Pan-Green Coalition

The pan-green coalition, or pan-green force (泛綠軍 pinyin fan4 lü4 jun1), is a political coalition in early 21st century Taiwan, consisting of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), and the Taiwan Independence Party (TAIP). The name comes from the colors of the Democratic Progressive Party. In contrast to the pan-blue coalition, the pan-green coalition tends to favor Taiwan independence over Chinese reunification, although both coalitions moderate their policies to reach voters in the center.

This strategy is helped by the fact that much of the motivation that voters have for voting for one party or the other are for reasons that have nothing to do with relations with Mainland China. This is particularly true among the swing voters. For much of the 1990s the parties which later form the pan-green coalition greatly benefited from the perception that they were less corrupt than the ruling Kuomintang.

The pan-green coalition formed in the aftermath of the 2000 Taiwanese Presidential elections, after which Lee Teng-hui was expelled from the Kuomintang and created his own party, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, which maintains a pro-independence platform.

The internal dynamics of the pan-green coalition are different from those of the pan-blue coalition. Unlike the pan-blue coalition, which consists of relatively equal-sized parties with very similar ideologies, the pan-green coalition contains the DPP, which is much larger and more moderate than the TSU. So rather than coordinating electoral strategies, as in the case of the parties within the pan-blue coalition, the presence of the TSU keeps the DPP from moving too far away from its Taiwan independence roots.