Written by Vasja Hafner.
Image credit: Wild-lily-movement by Bubbha (talk)/ Wikimedia Commons, license: CC BY-SA 3.0.
Introduction
Taiwan, a Pacific island often discussed in the shadow of its larger neighbour, the People’s Republic of China, is frequently at the centre of political debate, particularly in relation to cross-strait relations. However, beyond questions of international status and geopolitics, Taiwan also represents one of the most significant cases of democratic transformation in East Asia. After almost a century of authoritarian rule, first under the Japanese Colonial Regime and later under the Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan underwent a turbulent and complex process of transformation influenced by its colonial past, diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and even shifting global dynamics. One of the events that played a crucial role in enabling democratic reform was the student-led Wild Lily Movement (野百合學運) in 1990, which significantly influenced future political and protest dynamics in Taiwan.
Although Taiwan is today widely recognised as a stable democracy, its recent developments suggest that such a political system cannot be taken for granted. After the 2024 presidential elections, the Democratic Progressive Party won a third consecutive presidency but lost its Legislative Yuan majority to a coalition of the KMT and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). This has sparked a constitutional crisis defined by institutional deadlock, controversial legislative amendments, and an unprecedented refusal by the Executive Yuan to countersign legislation passed by the legislature. Since the aftermath of the Wild Lily Movement is generally seen as a major democratic achievement, the current crisis offers an opportunity to revisit the movement and analyse its relevance in the present.
Historical and Political Context
Taiwan was under martial law from 1949 until 1987, when it was officially lifted. Although important foundations for democratic development were laid during this period, the early 1990s were still a turbulent time, defined by changes in cross-strait relations and the gradual loss of KMT dominance. The weakening of the KMT was further shaped by struggles over succession and internal disputes within the party, creating a rare moment of instability within the ruling elite.
Emerging from the wave of student activism in Taiwan during the 1980s, the Wild Lily Movement took place in the context of ongoing democratisation efforts and structural political change. Inspired in part by the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and triggered by a National Assembly amendment unilaterally extending the terms of elected representatives to nine years, students gathered at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Square from March 16 to March 22, 1990, putting forward four key demands: the dissolution of the National Assembly, the abolition of the Temporary Provisions, the convening of a National Affairs Conference, and a timetable for political reform including direct presidential elections.
Analysis
To understand the Wild Lily Movement and the movements that followed, it is worth briefly introducing Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly’s concept of repertoires of contention. Simply put, when people mobilise politically, they do not invent new forms of protest from scratch but draw on familiar practices shaped by historical experience and earlier encounters with authorities. For mobilisation to happen in the first place, political opportunities need to expand, and the cost of inaction needs to feel too high to ignore.
Political opportunities for the Wild Lily movement arose from the transitional political context and the wider global situation, expanding significantly as the initially small group of students gained substantial support. The government’s repertoire of repression was equally constrained, as demonstrations in Taiwan had previously been suppressed, most notably during the February 28 Incident in 1947, while the events surrounding the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests increased the political costs of employing violent repression in Taiwan in 1990.
The choice of Liberty Square (自由廣場), formerly known as Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Square, was itself a political act. Located in front of a memorial dedicated to the former authoritarian leader, it was a space directly associated with KMT authority and symbolised the old regime. By occupying it, the students not only demanded democratic change but also spatially enacted it. The symbol of the movement, the Wild Lily flower (野百合), further reinforced this framing. As an endemic species to Taiwan, it embodied Taiwanese characteristics, symbolising autonomy, resilience, and purity, and distinguished the movement visually from any other. Crucially, the students also demonstrated a high degree of internal democratic practice, as major decisions were preceded by discussions within each university group before being voted on collectively. For a movement demanding democratisation, this procedural structure contributed significantly to its legitimacy and established a protest script that would outlast the movement itself.
The repertoire established in 1990 has been reused repeatedly in Taiwanese protest culture. Although they differed in reasons and outcomes, the Wild Strawberry Movement in 2008, the Sunflower Movement in 2014, and the Bluebird Movement in 2024, which later also initiated the Great Recall in 2025, each drew on the occupation of public space as the primary way of articulating democratic legitimacy. The repertoire established in 1990 became the familiar and available practice that later movements reached for instinctively. The four demands the students put forward were largely achieved: the National Assembly was dissolved, the Legislative Yuan was fully elected by the people for the first time in 1992, and direct presidential elections followed in 1996.
However, what the movement did not anticipate was a structural gap in the constitutional architecture it helped create. The reforms introduced after 1990 changed Taiwan’s political system into a semi-presidential one. This system has a directly elected president, a fully elected Legislative Yuan, and a Constitutional Court that handles constitutional interpretation and disputes. Since then, questions about how power is shared between the executive and legislature have remained an ongoing issue in Taiwan’s politics.
The current KMT-TPP coalition is using democratically won legislative power to disable the Constitutional Court through procedural amendments, producing exactly the kind of outcome Hsin‐Hsing Chen anticipated when he argued in retrospect that Taiwan’s democratisation had produced new forms of political contestation rather than resolving them. The same movement that established the institutional order now being contested also established the protest repertoire now being used to contest it. Unlike the Wild Lily Movement, which demanded democratic change from an authoritarian regime, the subsequent movements aimed at defending democracy from within. Dissatisfaction with the current state of Taiwanese politics sparked first the 2024 Bluebird Movement, aimed at the legislative reforms proposed by the KMT and TPP, and later the 2025 Great Recall, targeting 31 KMT legislators and one mayor.
This does not necessarily suggest that Taiwanese democracy is fragile, but it does reveal its structural liabilities. Part of the current crisis is simply the result of deep political rivalry, with both sides framing institutional questions according to their own interests. On the other side, Taiwan also has a significant proportion of independent voters whose role tends to get lost in analyses focused purely on the KMT-DPP divide. How this group relates to the protest culture inherited from 1990, and to the broader question of Taiwan’s democratic future, remains one of the most interesting open questions in Taiwanese politics today.
Conclusion
The Wild Lily Movement is undoubtedly a turning point in Taiwanese efforts for democratisation, both as the foundation of civic movements and in institutional terms. The same movement that fought for institutional change and enabled Taiwan’s path to democracy also laid the foundation for the civic mobilisations that followed. Recent movements differ from the 1990 movement most importantly in the setting in which they started, with the former evolving in an authoritarian regime with fears over violent repression, while the recent ones emerged within an already established democratic protest culture. The Wild Lily Movement deliberately distanced itself from any direct connection to political parties, particularly the DPP, while recent movements have been more openly supported by them, a distinction that arguably shaped their different outcomes. Its significance lies not only in establishing the repertoire of contention in Taiwanese protest culture, but also in what the current crisis reveals about the limits of its institutional legacy. The domestic instability this produces is especially consequential given Taiwan’s broader geopolitical context, where the current constitutional crisis is directly correlated with regional tensions in ways that extend its significance well beyond domestic politics.
Vasja Hafner holds a BA in Geography and Sinology from the University of Ljubljana and is currently pursuing an MA in Sinophone Societies and Cultures at the University of Vienna. His academic training combines political and human geography with Sinology, and his academic and research interests focus on political developments in East Asia and international relations, with particular attention to cross-strait relations, China–EU relations, China’s engagement with the Global South, and domestic political dynamics in the region. He has undertaken study and language training in Taiwan, including an exchange semester at the Department of Diplomacy and International Relations at Tamkang University, as well as intensive Mandarin programmes at Chinese Culture University in Taipei and National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung. This article draws in part on the documentary “Why Aren’t You Angry (Wild Lily Movement),” provided by Green Team, which offers an important overview of the movement and is recommended to readers who wish to learn more.