “rather an obstacle than an accelerator” in the transition to renewable energies. Ditto for the construction of new power plants. A yes of the Swiss population on the “Stop to Blackout” initiative, which aims to lift the ban on new ones, would lead to “crucial decisions” for which the population must be consulted before a central day.

“The fact that the Federal Council responds to this initiative with a rather accommodating counter-project shows how the political debate has moved,” she continues. But “without significant impact so far” on public opinion about nuclear. Little or prou, she notes, “about half of the population is favorable and the other half is opposed to it”.

For Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen, the theme of nuclear energy is first of all a question of trust in Switzerland. “Are we ready for example to assume the low risk of a nuclear accident and its potential benefits on the environment?” Or is this risk too large? And is our company really capable of managing nuclear waste? ”

In Taiwan, questions of trust are closely linked to geopolitics. Especially to have the guarantee that the island can enjoy continuous energy imports tomorrow. After the failure of dismissal votes, the response of the opposition party KMT through its referendum, an instrument of direct democracy, could bear fruit.

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This content was published on

10 jan. 2024

Projector on Taiwan for his 2024 legislative elections.

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Text reread and checked by Balz Rigendinger, translated from German by Alain Meyer/DBU