Tue, Mar 13, 2007 page8

• Editorial: KMT should deal with its issues

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  The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) once again demonstrated how seriously out of step it is when it announced on Friday that it was revoking the party membership of Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (李傑).

  The KMT's Evaluation and Discipline Committee said that Lee was kicked out of the party for "fawning" over the Democratic Progressive Party government, but in the same press release revealed the real reason for Lee's expulsion: he had disrespected late dictator and party icon Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).

  This came just days after Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) put the full force of the city's bureaucratic machinery into action to try and thwart the government's plans to rename the memorial park dedicated to Chiang and knock down its outer walls.

  These two episodes highlight the problems faced by a party stuck in the past and remind us how a party that cannot break free from the shackles of its authoritarian history is unfit to lead Taiwan.

  The KMT's failure to change and come to terms with democratization and the growth of a Taiwan consciousness will continue to hold it back.

  How can the people of Taiwan be expected to take the KMT seriously if, almost six decades after being defeated in the Chinese Civil War, it still refuses to relinquish its claim to be the legitimate government of China and concentrate its efforts on Taiwan?

  The KMT's strict adherence to the Confucian concepts of loyalty and respect mean it remains unable to deal properly with embarrassing episodes from its past.

  And while loyalty and respect are worthy concepts, they are sometimes incompatible with the requirements of modern democratic politics.

  Loyalty to senior party figures is why the KMT cannot completely close the door on the Chiang era and also why it let former chairman Lien Chan (連戰) hang on to the chairmanship far longer than he should have. It is arguably also what cost the party the 2004 presidential election, when it selected Lien for the presidential slot, overlooking the more charismatic and popular James Soong (宋楚瑜), now People First Party chairman, who just four years earlier had come within a whisker of winning the presidency as an independent.

  But worst of all, it is the KMT's underlying Chinese supremacist attitude that has seen it struggle to cope with the rapid changes occurring in society.

  Look at how the party undid all the good work of former president and party chairman Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), reversing the localization policies that had seen the party prosper and realigning itself with Beijing's despotic communist regime.

  This attitude is also why the party will almost certainly select former chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) over Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) as its candidate for next year's presidential election, despite Ma being seriously compromised following his indictment on corruption charges.

  Wang is Taiwanese, and the KMT would be loath to give him the chance to lead the nation because of the lingering memories of Lee's "betrayal" of the party.

  While the KMT talks about caring for Taiwan and expresses regret over the 228 Incident, the party's dogmatic devotion to a flawed history, refusal to accept criticism of Chiang and reluctance to commit itself wholeheartedly to this nation's future create a different impression.

  It is this stubbornness that will continue to harm the KMT in the eyes of the electorate. And for this it has only itself to blame.
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