The plain and low-key business style of Huang Chu-wen (
Disappointed at the KMT's increasing tilt toward the right, Huang is forming a new political group aimed at burnishing the "Taiwan First" legacy of former president Lee Teng-hui (
PHOTO: CHU YU-PING, TAIPEI TIMES
"The country owes its economic and democratic achievements in recent years to Lee's Taiwanization policy, which must not be abrogated," Huang said.
For the past few months, politicians of all stripes have been closely monitoring who Huang is recruiting for his new party, which aspires to grab 10 percent of the vote in the year-end legislative elections.
"Had the [existing] opposition parties done a better job, there would be no room for another one," he has said, noting that over 70 percent of the people polled frown on the opposition-controlled legislature, which has obstructed the policy goals of the executive branch. "But ours will ally with the ruling DPP, allowing the government to smoothly deliver on its mandate," Hung said.
The KMT, of which Huang was a member for decades, has moved onto a pro-China path and has abandoned Lee's definition of cross-strait relations as "special state-to-state" in nature, he noted.
"Without asserting the sovereignty of Taiwan, how can we demand parity with China at the negotiating table?" Huang asked.
A staunch backer of the "no haste, be patient" policy, he gnashes his teeth at suggestions by KMT officials and leading industrialists to relax controls on China-bound investments.
"The legal obstacles, if removed in one stroke, will cause irreparable harm to Taiwan's national security," he argued, adding that Lee shared his apprehensions.
Consequently, Huang decided not to renew his KMT membership late last year. "It doesn't make sense for people with conflicting ideas to remain in the same fold," he said.
A history of non-conformity
Huang, 60, had been a five-term lawmaker before taking the helm of the Ministry of the Interior in 1998. His political career, spanning two decades, has been characterized by non-conformity. Before 1986 he championed the lifting of martial law and suggested that blacklisted overseas Taiwanese be allowed to return to the country.
When Lee took power in January 1988, he immediately pledged support for the first native-born president, whose power base was rather shaky at the time.
Months later, Huang and 20-plus KMT colleagues founded a legislative faction called the Collective Wisdom Club (
"As a student I learned Chinese history but knew nothing about Taiwanese history," he said. "I could tell from a map how to travel from Shenyang to Guangzhou by train but didn't know how to make a trip from Chiayi to Pingtung. Such ignorance of Taiwan is just not right."
Its advocacy of Taiwanization and support for Lee earned the club a place as a mainstream political grouping, while the non-mainstream faction was composed mostly of mainland conservatives.
Between 1990 and 1992, the mainstream and the non-mainstream factions clashed over almost every policy issue.
"A man of depth, Huang did not talk much, but when he spoke, his words carried a lot of weight," said Hung Shiu-chu (
Loathing clamorous campaign stunts, Huang set forth his platforms in black and white. To date he has published 14 books chronicling his views on major policy issues.
A 1989 book titled Taiwan's Future suggested the country quit labeling the Chinese communists as "bandits" and adopt a pragmatic strategy to break the diplomatic isolation imposed by Beijing.
To that end, he has taught himself English in the hope that he might help Taiwan raise its international stature, aides said.
In 1993, he openly referred to Taipei and Beijing as two political entities, to the shock of then-premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), who like most officials born in China suspected Lee and his allies were closet independence advocates.
The next year, the outspoken lawmaker further echoed the DPP call for a referendum to decide the fate of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project, in defiance of the party. This series of maverick stands caused opponents to brand him a dissident.
In February 1998, he was chosen to head the interior ministry to tackle rising crime and implement the downsizing of the provincial government. The latter task earned him the ire of some 300,000 provincial employees.
A `born' curse?
Born in Chiayi County in 1941, Huang had to sell popsicles and collect rice left by farmers to help support his poverty-stricken family. His father died in a car accident when he was still in his mother's womb.
Fortune tellers advised his mother to give him away for fear that Huang, "a born curse," would cause the family further mishaps. But Huang's mother, only 28 when widowed, insisted on raising him herself.
"Today, my mother and grandmother remain the two persons I admire the most," Huang said. He went to the same primary school as KMT lawmaker Hsu Den-koun (
"Huang likes to help people wherever he can," Hsu said of Huang. "He does not look solemn when you know him well."
Intelligent and hardworking, Huang later entered the law program at National Taiwan University. While at college, he became a big fan of Hu Shih (胡適), the Chinese philosopher and essayist, who played an active part in the May Fourth Movement in the early 20th century, protesting foreign imperialists and warlords.
After graduation, Huang taught high school for a few years, and later passed the exam to become a prosecutor. "All my life, I have tried to bolster justice and fairness," he said.
However, his ambitions didn't stop there, and ten years later he ran in a 1983 legislative race and won a seat from Taoyuan County where has been a resident since 1971.
"Stiff and laconic, Huang however makes a good friend," said KMT lawmaker Lin Kuo-lung (
The general's last battle
Since March he has embarked on an old venture in a new way -- rolling back pro-China fever by setting up another political group.
Huang has cast the December polls as a general's last battle which he and his new party must win. With Lee's backing, he wants the new group to capture 35 seats in the legislature, allowing the DPP to call the shots.
"I will go back and practice law after that," he said, dismissing reports he is eyeing a legislative seat or the premiership in the much talked-about proposed coalition government.
Hung Chi-chang (
"With a platform so similar to that of the DPP, the new political group may end up being another short-lived Collective Wisdom Club," he said.
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