The struggle within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over its future path and direction has far from ended. KMT Chairman Lien Chan's (
Lien's move suggests that he has indeed become a major obstacle to the KMT's transformation into a "nativized" political party.
Leaving aside all other issues, Lien's move is seriously flawed from a procedural standpoint. After having gone through the painstaking efforts of establishing the unit and assigning to it the task of studying the future direction of the party, procedurally, the conclusions reached by the unit should be submitted to the committee -- the top-ranking decision-making organ of the party.
As suggested by a member of the unit, KMT Legislator Lo Shih-hsiung (
First and foremost, this four-man group is not officially part of the existing party structure. What authority does the group have to change and revise conclusions reached by the unit? The truth of the matter is not even Lien himself has the right to do so. Moreover, after their revisions, whatever is submitted to the committee is in reality not the conclusion of the unit any more. If it is not the intention of Lien and his party to have the committee review the conclusion reached by the unit, then why assign the task to it in the first place?
It is especially noteworthy that the unit is co-chaired by two heavyweight vice chairmen of the party -- Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
Under the circumstances, many cannot help but interpret Lien's not submitting the unit reports to the committee as a way to avoid giving Wang even more weight and influence within the party.
Further, in terms of the substance of the unit's reports, Lien has ample reasons to be unhappy. First, the unit is primarily comprised of members of the nativization faction within the party, such as Apollo Chen (
It was also obvious based on the direction of discussion and debate within the unit that the conclusion reached by the unit would favor nativization of the party in the future. That kind of conclusion would be the last thing that Lien wants to see, since that means he and his gang -- the advocates of the "Great China" ideology -- would almost certainly be washed out of the party's power core.
If Lien continues to stand in the way of the KMT's nativization, he will be doing a great disservice to his party.
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