After Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing, most headlines referred to her as the leader of the opposition in Taiwan.
Is she really, though?
Being the chairwoman of the KMT does not automatically translate into being the leader of the opposition in the sense that most foreign readers would understand it.
“Leader of the opposition” is a very British term. It applies to the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, and to some extent, to other democracies.
If you look at the UK right now, Conservative Party head Kemi Badenoch is clearly the leader of the opposition.
So are Pierre Poilievre in Canada, Angus Taylor in Australia and Chris Hipkins in New Zealand.
These are the kinds of parliamentary democracies in which there is a clear opposition party, and its leader is mostly unchallenged as representing opposition in the government.
These figures are clearly seen as alternatives to their prime ministers. They even gather a team dubbed a “shadow government”: Voters know exactly who would be heading which department if the majority changes, which is all it would take for these people to jump from “leader of the opposition” to “national leader.”
That is not how it works in Taiwan.
In the US, the head of the Democratic Party is Ken Martin, as he is the chair of the Democratic National Committee. Have you ever heard of him before?
It is not that Martin has no power, but his duties in managing the party do not make him the leader of the opposition to US President Donald Trump.
Other figures in the Democratic Party overshadow him in terms of media presence, policy shaping and campaigning. Martin is not a member of the US Congress, and he is primarily a manager.
In theory, this is what Cheng is, too.
Cheng is not even the most powerful KMT politician. That would be Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who is by far the highest-ranking KMT figure today. Han, along with KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁), have significant decisionmaking power.
In contrast, Cheng is not even a member of the legislature: She can talk, but she cannot act.
As far as hard power in Taiwan is concerned, her words cannot turn into action any more than yours. The KMT can influence policy thanks to its weight in the legislature, but it could do so without Cheng.
Her case is not unique: Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was not always simultaneously KMT party leader and president and Han never served as KMT chairman despite having been the presidential nominee.
Even in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), being the head of the party does not mean being its most prominent figure: All three DPP presidents have been party chair at some point, but their occupation of that role was not necessarily coterminous with their presidencies.
We have no guarantee that Cheng would even be the next KMT presidential candidate.
Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) or Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), among others, are just as likely to be nominated.
Many said Cheng was elected chairperson with barely more than 65,000 votes in a poll that mobilized less than 40 percent of KMT members.
She does represent a significant, very pro-China wing within her party, but she is not its omnipotent figure — she is therefore different from what people in some countries might call a “leader of the opposition.”
If we want to understand Taiwan, we need to describe its politics as they are, not force them into categories borrowed from elsewhere.
Julien Oeuillet is an independent reporter in Kaohsiung and hosts the weekly program Taiwan vs the World on Radio Taiwan International.
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