The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) should abrogate the party’s annual forum with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and donate all party assets except for those that it legally acquired, former KMT secretary-general Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) said in a party reform proposal.
Lee compiled the report after 21 forums with the KMT’s local cadres and campaign staff across the nation from Feb. 19 to March 23, following the party’s landslide defeats in the Jan. 16 presidential and legislative elections.
Nominated as secretary-general in January last year by then-KMT chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), Lee submitted the report to newly sworn-in KMT Chairperson Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) before his term ended late last month.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The report listed 14 reasons presented at the forums for the KMT’s electoral failure, including the party’s controversial assets, which it said have been a constant target of and a “cash machine” for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
“The KMT’s withdrawal from media ownership has seen a majority of local news outlets and political commentators targeting and throwing negative comments at the party. Such attacks have not only severely tarnished the KMT’s image, but also caused the public to have a negative perception of the party,” the report said.
The report singled out pan-green organizations’ efforts to affect the political views of students and the influence of educational reforms on young people’s perception of national identity as potential reasons for the losses in January.
Among the 12 reform proposals in the report was the need to expound on the KMT’s central ideas in a bid to unify supporters and party members and to attract young people to the party.
The report urged the party leadership to cancel the annual KMT-CCP forum, calling it “political pageantry.”
“Instead, the party should engage in communication [with Beijing] regarding concrete cross-strait issues and establish a service center in mainland China to offer assistance to Taiwanese businessmen being mistreated there,” the report said.
The Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Culture Forum was initiated in 2005 by then-KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰).
The report said that while the KMT should donate all of its illegitimate properties, it should hold on to its legal assets, because they include membership fees paid by KMT members.
The party should not dance to the beat of the DPP’s and the media’s drums, it said.
“The KMT should let a juridical organization determine the legitimacy of each of its assets... Should anyone try to slander or criticize the party over its assets, it must take legal action and demand compensation,” the report said.
It also urged the KMT leadership to use some of the assets to take care of elderly and socially disadvantaged party members, in addition to donating the party’s election subsidies to charity organizations to win public support.
Turning to the 228 Incident, the report said the massacre is a historical tragedy for which the KMT of today should not be held accountable.
“The party should explain the truth behind the incident to prevent the DPP from cashing in on the event each year,” it added.
The 228 Incident refers to an anti-government uprising that began on Feb. 27, 1947, and a series of bloody purges against civilians in subsequent months by the then-KMT regime.
The event marked the beginning of the White Terror era, which saw tens of thousands of people arrested, imprisoned and executed.
The US Department of State yesterday criticized Beijing over its misrepresentation of the US’ “one China” policy in the latest diplomatic salvo between the two countries over a bid by Taiwan to regain its observer status at the World Health Assembly, the decisionmaking body of the WHO. “The PRC [People’s Republic of China] continues to publicly misrepresent U.S. policy,” Department of State spokesman Ned Price wrote on Twitter. “The United States does not subscribe to the PRC’s ‘one China principle’ — we remain committed to our longstanding, bipartisan one China policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, Three Joint Communiques, and
FATES LINKED: The US president said that sanctions on Russia over Ukraine must exact a ‘long-term price,’ because otherwise ‘what signal does that send to China?’ US President Joe Biden yesterday vowed that US forces would defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack in his strongest statement to date on the issue. Beijing is already “flirting with danger,” Biden said following talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, in which the pair agreed to monitor Chinese naval activity and joint Chinese-Russian exercises. Asked if Washington was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, he replied: “Yes.” “That’s the commitment we made,” Biden said. “We agreed with the ‘one China’ policy, we signed on to it ... but the idea that it can be
INFORMATION LEAKED: Documents from Xinjiang purportedly showed top leaders in Beijing calling for a forceful crackdown and even orders to shoot to kill Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday held a videoconference with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet as she visited Xinjiang during a mission overshadowed by fresh allegations of Uighur abuses and fears she is being used as a public relations tool. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been accused of detaining more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the region as part of a years-long crackdown the US and lawmakers in other Western nations have labeled a “genocide.” China denies the allegations. Bachelet was expected to visit the cities of Urumqi and Kashgar on a six-day tour. The US
SUBTLE? While Biden said the US policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ on Taiwan had not changed, the group targeted China and Russia without naming them Leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the US yesterday warned against attempts to “change the status quo by force,” as concerns grow about whether China could invade Taiwan. The issue of Taiwan loomed over a leadership meeting in Tokyo of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) nations — the US, Japan, Australia and India — who stressed their determination to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region in the face of an increasingly assertive China, although Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the group was not targeting any one country. The four leaders said in a joint statement issued after their talks