On Wednesday last week, China’s official Xinhua news agency published a short report saying that Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), president of China’s semi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, had met a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation headed by KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) in the city of Kunshan in China’s Jiangsu Province.
However, the 239-character report only mentioned what Zhang said at the meeting, with nothing about what Hsia said, and had no accompanying photographs.
This shows how little the KMT’s trip mattered in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Just as China was holding belligerent military exercises around Taiwan, which undermined regional peace and were widely condemned by the international community, the KMT insisted on ignoring the opposition of wiser voices in Taiwan.
Despite everything, it sent the delegation, which signaled a friendly message to the CCP.
However, not a word of gratitude was heard from the CCP, which instead “reminded” the KMT to adhere to the so-called “1992 consensus” and oppose “Taiwan independence.”
The KMT’s act of self-humiliation is reminiscent of what happened in 1948, when it was being buffeted by the storm of the Chinese Civil War.
In January of that year, a group of KMT members established the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang (中國國民黨革命委員會), which supported the CCP’s call, as one of its “May Day slogans,” to establish a democratic coalition government.
In so doing, the committee sent a friendly message to the CCP.
Today, the committee is a subordinate organization of the CCP, with its headquarters on humble Donghuangchenggen S Street in Beijing’s Dongcheng District (東城).
The committee’s expenses are entirely funded by a budget allocated by the CCP-led Chinese government, and its main task year after year is to implement the CCP’s policy decisions and study the spirit of CCP leaders’ speeches.
For example, according to the records of a meeting of the Revolutionary Committee’s Central Committee, its main task this year is to “hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, taking Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) thought about socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era as its guide, and to thoroughly carry out the spirit of the CCP’s 19th National Congress and the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth plenary sessions of the CCP’s 19th Central Committee, so as to welcome the victorious opening the CCP’s 20th National Congress with excellent achievements.”
It is sad to see what has become of this old KMT faction.
The KMT of today is rushing into the arms of the CCP, just as its Revolutionary Committee did in 1948. How the mighty have fallen. It is a shame indeed.
Yu Kung is a Taiwanese entrepreneur working in China.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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