Lien Chan pursues Huang Chu-wen as his spat with former president continues

The controversy over former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) plans to organize a pro-Lee political group continued yesterday as current KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and the party's former minister of the interior Huang Chu-wen (黃主文) strongly criticized each other, local media reported.

Lien, along with Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and other KMT heavyweights, yesterday morning attended a party convention held in Taipei to officially launch the KMT's campaign for the year-end elections.

Facing recent controversy over the so-called "localization" path aggressively promoted by Lee and Huang, Lien yesterday strongly criticized Huang, saying that certain politicians are trying to arouse "ethnic sentiments" (省籍情結) between pro- and anti-independence camps in Taiwan for their own political gain.

"As the old Chinese saying goes, what General Sima Zhao (司馬昭) is up to is too evident," Lien told the KMT's Taipei Committee members at the convention.

Lien also said that Taiwan can only be "reborn" if the KMT regains power. He told party members and the party's eight Taipei City candidates for the year-end legislative elections that the KMT must change what it did wrong in the past and retain its legislative majority by winning the elections.

Lien said that the nation has "changed beyond recognition" over the past year and that major foreign academic groups and their media organizations have been asking, "What's happened in Taiwan?" "Is Taiwan sick?" and "Where is Taiwan headed?"

Lien criticized the DPP for blaming its difficulties in policy promotion on the three major opposition parties. He claimed that the KMT has in fact been "cooperative and supportive" in helping to pass bills in the Legislative Yuan, even when an extra session had to be convened to approve major financial reform bills.

In contrast, he alleged, the DPP used to "oppose for the sake of opposition" in the legislature before it came into power.

He also criticized the DPP for blaming the current political and economic quagmire on the legislature, the opposition parties and the media.

Meanwhile, Ma, who is a KMT Central Standing Committee member, yesterday praised that Lien's idea of establishing a "confederation" system (邦聯制) between Taiwan and China as a "transitory concept" to serve as an alternative model to Beijing's "one country, two systems" (一國兩制) model that can be discussed during future negotiations.

In response to Lien's criticism, Huang immediately fired back yesterday, saying that democratic politics is party politics, and that "it is normal to form political groups or political parties."

"And he calls himself a PhD in Political Science?" Huang mocked.

Lien received his doctorate in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 1965.

"The KMT is just like a rich family which does not know about the welfare and woes of the people," Huang said.

Huang also revealed yesterday that Lee's future political group will soon put forth nominations for the legislative elections but will not nominate candidates for local government leadership.