There is nothing wrong with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) following in the footsteps of the New Party under the leadership of KMT chairperson-elect Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) said yesterday.
Yok made the remarks at a news conference at New Party headquarters in Taipei.
“Look at Taipei Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) and many other KMT members in the political forefront. Which one of them was not cultivated by the New Party? At least my party has a clear ideology and serves as the benchmark for other parties in terms of vision and general ideology,” Yok said.
With Hung — the KMT’s first female chairperson and a proponent of unification with China — scheduled to assume party leadership today, Yok said some New Party members have expressed the hope that he could lead them in rejoining the KMT to consolidate support for Hung.
However, such a plan would require thorough consideration and planning, Yok said, adding that any talk of KMT-New Party cooperation should wait until Hung makes up her mind on the matter first.
The New Party was established in 1993 by Yok and several other former KMT members who opposed then-KMT chairman and president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) localization policies.
The party’s stated goals are to achieve ethnic harmony and national unification.
Meanwhile, the New Party yesterday released the results of a survey it conducted on Thursday and Friday last week to gauge the Taiwanese public’s awareness of national identity and perception of cross-strait ties.
When asked about the nature of cross-strait relations, 62.4 percent of respondents said it is a “state-to-state” relationship, followed by 18.3 percent who said the two sides of the Taiwan Strait were “split since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and have yet to be united.”
Although China and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) have said the so-called “1992 consensus” is the foundation for peaceful cross-strait development, 40.3 percent of respondents said president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) does not need to accept the “1992 consensus” to maintain the cross-strait “status quo.”
About 32 percent of respondents said the opposite, while 27.8 percent declined to express an opinion, the survey showed.
The “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted making up in 2000, refers to a supposed understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that both sides acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
The respondents were divided on whether Tsai should publicly pledge not to declare independence, with 34.9 percent saying Tsai should do so and 34.4 percent saying she should not.
About 30.7 percent said they did not have an opinion.
The poll collected 1,081 valid samples and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
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