In a time of political hunger strikes, student protests and fiscal madness in the guise of universal consumer vouchers, news must be spectacular to get airplay. One story that received very little this week was an item on the restructuring of the Central Standing Committee of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
In a throwback to closer party-state ties, the KMT has announced that its highest decision-making body will now include seats for “five top Cabinet members.” The reason given for this change — and said with a straight face — was to “enhance cooperation” between the party and the government.
In an unstable system such as Taiwan’s, which juggles presidential, executive and legislative authority and which is prone to predatory behavior, the move represents party encroachment on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) authority over the Cabinet, the increasing influence of KMT headquarters and Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) and a blow to Ma’s agenda to make the Central Standing Committee more accountable to grassroots members.
The dispatching of former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) to the APEC leaders’ meeting in Lima, Peru, is another example of party headquarters muscling in on the affairs of the executive. Sadly for Ma, and hilariously for Lien, the Chinese have drawn a line at giving any more face to its friends in Taiwan by refusing the delegation access to an informal meeting of foreign ministers and pedantically correcting a journalist’s use of “President Ma.”
It is instructive that Taiwan’s officials should be treated this way while in a position of relative strength vis a vis China. The problem is that in tolerating this, the KMT administration loses control of its credibility as a national government.
The KMT cannot be trusted to defend even basic symbols of nationhood such as the flag and the anthem. Ma, for one, warmed up as Taipei mayor by agreeing to prohibit the display of Republic of China imagery at international sports events in the city. He has fine-tuned this skill to now include rationalization of behavior by security forces attacking people carrying national symbols.
As cumbersome and risible as the DPP can be, the party has an agenda that is consistent with the enduring global environment of nation-states. Its aspirations are much closer to what is in the interests of all Taiwanese — regardless of political color — even if its leaders at times seem to have no idea why.
The KMT’s actions this week again suggest that it will not change its philosophy of power and will not respect the separation of powers — be they legislative, executive, judicial, examination, oversight or partisan political organizations. And while the KMT retains a preference for strongman structures, it has a weak man as president. Yet the KMT cannot possibly run the state as a triumvirate of Ma, Wu and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) because each considers himself the primary force for the party.
Like the Chinese Communist Party, all that is left for the KMT is its ability to run a tight fiscal ship. When that is gone, the KMT will have neither the aptitude nor the support to resort to violence to prevent DPP presidential or legislative election victories. If it tries to do so, its only supporter would be Beijing. The fundamental anti-Americanism of the KMT would become part of its daily armor as the US realizes, all too late, that not only is the KMT a “sonofabitch,” but also that it was never theirs to begin with.
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