黨外運動
In 1977, several thousand anti-KMT demonstrators led by Hsu Hsin-liang rallied in the town of Zhongli to protest the use of paper ballots in the upcoming elections, for fear that the KMT would use the ballots to rig the election. When the protesters realized that the KMT had likely carried out the fraud that they had feared, they rioted, ultimately burning down the Zhongli police station. The riot – the first such large-scale protest in Taiwan since 1947 – was subsequently called the Zhongli incident. The Kuomintang believed that Lee Huan's placatory approach to the Tangwai movement had caused the incident and forced him to resign.