Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) has taken the helm as chairwoman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) at a unique moment in history. The nation is at a critical turning point where many important tasks are still to be accomplished. At her inaugural speech, Hung said that the KMT must develop an integrated discourse based on the nation’s Constitution, founding spirit, history and collective identity. The question is how will the party meet the expectations of the younger generation — largely pro-independence — with its current national discourse.
Although the KMT has been going downhill for a long time, it has been unable to fully grasp the fundamental reasons for its downfall and it has failed to develop a new discourse that could rectify this situation. Despite promoting slogans calling for party reform and reflection on its performance, the party remains chiefly concerned with the extent of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) political achievements. It has also completely forgotten the collective anxiety among Taiwanese that surfaced during the 2014 Sunflower movement and shaped the outcome of the nine-in-one elections that year, as well as the Jan. 16 presidential and legislative elections.
The Sunflower movement appeared to be a reaction against the nontransparent manner in which the legislature handled the cross-strait service trade agreement. Nonetheless, a deeper reason was the collective anxiety among Taiwanese over the effects of economic integration with China. Many fear that, as its economic influence grows, Beijing might encroach upon Taiwan’s political independence and undermine the nation’s social values.
If the KMT is to reform itself, it must rethink its cross-strait strategies and national discourse — and it must take the plunge to change them. Before the presidential election, Hung was replaced by New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) as the party’s presidential candidate. That decision showed that the KMT knew it must adhere to mainstream public opinion to continue to exist and remain competitive, and that without winning elections, any policy, no matter how well-phrased, is meaningless. As the KMT’s cross-strait policies, including the so-called “1992 consensus,” have lost public support and as there is no support among the younger generation for the national discourse that the party has clung to for several generations, the question is if the KMT should continue to cling to these policies.
So far, the KMT’s national discourse has been tied with “China.” However, this China is the Republic of China (ROC), which sees the People’s Republic China (PRC) as occupying its “mainland.” The PRC has never recognized the existence of the ROC, and probably never will, at least for the foreseeable future.
The discourse, which sees Taiwan as inseparable from China, has reached an impasse, not only because a majority of young people today support Taiwanese independence, but also because unification across the Taiwan Strait would never occur the way Hung is hoping for: China would never accept the re-establishment of the ROC or build a democratic and free society with equal wealth distribution.
The KMT is now faced with the question of whether and how it should reform. It can either keep clinging to a national discourse that the young people no longer buy, or it can change. If it does decide to change, it has three choices.
First, it could adjust its current national discourse by adopting the mainstream public opinion. This would mean that the KMT must become completely localized, severing its ties with China and developing a new national discourse based on Taiwan’s history since 1949. This would help the KMT regain support from the younger generation who are the future leaders of Taiwan and it would be the only way of keeping the party competitive.
Second, it could face up to realities and abandon the fiction that the ROC represents China and that China will be unified under the three principles of the people. It should also stop integrating its ideological stance with that of the Chinese Communist Party based on Chinese nationalism and emulating the Hong Kong establishment in turning itself into Beijing’s representative in Taiwan.
Third, it could lay down a clear road map based on the established national discourse connected to China, while at the same time distancing itself from Beijing and applying pressure on China to democratize. One necessary step is to create a new cross-strait policy to push China toward democratization, which would include teaming up with the Democratic Progressive Party and other political parties to exert the force of all Taiwanese in a joint call on China to democratize.
Neither of the three are simple choices and the ideals behind each road map carry their own risks and opportunities.
The KMT and the national discourse that it upholds have reached a crossroads, and people are waiting to find out what Hung and the majority of the party’s membership will decide as they consider what is the “correct road ahead.”
John Lim is an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Modern History.
Translated by Yu-an Tu and Perry Svensson
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