A new minister of national defense was sworn in yesterday morning, just hours after another Cabinet member announced his departure and two days after a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker said she was leaving the party because Taiwan needs more than just a choice between pan-blue and pan-green.
Are these moves another example of musical chairs at the Executive Yuan and within the KMT, or a hint that something different is on the way?
Former chief of general staff Admiral Kao Kuang-chi (高廣圻) replaced Yen Ming (嚴明), who resigned on Tuesday last week, reportedly because he felt he had “completed his mission” and wanted to pave the way for younger leadership.
On Thursday night, National Development Council Minister Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) said that he had first handed in his resignation after the nine-in-one elections in November last year, but had agreed to the premier’s request to stay on — but it was time to go now because he too had completed his mission. However, Kuan also said that the elections had shown that a majority of voters were unhappy with the current political and economic situation.
Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩) from Hsinchu County said she wanted to have a voice in politics that differs from those of the two major parties.
The idea of completed missions, ministerial movements and new voices come amid a growing clamor for change in another key KMT institution, the National Policy Foundation, with even such a pan-blue stalwart as the United Daily News venturing in an editorial yesterday that it was time for the think tank “heavyweights” to step down to allow younger people to promote reforms in the party.
These calls for younger leadership might make bystanders think that perhaps the winds of change are beginning to be felt in the corridors of the KMT’s relic-laden headquarters on Taipei’s Bade Road.
However, more cynical observers might note that the corridors in the Bade building are nowhere near as drafty as those of the KMT’s former home, the imposing edifice it built on Zhongshang S Road directly across the Presidential Office Building — back in the days when it looked like the party would rule Taiwan forever. Between the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, many of the building’s offices became vacant and in 2006, the KMT sold the building to the Evergreen Group in what had to be a humbling step down and moved to a much smaller building on Bade Road.
The party’s new chairman, New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), has been talking a lot about reform since he emerged as the sole candidate to replace President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) at the helm, but history has shown that one disastrous election result does not mean true change will occur within the KMT.
Licking its self-imposed wounds after losing the 2000 presidential election to the Democratic Progressive Party’s Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), the KMT turned to former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), who had just been rejected by voters, choosing to do away with the reforms begun when former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was running both the nation and the party.
Under Lien, the KMT rejected Lee’s efforts to mainstream a more Taiwanese element into the party, as opposed to the old Mainlander guard. While the party was eventually able to regain power with Ma as a candidate in 2008, his pledges of reform never really took hold within the party or in government.
Just how far removed the Ma administration has become from the average Taiwanese was amply demonstrated last year, with the widespread public support for the Sunflower movement and then the November elections. Chu and others say they all want to see the KMT change, to better reflect the needs and aspirations of both its supporters and all Taiwanese. It will take a lot more than words — and neither history, nor time, appears to be on their side.
In an article published in Newsweek on Monday last week, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged China to retake territories it lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. “If it is really for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t China take back Russia?” Lai asked, referring to territories lost in 1858 and 1860. The territories once made up the two flanks of northern Manchuria. Once ceded to Russia, they became part of the Russian far east. Claims since then have been made that China and Russia settled the disputes in the 1990s through the 2000s and that “China
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