In Taiwan, the government of PM Sean Chen (Chen Chun) has survived a vote of no confidence.

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been thinking of tabling a motion for a number of months, but it was finally held on Saturday.

In the legislature the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party has 64 seats, the DPP has 40 seats, both the opposition Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and People First Party (PFP) have three seats, the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union has two seats, and there is one independent.

The no-confidence motion was defeated by 66 votes to 46. All of the KMT supported the PM, despite a lot of unhappiness with his term in office. Interestingly, in addition to the DPP and TSU, the PFP party also supported the no-confidence motion. The PFP had been an ally of the KMT.

I am willing to stand corrected, but I think this is the first no confidence motion for some years and perhaps only the second since Taiwan became semi-presidential in 1997. In March 1999, a motion of no-confidence against PM Vincent Siew was defeated. Famously, there was no no-confidence motion from 2000-2008 when the DPP was only a minority government and when the KMT and its allies could have brought the government down at almost any time, but feared what would happen to the party at the subsequent legislative election and so never tabled a motion.