# Ep 325 | 3 Perspectives in Taiwan Why the Great Recall Failed

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/talking-taiwan-898069/ep-325-3-perspectives-in-taiwan-why-the-great-recall-failed
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/talking-taiwan-898069/ep-325-3-perspectives-in-taiwan-why-the-great-recall-failed.md
Podcast: [Talking Taiwan](https://stenobird.com/podcast/talking-taiwan-898069)
Published: 2025-08-24T02:02:00+00:00
Episode link: https://talkingtaiwan.com/3-perspectives-in-taiwan-why-the-great-recall-failed-ep-325/
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/talkingtaiwan/Ep_325_3_Perspectives_in_Taiwan_Why_the_Great_Recall_Failed.mp3?dest-id=215522
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/talking-taiwan-898069/episodes/ep-325-3-perspectives-in-taiwan-why-the-great-recall-failed
Duration seconds: 2240

## Resource

When we decided to travel back to Taiwan to cover the vote to recall 24 KMT legislators on July 26th we had no idea how things would turn out. The Great Recall (or da ba mian) as it came to be known in Taiwan, was notable not just because it led to a record number of 31 KMT legislators in total being put up for a recall vote. What was most impressive about is that it was a nationwide effort that started at a grassroots level by everyday people. Related Links: https://talkingtaiwan.com/3-perspectives-in-taiwan-why-the-great-recall-failed-ep-325/ It's been incredible to watch everything leading up to the Great Recall. Going back to last May in 2024 during what came to be known as the Bluebird Movement when tens of thousands of people and upwards of 100,000 took to the streets of Taiwan in a series of protests against controversial bills proposed in the legislative yuan. What happened during the Bluebird Movement protests is said to be what in part galvanized citizens to organize the recall campaigns. I can't deny that our hopes were high for the results of the July 26th recall vote and after we learned that none of the KMT legislators were successfully recalled, we did our best during the remaining days of our time in Taiwan to try to make sense of the results by talking to a number of our friends and peers. What you'll hear in this episode are some sound bites from conversations we had on July 30th with Rath Wang, Safe Spaces Senior Policy Fellow and Dennis Chen, Chairman of Wikimedia Taiwan. They shared their observations and thoughts on why the recalls failed, the recall campaigners and what the results of the recall vote could mean for President Lai. Later that day I also spoke with Morrison Lee a Taiwanese businessman who went to China on what was supposed to be a 4…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/talking-taiwan-898069/episodes/ep-325-3-perspectives-in-taiwan-why-the-great-recall-failed/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/talking-taiwan-898069/ep-325-3-perspectives-in-taiwan-why-the-great-recall-failed.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.