For the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), this winter is fast becoming the winter of its discontent. Close on the heels of the party’s worst defeat in the nation’s electoral history, KMT members must now face a more worrisome challenge, the seriousness of which is slowly becoming evident to them. The choice of a new chairperson to lead them amidst this loss is more serious than expected.
Democracies are never perfect. With new participants constantly joining the voting ranks, democracies will always be a form of government in process. So too, transitions in power are natural in a democracy.
However, for the KMT, the overwhelming loss to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in last month’s elections did more than just mark the first full transition of both presidential and legislative power in Taiwan. It marked the end of an era, and the creation of a whole new game.
For many on the DPP side, this twofold win represented the final victory in their struggle with the transplanted one-party state that the KMT had brought with it from China. For others, the past elections continued to accentuate the many key differences on how Taiwan is Taiwan and China is China, and never could the twain be expected to meet. For still others, this all demonstrates proof-positive of why democracy, along with a free press, will never come to present day China.
However, for the KMT, the most immediate result of this loss is the creation of an existential crisis, a crisis where the loss of past meaning, the sense of mortality and the burden of being defined by future choices all converge.
Without the past linkage to the China that the KMT had been driven out of in 1949, KMT members must now ponder the lyrics of the 1960s Motown hit Nowhere to Run. For as the words of that song — “Nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide” — begin to echo through the KMT ranks, the seriousness of the upcoming choice of who would be the new KMT chairperson and leader is slowly gaining relevance. The undeniable growing truth is that the selection of that person will shape the future of the KMT for better or worse.
The reactions of party members will vary. Some may try to pass the whole situation off as a bump in the road, but for those who look deeper, they are aware of the crucial need for a new integrity in the party. They know that this choice involves a full existential crisis of identity.
Democracy has finally caught up with this party that still wishes to hold onto the “democratic” mantle of Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙). The party is beginning to face what the Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross described as the Dark Night of the Soul. For if the KMT insists on claiming linkage with Sun and his principles of government of the people, by the people and for the people, what does this mean when the party is voted out of office?
The first admission will be that the party cannot rely on slogans or memes, as it did in the past. In past one-party state days, it could run through its litany with ease. And some of these would almost be farcical and laughable if one could ignore the sufferings of the White Terror and Martial Law period that spawned them: “Prepare the first year, start fighting in the second and retake China in the third,” or “Gentlemen do not sit down with thieves,” referring of course to the communists.
Then there were the “three noes” of former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國): “no contact, no negotiation, no compromise.”
Such memes and platitudes have found no place in Taiwan’s current democratic society; and worse yet, many party members now fawn on China.
A second realization in this developing crisis is that the KMT can no longer rely on a cult of personality as it had in the past. This is the age of the free press and instant communication. Some party members might still try to put forth the glorified images of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) that the apparatus of a one-party state made possible.
Some still wish to carry such thoughts over to his son, Chiang Ching-kuo, though to a lesser degree. Even President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) tried to foster a cult of personality as he rode to power in 2008. However, such efforts were the last that the KMT has been able to muster. Now Ma’s salesman, King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), is nowhere to be seen and the only image left is that of an “incompetent bumbler.”
In this milieu of failed past personalities, the next generation offers no better: former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), failed Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文), even New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫). None of them can claim any great deeds or personality. And the candidates that are currently up for the KMT chair appear to be even more banal. This is the party’s existential crisis. Will it still try to define itself as entitled diaspora or will it seek a new direction?
In this new environment, who will lead the party and who will define it? These are all questions to be answered. Some, like former deputy legislative speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), will seek to remain linked to reunification. There is also an element allied with former legislative speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) that is pro-Taiwanization.
The Ma camp will still try to claim some legitimacy for its eight failed years, despite that being a key factor in the party’s massive defeat. Some may even wish to give up; they may choose to become Quislings or imitate former Taiwan governor Chen Yi (陳儀), who switched sides, only to be later executed as a sacrificial goat.
Linked to the above is the even deeper and different issue of who gets the stolen state assets? Who will have access to the party coffers? The temptation be to abandon a sinking ship like rats and seek to take the money cannot be denied. In all this what direction will those who consider themselves “high-class Mainlanders” take?
The party can no longer rely on the army. Nor can it control the continuous demands of a free press. It also has never had to face the challenge of coming back from a minority status. As Taiwan’s youth look at the world through different glasses, there is nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide.
The reality of how this will be the winter of discontent for the KMT is just beginning to dawn on party members.
Jerome Keating is a commentator in Taipei.
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