American National Book Award winner Yang Shuangzi started the “2025 Advocating for the Recall of Unfit Legislator is Our Duty” campaign for Taiwan literary writers on March 20th. The initiative has received strong support from the literary community, with 1,043 writers joining the petition by March 31st, setting an unprecedented record in Taiwan’s literary history.
Yang Shuangzi, speaking on behalf of the organizing group, stated that since the period of martial law, there has been a saying that “politics belong to politics, literature belongs to literature.” However, literary writers are a group of people who perceive and write about how individuals connect with society and the world. Therefore, literature is inherently political; literature is politics. The current absurdity and deviations in the legislative review are not just arbitrary deletions and freezes; they are jeopardizing the cultural rights of the entire nation. “We are standing up to save Taiwan’s cultural development and international visibility.”
Writer Li Ang mentioned her experiences attending various international literary conferences after the Ukraine-Russia war. She was shocked when foreign individuals asked her, “If you in Taiwan do not speak up, how can we help you internationally?” She deeply felt the danger of Taiwan’s situation. If legislators continue to establish various connections with the Chinese Communist Party unchecked and people remain silent, the international community will perceive Taiwan as implicitly cooperating with the CCP. She expressed gratitude to the over a thousand writers who are willing to stand up to support the recall of unfit legislators.
Writer Zhu Youxun stated that as creators, they cannot sit back and watch as blue and white legislators lock Taiwan into cooperation with the CCP. This would be a great blow to creators. Everyone would lose their creative freedom, and even personal freedom. He expressed, “I think everyone present here probably understands now that we can no longer enter China. The publishing industry already has precedents of senior writers being unjustly detained by the CCP. This is the reason why writers must resist.”
Indigenous youth writer Yan Yisheng raised concerns that he and several friends had publicly expressed their hope that the six indigenous legislators in parliament could transcend party lines and cooperate, but legislators who violate the constitution and procedural justice repeatedly break the democratic limits, ignoring the preservation of the indigenous people’s collective identity. Through the large-scale recall, he aims to have those legislators who only have party interests and “our Xi Jinping” in mind to reexamine their positions in relation to the indigenous people.
Taiwanese writer, historian, and translator Lin Weiyun emphasized that the reduction in cultural funding not only hampers the internal development of Taiwan literature but more importantly, it restricts Taiwan’s ability to engage in cultural diplomacy. She hopes that children can continue to live on this land of Taiwan, appreciate its beautiful mountains and forests, breathe the air of democracy and freedom, read interesting Taiwanese literature and comics, watch Taiwanese films. To protect these values, she chooses to stand up in support of the large-scale recall.