Amid an investigation into alleged misuse of the mayoral special allowance fund by Taipei Mayor and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), talk has picked up of former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) replacing Ma on the 2008 presidential ticket. If the KMT backs Lien for a third run, this decision to turn back the clock would be a negative move.
Since taking over as KMT chairman a year ago, Ma's obsession with clean governance has appeared incompatible with the nature of the KMT and caused resistance within the party. He lacks a diplomatic touch, making it difficult for him to bridge rifts in his relations with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and Lien. Over the past year, Ma has yet to realize most of his promised reforms and now his image has been further tarnished by the recent scandal.
But even if Ma has faltered, why Lien? His neighborly "ice-breaking" trips to China notwithstanding, what has he done to remake the KMT? Nothing. Even Lien's boast that he could convince China to buy 2,000 tonnes of surplus Taiwanese bananas proved a gross exaggeration. But luckily for the KMT, its ineptitude has been overshadowed by the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) scandals.
If the majority of KMT members believe Ma isn't fit to continue leading the party, they should recall him according to party procedures. They should elect Lien as chairman instead of transferring power through shady deals. More than 40 years of KMT rule fostered a system in which seniority and rank were more important than ability, and officials simply waited for positions to fall into their lap. Young politicians squandered most of their time and energy pandering to their superiors and squeezing out competitors instead of working on things that mattered and earning public trust.
Lien represents an era of power struggles superceding national interests. This is very different from the DPP's style, which emphasizes that whoever wins votes wields power, and so encourages members to fight for support outside the party. This is why President Chen Shui-bian (
The KMT finally has a relatively young leader, although at 57 he's not really all that young. But with Ma facing trouble over his administrative negligence, the KMT has not responded by searching the party ranks for a capable leader from the younger generation. Instead, it is considering whether to pull Lien out of the recycling bin to represent the party in the 2008 presidential race. But as the KMT is not lacking in young talent, Lien's potential nomination only indicates that the party discounts the wisdom of voters, who have already rejected him twice in presidential elections.
Video footage of Houzaimen Elementary School students in China's Shaanxi Province chanting "Grandpa Lien, you're finally back!" during Lien's visit to China in May last year became Taiwan's most popular comedy clip. But the same chant in the KMT would be a horror movie. If Ma is not suitable to run for the presidency in 2008, then Lien is even more unsuitable, unless you are a DPP strategist. At least Wang would be a breath of fresh air.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) made the astonishing assertion during an interview with Germany’s Deutsche Welle, published on Friday last week, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not a dictator. She also essentially absolved Putin of blame for initiating the war in Ukraine. Commentators have since listed the reasons that Cheng’s assertion was not only absurd, but bordered on dangerous. Her claim is certainly absurd to the extent that there is no need to discuss the substance of it: It would be far more useful to assess what drove her to make the point and stick so
The central bank has launched a redesign of the New Taiwan dollar banknotes, prompting questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — “Are we not promoting digital payments? Why spend NT$5 billion on a redesign?” Many assume that cash will disappear in the digital age, but they forget that it represents the ultimate trust in the system. Banknotes do not become obsolete, they do not crash, they cannot be frozen and they leave no record of transactions. They remain the cleanest means of exchange in a free society. In a fully digitized world, every purchase, donation and action leaves behind data.
Yesterday, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), once the dominant political party in Taiwan and the historic bearer of Chinese republicanism, officially crowned Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) as its chairwoman. A former advocate for Taiwanese independence turned Beijing-leaning firebrand, Cheng represents the KMT’s latest metamorphosis — not toward modernity, moderation or vision, but toward denial, distortion and decline. In an interview with Deutsche Welle that has now gone viral, Cheng declared with an unsettling confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “not a dictator,” but rather a “democratically elected leader.” She went on to lecture the German journalist that Russia had been “democratized
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