Ending her three-day “seclusion,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) has vowed to cast off the shackles of a “typical KMT politician” and return to the “right path” of standing firm on a unificationist approach that she had nearly disowned during her campaign. However, that might not bode well for the party she desperately wishes to remain in one piece.
Hung discarded her controversial “one China, same interpretation” tenet under pressure from KMT headquarters for the sake of the party’s legislative election prospects. Apparently she now believes, judging by her 8,000-character post-seclusion declaration, that it is exactly such compromise that has made the KMT weak and “susceptible to populism.”
The evening after Hung began her “private contemplation,” an anonymous informant used a news show on CtiTV — which belongs to the Want Want China Times Media Group, whose president, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), is unabashedly pro-unification — to reveal the real reason Hung needed to rethink her campaign policies. It was said that one of Hung’s campaign advisers had said she was “becoming a typical KMT politician” and starting to “talk like a politician” for the needs of the election. It is allegedly for this reason that Hung needed time to reflect and decided to “again walk her own way.”
It is intriguing that a seemingly calculated revelation would be made on such a show, as the message mainly addressed those in the pan-blue camp who believe in the unification of the Republic of China (ROC). It was likely a “reassurance” to them that Hung would return with her pure ROC-KMT dogma, insisting it should be the sole ideology in the nation, any deviation from which would count as “populist” and “mistaken.”
It was probably also not a coincidence that the reassurance was made on Thursday last week, the day of China’s military parade, which was attended by former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) and other pro-unification figures who have voiced strong support for Hung.
Many have speculated that Hung hid from the media to avoid questions about her stance on Lien’s attendance, which she had claimed to be good for cross-strait peace, a statement for which she was criticized by her devout pan-blue supporters, who believe in the KMT’s China, not the communists’.
In her written statement — the form of which exempted her from fielding reporters’ questions — released on Thursday last week, Hung gave Lien a “slap on the wrist,” but stressed that Lien’s action is “essentially different” from former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) “betrayal to the ancestors and the nation’s dignity” with his “fawning all over Japan.”
It is quite evident now that the KMT has been reeling from internal incongruities, between Hung’s team and the party headquarters, that could not be resolved after all, as one could hardly expect KMT solidarity when its presidential candidate did not give the headquarters a heads-up about her decision to leave her campaign activities, no matter how “temporary” the break was.
Hung’s post-seclusion declaration likewise attested to the existence of internal fights over the kernel of the KMT, which Hung has vowed to keep in the face of “populism,” unlike the current KMT that has been “bowing to the opposition and protesting forces.”
She seems to have mistaken people’s support for a pro-“status quo” KMT for their support for the pro-unification KMT she has in mind, and therefore “could not understand why the opposition has seemed to get stronger and stronger.”
Hung can call mainstream voices and actions against her obsolete view of ROC nationalism “populist” all she wants, but she is either sowing a rift in the party she wants to preserve or marginalizing it to the extent of aligning it with the New Party.
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