It is probably no longer possible to silence the calls coming from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to replace Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) as the party’s presidential candidate.
Hung’s nomination was unexpected and few people thought she had an actual chance of being elected as the nation’s next president. Still, the KMT’s decision to replace her is even more unexpected.
Why must Hung be replaced at any cost? The answer is that her replacement is part of an internal struggle over the party’s direction.
When news about Hung’s possible ouster surfaced, her supporters vowed to protest the decision.
However, almost all of them were from organizations that are on the extreme right of the political spectrum, pushing for rapid unification, such as the Organization of the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement, the White Justice Social Alliance and the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP). This small group of supporters is too far removed from mainstream public opinion, so it is natural that the KMT is worried that it might lose both the presidency and its legislative majority.
Following her nomination, Hung surprised her fellow party members and frightened voters by talking about “one China, same interpretation” framework, refusing to recognize the existence of the Republic of China (ROC) in cross-strait relations.
Beijing proposed the “one China, same interpretation” concept when former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) first visited China 10 years ago, but Lien insisted on “one China, different interpretations,” which was agreed upon. Hung’s talk about “one China, same interpretation” is both a big leap backward and an attempt at catering to Beijing.
The KMT is aware of this history, which is why it has been frightened by Hung’s running amok with her policy proposals. KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) has on several occasions told Hung that she needed to adjust her campaign language, but she refused, turning the KMT into a pro-rapid unification party, which the party found unacceptable.
Hung has repeatedly said that her political views are similar to President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九), who has also promoted eventual unification.
However, after Ma proposed the concept, it was disapproved by all sides.
The government’s policies on high-school curriculum guidelines and the trade in services and goods agreements have also met strong opposition, and caused Ma’s support ratings to drop to 9 percent.
When Hung followed Ma’s direction — and start to push for rapid unification — she not only met opposition from the general public, but also from within the KMT.
Hung has responded to the calls for her replacement by saying that she would cling to her ideals even if the KMT stood to lose every last legislative seat, and that she would rather die than withdraw from the race.
Chu has been unable to guarantee the fairness and legitimacy of the party’s nomination process, but regardless of whether he gives Hung a dignified way out, he has received little criticism and must now step forward to reclaim the political initiative. Although he has little chance of winning the presidential election, he could help the party win a few more legislative seats.
If the KMT wins 38 seats, Ma could be recalled before his term ends; if it wins only 29 seats or less, it would no longer be able to veto the changes to the Constitution.
Chu must now bring the party back to the mainstream, and win back supporters and legislators who have expressed their desire to leave. Time is not on his side.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs