The Huang Fu-hsing (黃復興) faction is the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) “party within a party.” The KMT wanting to change its image by renaming the faction, which consists of military veterans and their dependents, is the party’s own internal affair, but the issue goes beyond factionalism. At heart is the issue of the KMT being able to “Taiwanize” itself. The Huang Fu-hsing branch is no longer able to distinguish between friend and foe. From its former stalwart anti-communist stance to its present submissiveness to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it now blames Taiwan for all things, opposes the US and loathes Japan. It ignores and has turned its back on Taiwanese public opinion and national interests.
After the KMT lost its political hold over Taiwan, the Huang Fu-hsing faction — an instrument of the party-state era — fell on its back foot and retired generals have successively collaborated with their old nemesis. In 2016, retired lieutenant general Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) sat upright in China’s Great Hall of the People, listening with rapt attention as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) gave an address at the annual assembly of the CPP. This is nothing but an absolute scandal and travesty. Not only do members of the Huang Fu-hsing faction not oppose the CCP, but their love of “China” is far different from their love of their fellow Taiwanese.
Among the KMT factions, the Huang Fu-hsing branch belongs to those that come “from outside” of Taiwan and yet within the party, its numbers and power are influential, despite its divergence from Taiwanese society. Its members dream of a “Great China,” but are not wont to “return home” to live out their China dream. Instead, they want to hobble Taiwan by constricting it and see the nation subsumed and annexed by China.
Simply stated, it is a self-identified “Mainlander party” faction composed of a minority of high-level KMT members. Members who identify with Taiwan are few and far between, and pale in comparison with members of the nation’s military who identify as Taiwanese.
The Huang Fu-hsing faction’s Mainlander homogeneity is a force that rejects homegrown power, is united and relatively radical, has a tendency to rant and rave, manipulates elections for the KMT chair and fights to maintain its sole message within the party, but is useless for establishing, developing and expanding the party’s native-born roots.
When former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was leading the party, he advocated for the localization of the KMT — to turn it into a “Taiwan Nationalist Party.” The Huang Fu-hsing faction lashed out and berated him as being a “Taiwanese independence supporter,” “a Japanese,” and blamed him for the party’s corruption and its addiction to “black gold” politics. “Hate Lee, hate Japan and love China” became their new slogan, yet the KMT still relies on families with black gold connections to help it strike out at everything on its behalf.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) has tried to play it both ways with all factions. Just replacing the Huang Fu-hsing name without making moves to change it has already brought him under fire. Some party members have called for him to be “prudent.”
Others have said that the Huang Fu-hsing faction is the “Chinese soul” of the KMT. Chu’s choice to ditch the “Chinese soul” has led the KMT to the point where “China’s progeny from the Yan and Huang emperors are no more, and the rejuvenation of China is but a mere dream.”
The heavy backlash from these diehards, combined with the deathly silence from local factions, has laid out the fork in the road before the KMT and the party’s schisms for all to see. Chu is coming to the end of his tenure as party chairman. Whether he can hold on to the chairmanship would be a test of the Huang Fu-hsing’s influence.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Tim Smith
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