Since the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) disastrous defeat in the Jan. 16 presidential and legislative elections, the once-dominant party has been at odds with itself about whether to go down a reformative path that would transform itself into a more tolerant and Taiwan-centered party, or to shift toward deeper-blue ideology.
The KMT’s conflicting mindset is evidenced by its handling of two incidents pertaining to what is the most suitable appellation for the nation in the international arena.
On May 25, Minister of Health and Welfare Lin Tzou-yien (林奏延) delivered a speech at the 69th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland, an event from which Taiwan’s delegation was almost excluded due to pressure from China.
In his five-minute speech, Lin twice mentioned the term “Chinese Taipei,” a title under which Taiwan has been participating in the WHA since 2009, the second year former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was in office.
Lin did not mention “Taiwan,” except for the one time when he talked about “Taiwanese population.”
To the astonishment of many people, the KMT caucus — a longtime champion of using titles such as “Chinese Taipei” and the “Republic of China (ROC)” — filed a motion two days later demanding an apology from Lin and Premier Lin Chuan (林全), saying that Lin Tzou-yien’s failure to mention “Taiwan” in his speech constituted a degradation of the nation’s sovereignty.
The KMT’s unusual defense of “Taiwan” became ironic after it made a fuss over President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) identification of herself as the “president of Taiwan (ROC)” when she signed a guest book in Panama during her first overseas state visit last month.
The party held several news conferences lambasting Tsai’s decision to choose “Taiwan” over the “ROC” as belittling national dignity.
As the grounds for the KMT’s criticism of Tsai’s choice of title is similar to that cited by the party when it blasted Lin Tzou-yien’s WHA speech, many were puzzled by the party’s seemingly inconsistent and contradictory stance.
It is apparent that the KMT is having difficulty finding the middle ground between its decades-long defense of the existence of an exiled Chinese government and the growing Taiwanese awareness on an island that it deems as being “recovered” by the ROC in 1945.
Given that Tsai’s description of herself as “president of Taiwan” received support from 72.4 percent of the respondents in a poll released on Sunday by the Taiwan Thinktank, it would definitely be unwise for the KMT to go against mainstream public opinion unless it wants to isolate itself even further.
The KMT’s conflicting stance only makes its statement that Taiwan and the ROC have become an integral part of each other sound insincere and expedient. Such an impression certainly would not help a party seeking to regain the public’s trust and support.
Following the KMT’s controversial expulsion earlier this month of its former spokesman, Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) — who was kicked out for doing what he was recruited to do: bring diverse opinions into the party — the hope that the KMT would be more tolerant toward different views, as it has pledged to be, seems far-fetched.
It is up to the KMT to decide whether to adopt the less popular deep-blue ideology and become marginalized like the New Party, or to listen to the public’s voice and make a comeback.
We are used to hearing that whenever something happens, it means Taiwan is about to fall to China. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) cannot change the color of his socks without China experts claiming it means an invasion is imminent. So, it is no surprise that what happened in Venezuela over the weekend triggered the knee-jerk reaction of saying that Taiwan is next. That is not an opinion on whether US President Donald Trump was right to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the way he did or if it is good for Venezuela and the world. There are other, more qualified
China’s recent aggressive military posture around Taiwan simply reflects the truth that China is a millennium behind, as Kobe City Councilor Norihiro Uehata has commented. While democratic countries work for peace, prosperity and progress, authoritarian countries such as Russia and China only care about territorial expansion, superpower status and world dominance, while their people suffer. Two millennia ago, the ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius (孟子) would have advised Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that “people are the most important, state is lesser, and the ruler is the least important.” In fact, the reverse order is causing the great depression in China right now,
This should be the year in which the democracies, especially those in East Asia, lose their fear of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China principle” plus its nuclear “Cognitive Warfare” coercion strategies, all designed to achieve hegemony without fighting. For 2025, stoking regional and global fear was a major goal for the CCP and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA), following on Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) Little Red Book admonition, “We must be ruthless to our enemies; we must overpower and annihilate them.” But on Dec. 17, 2025, the Trump Administration demonstrated direct defiance of CCP terror with its record US$11.1 billion arms
The immediate response in Taiwan to the extraction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by the US over the weekend was to say that it was an example of violence by a major power against a smaller nation and that, as such, it gave Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) carte blanche to invade Taiwan. That assessment is vastly oversimplistic and, on more sober reflection, likely incorrect. Generally speaking, there are three basic interpretations from commentators in Taiwan. The first is that the US is no longer interested in what is happening beyond its own backyard, and no longer preoccupied with regions in other
RSS