Sun, May 17, 2026 page8

• EDITORIAL: KMT logic in a nutshell

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  The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is often accused of getting close to, and even conspiring with, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). There are certainly good reasons behind these accusations, yet the confounding truth is that it makes neither historical nor logical sense for it to do so.

  Whether one believes that the Chinese civil war fought between the KMT and CCP in the previous century has ended or has yet to be resolved, the KMT’s retreat to Taiwan in 1949 resulted in the CCP governing China and the KMT taking root in Taiwan.

  For years, the KMT refused to even contemplate talking with the CCP “bandits.” This changed with the detente in the early 2000s, with then-KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) visiting China and meeting CCP officials in 2005, and the “diplomatic truce” of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who advocated for closer ties with the CCP, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in 2015 in what is still the meeting between the highest-ranking Taiwanese official and a Chinese leader since 1949, and who accepted — as he still insists the KMT does — the “1992 consensus” as a prerequisite for cross-strait negotiations.

  While the gradual warming of ties between the KMT and CCP does lend a certain historical coherence to the current situation — the most recent manifestation being the meeting between Xi and KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who does not hail from the KMT establishment, in Beijing on April 10 — the partnership still makes no logical sense.

  The KMT holds that the “1992 consensus” says that “there is only ‘one China’, with each side having its own interpretation,” yet Xi no longer includes the second clause when speaking about the CCP’s claims over Taiwan. Neither does the CCP consider the KMT or the Republic of China (ROC) that it represents to even exist in the present day: In reference to the allegations that Beijing had intervened to have the Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar abruptly cancel overflight permissions for President William Lai’s (賴清德) visit to Eswatini in April, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) said that “the so-called ‘president of the ROC’ has long ceased to exist in the world.”

  That is, if the CCP ever does succeed in annexing Taiwan, KMT members should not expect to be treated well by their new CCP overlords, and the ROC that the KMT holds so dear would simply disappear. If the KMT wishes to survive, if it wants the ROC to continue to exist after a cross-strait merging, logic suggests that it must hold out for a post-CCP China.

  That is not an unreasonable hope: As prominent former bishop of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen (陳日君) wrote in an editorial published in the New York Times in October 2018, directing his message to the underground bishops and priests of China, “Till the soil. Wait for better times... Communism is not eternal.”

  Another legacy from the post-war experience of the KMT is its distrust of US promises of support. The present-day manifestation of this distrust is the attitude of “US skepticism” that the KMT has fostered. While this position contributes to the accusations of the KMT conspiring with the CCP, it also provides logical argument for its reluctance to pass Lai’s special national defense budget.

  At the Taipei Foreign Correspondents’ Club on Wednesday night, KMT heavyweight and former Broadcasting Corp of China chairman Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康) spoke of his own views on relations with the CCP. Jaw said that he continues to believe in the eventual unification of Taiwan and China, but not under current conditions. Referring to the different systems of government, he said that Taiwan’s approach should be to say to Beijing that there is no need to rush things.

  “You think your system is good, but we feel our system is better. So for now, we rule Taiwan with our system. But in China’s history, 100 or 200 years is a very short time,” he said.

  Hold hands with the CCP, but hold out for a post-CCP future, in which the KMT would not fall foul of civil-war enmity and in which the ROC would not cease to exist: That is the logic behind the KMT’s long game approach.
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