Yesterday morning during a memorial event entitled “Love, Faith, Courage: A Memorial for Charlie Kirk in Taiwan” organized by the Formosa Republican Association (FRA, 福和會) and co-organized by the Taiwan Solidarity Party (TSP, 台聯黨), the Taiwan Teachers’ Union (台灣教師聯盟), Taiwan Liberty Society (台灣自由學會), and the Taiwan Human Rights and Cultural Association, student protestors from National Chengchi University, National Taiwan Normal University and Soochow University disrupted the event and were promptly met with physical violence.
The press invitation for the event described it as a memorial for Charlie Kirk, highlighting “the emergence of a faith-based conservative movement in Taiwan, seeking to echo U.S.-style right-wing values on faith, family, and patriotism within an Asian democracy.” The press invitation emphasized the organizers’ identification “with global movements advocating traditional values, religious liberty, and anti-communist solidarity across the United States, Japan, Israel, Brazil, and Poland.” The memorial included pre-recorded speeches from former chief strategist for the White House under Trump’s first presidency and former executive chairman of Breitbart News Steve Bannon, Representative of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei Maya Yaron, Japanese political scientist Genki Fujii (藤井嚴喜), President of the Japan-Taiwan Studies Forum Hideki Nagayama (永山英樹), Japan’s House of Councillors Member for the Sanseitō Party Sen Yamanaka (山中泉), Stan from Poland YouTuber Stan Kwiatkowski, State Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo Gil Diniz, and others.
Since Charlie Kirk’s assasination during a public event at Utah Valley University on September 10th, conservative figures and organizations have called for the establishment of a “Turning Point Taiwan” to carry on the mission of Turning Point USA, the nonprofit organization that Kirk co-founded in 2012 to “identify, education, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.” The TSP and FRA, in particular, have been very active in the past month, organizing Charlie Kirk memorial events in an attempt to gather momentum for a faith-based right-wing movement in Taiwan.
On September 14th, the TSP held a small memorial gathering outside of the American Institute in Taiwan, describing Charlie as “a modern freedom fighter who is not afraid of derision and attacks from the left.” On September 21st, the TSP co-organized another Charlie Kirk memorial with FRA, Taiwan Independence Flag Team (西門町台獨旗隊), and other conservative organizations outside of Ximen MRT Station Exit 1, later describing the memorial event as “paving the way for a ‘Turning Point Taiwan.’”
During the “Love, Faith, Courage” memorial event, organizers shared that they have made contact with Turning Point USA, who responded with enthusiasm to plans to establish a “Turning Point Taiwan”. Turning Point USA added that they will share this news with Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow and mother of two, who they think will be deeply moved by these efforts to continue her husband’s legacy in Taiwan.
As TSU Chairperson Chou Ni-an (周倪安) stepped onto the stage to give her remarks, a group of student protestors also stepped onto the stage to disrupt her speech. One student protestor who held a sign saying “I am a Soochow University Student; discrimination against transgender people has no ‘common sense’” (我是東吳學生 其實跨性別才是沒「常識」) was immediately tackled by an event participant, pulled onto the ground, put into a headlock, and dragged to the other side of the stage as other participants yelled “bastards!” (混蛋) at the student protestors. As the participant raised his fist to strike the student protestor who he had in a headlock, event organizers stopped him.
The participant then repeatedly engaged with two other student protestors in a brief scuffle, attempting to tear away their protest signs, one of which said “I am a National Taiwan Normal University student; the Gaza peace plan is not a real peace” (我是師大學生 加薩和平計畫不是真和平). Throughout the altercation, another student held up a sign that said “I am a National Chengchi University student; conservative voices are sounding the death knell of democracy” (我是政大學生 保守派之聲才是民主喪鐘). Event organizers repeatedly stopped the event participant from engaging in physical violence, exhorting him multiple times to “be quiet.” One event volunteer physically restrained the participant as he tried to attack the student protester who he had previously held in a headlock yet again. The student protester walked past the participant, waving his right hand, saying repeatedly “Do not hit me, do not hit me” (不要打我，不要打我).
As event organizers separated violent participants from the protestors and then escorted the students out of the venue, TSP Chairperson Chou maintained calm and composure, resuming her remarks and the rest of the memorial event as planned.
In the late evening, Action to Defend Student Rights in Taiwan (ADSR, 捍衛全台學權行動), National Taiwan University Labor Club (台大勞工社), and National Chengchi University Seed Club (政大種子社) issued a joint statement asking Chairperson Chou to engage in dialogue with the student protestors. In their statement, student groups specifically listed Israel’s genocide of Gaza, as well as the TSP’s discrimination against transgender people and stated position again establishing comprehensive anti-discrimination laws in Taiwan, as the reasons for their disruptive action.
Early in the evening, the TSP posted on Facebook condemning the group of “tall and strong leftist male students” for disrupting the Charlie Kirk memorial event. TSP also clarified that their position on transgender issues is that they are “against legal gender change without surgery, against biological males becoming females on the basis of gender identification and entering into female-only spaces” (反對免術換證，反對生理男性用自我認同性別就成為女性，直接進入女性專屬空間), adding that “these policies are, at their core, a danger to females” (這根本是危害女性的政策). The TSP posted a short video of the altercation on YouTube entitled “First Charlie was assassinated, who will be next? TSP Chairperson Chou Ni-an suddenly surrounded by multiple male protestors” (先是查理被暗殺，現在輪到誰？台聯黨主席周倪安突遭數名男性近身包圍抗議), and also shared the video on X with the comment “Recently, terrorist attacks have befallen multiple conservative leaders” (近期已有多名右派領袖遭遇恐怖份子襲擊).
Starting in fall and winter 2023, the TSP rebranded itself as an anti-transgender conservative political party ahead of the 2024 elections. However, as student groups pointed out in their statement, the TSP only received 0.31% of party ticket votes in the legislative 2024 election, which is the lowest voter support rate they have received in the history of their party, with the second lowest voter support rate being in the 0.36% of party ticket votes they received in the 2020 elections.
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, links between the TSP and conservative Christian leaders in Taiwan have become more public. For instance, during the “Love, Faith, Courage” event, Judy Linton (林奐均), speaking in her capacity as a member of the Hokkien-language evangelical K.B. Church, shared:
“Here in the sovereign nation of Taiwan, we, together, mourn the loss of a true Christian martyr, Charlie Kirk. I am honored to have this opportunity to pay tribute to Charlie Kirk as a much-loved brother in Christ. He is a true martyr. We mourn together with Erika Kirk. Charlie Kirk’s family, may our good God bless you all, bless Charlie’s two children, and comfort [them]. God has used Charlie’s sacrifice to embolden me to be more faithful and courageous in speaking the truth, no matter the opposition. Because of Charlie, I want to go to darker places and shine brighter. I am grateful from the bottom of my heart to Charlie for impacting my life so much.” (34:14)
Towards the end of her remarks, Linton turned “to Turning Point USA,” stating that “we invite you to Taiwan. We honor Charlie Kirk’s legacy, and we hope to carry on his impact in Taiwan.” Linton went on to eulogize Kirk as a great Christian inspiration: “And most of all, my husband and I will continue to dedicate our lives to Charlie Kirk’s greatest passion: that is, the furtherance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life” (35:15).
The explicit conservative Christian framing of the “Love, Faith, Courage” memorial event marks a new public development in right-wing alliances between some factions of Taiwan’s anti-gender movement and the broader Christian nationalist ideology that has surrounded Kirk’s legacy. It remains to be seen whether these alliances will result in the establishment of an actual organization named Turning Point Taiwan, or if “Turning Point Taiwan” will remain a rhetorical tool to mobilize the religious right and anti-transgender groups in Taiwan in the wake of Kirk’s assassination.
Yo-Ling Chen (陳有靈) is a trans nonbinary Taiwanese American writer, translator, activist, journalist, and independent scholar based in Taipei.
This article originally appeared in New Bloom, an online magazine featuring radical perspectives on Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific.
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