In Brief
In August 2025, Taiwan’s nationwide referendum on extending operations at Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant failed despite receiving 74.2 per cent approval from voters, as low turnout meant affirmative votes fell short of the required threshold. Initiated by the opposition Taiwan People’s Party and backed by the Kuomintang, the referendum reflects rising pro-nuclear sentiment, particularly among non-partisan voters. The result underscores persistent partisan divides, challenges the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s ‘nuclear-free homeland by 2025’ agenda, and highlights the need for policy flexibility and broader dialogue to reconcile public opinion with energy security.
On 23 August 2025, Taiwan held a nationwide referendum (Proposal No. 21) to determine whether Maanshan nuclear power plant should continue operating, contingent upon safety assessments. The proposal failed because, despite affirmative votes accounting for 74.2 per cent of valid ballots, low voter turnout meant they did not surpass the one-quarter threshold of the eligible electorate.
Still, the substantial margin by which affirmative votes outnumbered negative ones underscores the referendum’s significance in the broader context of Taiwan’s nuclear energy debate.
Proposal No. 21 was the third nationwide referendum on nuclear power generation since the enactment of the Referendum Act in 2003, all of which have taken place under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administrations. Given the DPP’s long-standing opposition to nuclear energy, these initiatives were launched by opposition politicians and civil society groups supportive of nuclear power.
Yet unlike the earlier two referendums which required signature collection from citizens, the opposition Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) initiated Referendum Proposal No. 21. With the endorsement of the Kuomintang (KMT), the proposal successfully passed its third reading in the Legislative Yuan and was forwarded to the Central Election Commission for implementation. This outcome underscores that President Lai Ching-te’s DPP government, inaugurated in 2024, lacks majority support in the legislature.
During former president Tsai Ing-wen’s administration, the DPP advanced the policy of achieving a ‘nuclear-free homeland by 2025’, codified in Article 95 of the Electricity Act. Referendum Proposal No. 16 in 2018 annulled this provision with 59.5 per cent support, indicating that Taiwanese society had not reached a consensus on abandoning nuclear power. But subsequent votes revealed persistent ambivalence. Referendum Proposal No. 17 in 2021, which sought to restart construction of the unfinished Lungmen nuclear power plant, failed narrowly with 47.2 per cent in favour and 52.8 per cent opposed.
Proposal No. 21 was notable for the surge in affirmative votes, signalling a shift in public attitudes towards reconsidering nuclear energy in the context of Taiwan’s energy transition.
This shift is discernible in public opinion surveys. Taiwanese attitudes towards nuclear power generation show a statistically significant link with partisan preferences. According to data from the Taiwan Institute for Governance and Communication Research (TIGCR) collected between 2018 and 2022, approximately 55 per cent of DPP supporters opposed the continued use of nuclear energy while more than 80 per cent of KMT supporters approved extending nuclear power generation. TPP supporters tended to approve of nuclear energy at slightly lower levels than KMT counterparts.
These partisan cleavages suggest Referendum Proposal No. 21, initiated by the TPP and backed by the KMT, garnered substantial support within their constituencies.
Non-partisan voters — who have long constituted the largest segment of the political landscape — play a pivotal role in Taiwan’s electoral politics. A TIGCR survey reveals a marked increase in pro-nuclear sentiment among non-partisan voters, with support for the continued use of nuclear power rising to 64.5 per cent by 2022. This upward shift is attributable primarily to the declining share of undecided respondents, whose proportion halved over the same period while opposition to nuclear energy remained relatively stable.
Referendum data also highlights a growing tendency among non-partisan voters to support nuclear power. In the 2018 referendum, 45.3 per cent of voters refrained from expressing a stance. This figure dropped sharply to 20.6 per cent in the 2021 referendum, with 48.1 per cent voting in favour of restarting operations at the Lungmen nuclear power plant.
Against this backdrop, it is unsurprising that the 2025 referendum garnered as much as 74.2 per cent approval. Its eventual failure stemmed primarily from a historically low turnout rate of 29.5 per cent — the third lowest among the 21 referenda held to date — which may be attributed to the concurrent mass campaign to recall elected officials dominating media coverage and dampening voter participation.
Referendum Proposal No. 21’s failure conveyed a message that the ruling DPP cannot easily disregard. The growing number of non-partisan voters openly endorsing the continued use of nuclear power poses a significant challenge to the DPP’s ‘nuclear-free homeland’ agenda. President Lai Ching-te’s response to the referendum outcome signalled a degree of policy flexibility, underscoring the need for broader dialogue and concrete measures to reconcile the government’s nuclear-free vision with the practical imperatives of energy security.
Shangpo Hsieh is Research Fellow at the Asian Institute for Impact Measurement and Management (AIIMM) at National Central University, Taiwan.