Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) is highly proficient at political calculations. Chu used underhanded tactics to block Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) from entering the presidential race, while removing former KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱). He calls for unity within the party on one hand, while wielding a knife in the other.
Chu is facing a situation far graver than that faced by former premier and Democratic Progressive Party chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) when he ran against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in the 2008 presidential election.
A divided party cannot win, but if Chu had not disposed of Hung, the KMT would certainly have lost the Jan. 16 election. While decapitating Hung makes it harder to unite the party, it would be difficult for Chu to knife Hung if the party were fully united. They are two sides of the same coin and so the KMT is fighting a losing battle.
In the minds of the electorate, voting for Chu would feel like a third term of Ma’s administration. Corruption and abuse of power have come to define his rotten and incompetent administration — which has caused the public to endure untold suffering.
Taiwanese are not so foolish that they will choose to prolong their agony. Chu must therefore distance himself completely from Ma’s regime. The problem is, Ma and Chu are partners in crime, politically conjoined twins. If they are not separated, they will die; but once separated, their chances of survival are slim.
Chu hopes he can selectively sever aspects of Ma’s administration and so has opted to gently criticize Ma for what he has called “three big policy mistakes.”
Ma wants Wang’s tenure as legislative speaker to end, but Chu has given Wang the impression that he would be able to stay on as speaker, on the proviso that he is loyal to Chu. It should not be forgotten that when Ma hatched a plot to remove Wang from the position of speaker, he had previously professed his absolute loyalty to Wang and supported his re-election as legislative speaker.
Chu “knifed” Hung by rejecting her “one China, same interpretation” policy, and knifed his own wife for failing to support his presidential bid. Chu also frightened off Wang — because Ma did not agree to Wang entering the presidential race — and went back on his promise to New Taipei City residents to serve a second full term as mayor. The only person Chu has yet to stab in the back is his father-in-law, Kao Yu-jen (高育仁).
The problem for Chu is that Ma’s administration has been so poorly run — and the KMT is so full of internal tensions — that it is no longer possible to deceive the public. Chu lacks the ability to operate on the KMT without botching the procedure: He has opened a wound, which has now turned septic.
If Chu continues to block Wang, there will be a backlash from the KMT’s localist faction, while his ousting of Hung has provoked outrage within the rejuvenated deep blues. However, if Chu gives Wang a consolation prize of a fourth term as legislative speaker, the two factions will cross swords as they battle for dominance. Chu does not know which way to turn.
When Lu San-lang (呂三郎), the director of Hsieh Tien Temple in Hualien County, came out in support of Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), he proposed a fair and simple method of voting. Instead of talking of honor and justice in politics, voters should simply support politicians who have done a good job and get rid of those who have performed badly, Lu said.
Having now been through two transitions of power, the public has become shrewder and is now better able to judge who should run the nation.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Edward Jones
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
Before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can blockade, invade, and destroy the democracy on Taiwan, the CCP seeks to make the world an accomplice to Taiwan’s subjugation by harassing any government that confers any degree of marginal recognition, or defies the CCP’s “One China Principle” diktat that there is no free nation of Taiwan. For United States President Donald Trump’s upcoming May 14, 2026 visit to China, the CCP’s top wish has nothing to do with Trump’s ongoing dismantling of the CCP’s Axis of Evil. The CCP’s first demand is for Trump to cease US
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly widespread in workplaces, some people stand to benefit from the technology while others face lower wages and fewer job opportunities. However, from a longer-term perspective, as AI is applied more extensively to business operations, the personnel issue is not just about changes in job opportunities, but also about a structural mismatch between skills and demand. This is precisely the most pressing issue in the current labor market. Tai Wei-chun (戴偉峻), director-general of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence Innovation at the Institute for Information Industry, said in a recent interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times
RSS