In the next few months tough decisions will need to be made by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and their pan-blue allies in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). It will reveal just how real their alliance is with actual power at stake.
Party founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) faced these tough questions, which we explored in part one of this series, “Ko Wen-je, the KMT’s prickly ally,” (Aug. 16, page 12).
Ko was open to cooperation, but on his terms. He openly fretted about being “swallowed up” by the KMT, and was keenly aware of the experience of the People’s First Party (PFP).
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
As noted in that column: “The party’s strategy under Ko was clear: Build a pan-blue alternative to the KMT that could draw on their supporters, while retaining enough of a distinct identity to appeal to moderate and independent voters that dislike the two major parties.”
The second part of this series, “Huang Kuo-chang’s new look TPP” (Aug. 21, page 12), showed how in the Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) era the party has been positioning itself as a younger, feistier version of the KMT fighting shoulder to shoulder against the hated “authoritarian Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) regime.”
With crunchtime coming, will the party revert to Ko’s “ally of convenience” playbook, or double down on Huang’s close alliance with the KMT?
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
How different were Ko and Huang in their approaches?
HUANG’S TPP CAUCUS
When the newly elected legislature took office in February last year, the first order of business was to elect leadership. The TPP caucus holds the balance of power, giving whichever party they align with the majority.
The TPP caucus chose Huang as their leader, which under Ko’s instructions were to vote as a unified bloc.
This was a curious choice because Huang had only joined the party three months earlier, though he had been friendly with Ko for a while. Unlike his peers, his experience and political development took place largely outside the TPP, including during his time with the party he co-founded and led for years, the pan-green New Power Party (NPP).
The legislature needed to choose a speaker and deputy speaker, and the TPP’s behavior was right out of the Ko playbook. In the first round of voting requiring an outright majority, the TPP abstained, and abstained again in the second round that only required a plurality, tacitly giving both positions to the KMT.
The message was similar when faced with four KMT-sponsored referendums in 2021, when the TPP actively supported two — notably not including the nuclear power referendum — while refraining from supporting the DPP opposition to the other two. The TPP did not support the DPP, but was only half in on supporting the KMT’s positions.
The TPP did not fight for the deputy speaker position, possibly to maintain some distance and room to maneuver with the DPP. Ko always spoke of the TPP being open to negotiating with the DPP on issues they align on.
Another likely reason is that the deputy speaker is not very powerful, and when given actual power when the speaker is away, has to officially remain neutral. No power most of the time, mute the rest of the time, no upside there.
The biggest, most illuminating and intriguing move by the KMT in the new legislature was what they did not do.
There are some laws that the KMT would desperately love to have overturned, including restoring local control over agricultural and irrigation associations, but their biggest priority by far would be to overturn the Act Governing the Settlement of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例) that froze and has been expropriating KMT assets that had been seized or stolen by the one-party martial law regime on behalf of the party. Though the KMT has been working hard to live within their means as other parties are required to, their previous reliance on their massive wealth left them bloated and they continue to suffer financially while they slim down.
That they did not propose any of those legislative items indicates that Ko and his TPP made it clear they would not support them. Ko’s attitude was likely, “Why in my right mind would I hand over massive wealth and advantage to the KMT and risk public backlash while doing so?”
As the spring wore on, Huang began to exert more influence, aligning very closely with the KMT — including on the legislative reform proposals that drew thousands of protesters into the streets in what became known as the Bluebird Movement, which largely morphed into the later recall campaigns. This pattern stayed constant going forward, with the TPP backing the KMT on almost all of their proposals, no matter how controversial, including on the budget.
One interesting exception is a KMT proposal to tighten the recall laws. The TPP backed almost all of it, but refused to back raising the minimum threshold above the current 25 percent. Huang had originally helped spearhead that threshold as an NPP lawmaker, though it is unclear if that is the reason for the resistance.
An illuminating insight into Ko’s thinking came on his own YouTube show on June 3 last year.
On the show, he related that someone asked why the TPP would cooperate with the KMT on legislative reform. Ko said he also asked Huang the same question and agreed with Huang’s answer.
Huang asked, “Does the legislature need reform?” Ko replied, “Yes.” Huang then asked, “At this stage, do we need to cooperate with the KMT in order for laws to pass?” Ko again replied, “Yes.” Ko admitted, “As soon as he asked (those questions), I couldn’t say anything more.”
Ko said that moving forward, the TPP will continue to uphold this attitude — cooperating with both the KMT and the DPP — and it depends simply on whether the proposed laws align with the TPP’s core values.
FREE KO P?
This exchange illustrates that Huang’s influence was rising, but Ko continued to view allying with the KMT as transactional and temporary, while maintaining future flexibility in cooperating with the DPP.
Then Ko was detained and held incommunicado on corruption charges in September.
Huang’s voice became that of the TPP, and he burned all bridges with the DPP, calling President William Lai (賴清德) a “dictator” and accusing him of “weaponizing the judiciary” to “eliminate” Ko and all political opposition. His stated goal is to bring down Lai, and has pledged to work with the KMT to make it happen.
Not only has he doubled down on backing the KMT in the legislature against the hated “DPP regime,” he partially merged the parties in cross-attendence of rallies opposing the recalls and supporting the referendum.
Yet, of course the TPP would oppose the recalls. If they had succeeded and the DPP regained their majority, the TPP would have been rendered irrelevant. In spite of not supporting the nuclear referendum in 2021, this time it has strong public support, with even DPP supporters split on the issue.
Those were easy choices, but with hard decisions on the horizon, in just the last couple of weeks there are some indications that Huang may be reviving some of Ko’s playbook on relations with the KMT, though not the DPP.
Intriguingly, there are also some tentative hints that Ko’s thinking may have moved closer to Huang’s.
Prosecutors can not hold Ko incommunicado indefinitely, and he will once again be able to speak, and possibly released from jail, either as an innocent man, or as a convicted one awaiting appeal. The result is expected later this year or early next year, roughly around primary season for the pan-blue alliance.
With Ko back on stage, will the venerable leader go head-to-head with the newbie leader, or will they march forward hand-in-hand?
Donovan’s Deep Dives is a regular column by Courtney Donovan Smith (石東文) who writes in-depth analysis on everything about Taiwan’s political scene and geopolitics. Donovan is also the central Taiwan correspondent at ICRT FM100 Radio News, co-publisher of Compass Magazine, co-founder Taiwan Report (report.tw) and former chair of the Taichung American Chamber of Commerce. Follow him on X: @donovan_smith.
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