The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) remains in its discontented state of disarray, searching for direction. To any distant observer, it might not seem that bad, but a closer look proves otherwise.
Start with the surprise return and acceptance of former member Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康). After nearly three decades from his bold break with the party, Jaw has suddenly decided to come in from the cold.
Why?
In 1993, he had left the KMT to help form the New Party, a distraught group who felt that the KMT had lost touch with its primary goal of returning to China, and bringing Taiwan with it, of course.
The New Party grew, but quickly peaked. It gained 21 seats in the 1995 Legislative Yuan and 46 seats in the now defunct National Assembly before suddenly running out of steam. It has not held any seats in the legislature for more than a decade.
Yet few KMT members, in accepting Jaw back, even thought to ask why this is so.
Instead, Jaw simply decided to come in from the cold.
Surprisingly, he is showing few signs of repentance, remorse or a change of heart. As soon as he was accepted back in the fold, he announced that he is considering a run for the party chair and also willing to carry its banner in the 2024 presidential election.
Say what?
Do KMT members really imagine that his return is a positive sign? Are many suggesting that he is the next messiah? What is their central thought?
More has followed, pouring gasoline on this bonfire of the vanities.
Recent two-time loser par-excellence Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) quickly endorsed Jaw for party chair. Han, for anyone who has been out of the nation, is the same one who won the Kaohsiung mayoralty in 2018 and almost immediately afterward decided that his imagined popularity merited abandoning that position and running for president last year.
Unfortunately, reality entered and proved that it was not the best of decisions for Han or the party. He was trounced in the presidential election and then suffered the further ignominy of being recalled as mayor.
Should not questioning have followed this? Do party members see Han’s endorsement of Jaw as a positive thing? Or did no one see this coming?
The KMT seems to consistently falter while maintaining a short-term memory.
Did the party learn nothing from the debacle of Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), its initial pick to contest the 2016 presidential election?
So now Jaw has returned from the cold with the implication that he did so to “save the party,” and this is followed by his accepting the endorsement of two-time loser Han.
However, the twists, turns and mysteries do not end there.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has also stepped in to provide informative direction. Some might think this is propitious, as Ma won the presidency in 2008 and 2012.
However, short-term memory again wins out.
Does no one remember that Ma got the Bumbler nametag right after his 2012 victory? Why was that followed by the ensuing destruction of his Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement dreams and the KMT’s wipeout in the elections of 2014?
Ma clearly further showed his true colors in 2015 when he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore. At that crucial first-ever meeting, he dared not even mention the catchphrase he touted in relation to the bogus “1992 consensus,” that the KMT holds to “one China,” but with a different interpretation from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of what that “one China” is.
All this baggage is what besets KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), who is trying to hold the ship together, update it and get it moving forward.
On the surface, a united effort between Ma, Jaw and Chiang would seem propitious. It would bring all the sections of the KMT under one roof, but questions linger:
Who will take the lead? Who will define what constitutes the one roof that they are under?
Nature abhors a vacuum, even in the KMT leadership, so if no strong leader emerges, past losers will return to fill the gap. This has been the continuing story and challenge for the KMT since 2000, when they kicked out former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
Another challenge is the KMT’s dwindling base in an increasingly Taiwan-centric nation. If the KMT is relying on the old guard to consolidate and build that base, it is putting its eggs in the basket with a proverbial gaping hole in its base.
Young KMT members are caught in this situation and are at a loss as to what banner to follow.
The “three principles” of founder Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) are worthy principles, but how are they to be applied when members prefer to pursue a lost motherland dream over true democracy?
When the KMT lost China to the CCP it was not because of the three principles. It lost because the KMT leadership failed to put them into practice. They preferred power, privilege and entitlement to democratic principles.
The KMT needs revamping and a new paradigm; and so it remains on Taiwan as a diaspora in exile. The only way it can go back to China is as Quislings, eagerly abandoning the three principles to enjoy crumbs of privilege and prestige on the continent.
Somehow, this new paradigm must combine the idealism of the past with the reality of the present.
It will be a challenge for whoever becomes the KMT chair in July, for it is Taiwan, not China, which has government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Perhaps the KMT could find inspiration from the story of Roman poet Virgil in his epic Aeneid. As Troy fell, Aeneas and his fellow Trojans escaped into exile. After travails, they founded Rome, but they did not call it “New Troy,” nor did they ever dream of returning to the old Troy. They settled where they were and made it their new home.
Some might argue that China has changed from the China out of which the CCP drove the KMT. That is true, but the CCP’s capitalist China is still far from being a democracy governed by Sun’s three principles.
China is not going to change, nor will Beijing accept any dialogue while Xi is in power. Dictators do not dialogue, and a younger Xi is set to outlive Ma and Jaw.
One only has to look at Hong Kong, which had been promised 50 years of democracy, but did not even get a whisper of dialogue when it asked for what it was promised.
The KMT’s election hopes lie in painfully abandoning its China dream and becoming fully Taiwan centric.
Who will take the lead and how can a new paradigm be developed?
Ma would be incapable of formulating such a paradigm and the same goes for Jaw. Any dreams that either have would only work if Taiwan were in dire economic straits and a Faustian bargain with China were the only hope. The current reality is the opposite.
If KMT members really believe in the three principles, they must learn that they already exist in Taiwan and China is not open to missionaries with that message.
The young Turks in the KMT are searching for something more realistic to follow. If I were to offer unwanted advice it would be this: Re-elect Chiang as chairman and let him work at revamping the party. He could also run for Taipei mayor next year as a testing ground to see how much real management ability he has.
As for a presidential candidate in 2024, the best KMT person on the horizon is New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜). He has not been sucked into the “one China” dream and has a more practical bent of getting things done.
And Ma and Jaw? Would they be up to the painful analysis of why they carry such losing cachet?
However, why should the KMT listen to this? It only promotes a balanced democracy in a world where the self-determination that Taiwan has achieved is increasingly valued and on the rise.
Jerome Keating is a writer based in Taipei.
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS