Mon, Sep 05, 2016 page1

• KMT congress approves new policy platforms

  ADAPTATION: The KMT’s Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu backed the changes aimed at adjusting the party’s strategy to its new place in the opposition, sources said

  • By Shih Hsiao-kuang and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer and CNA
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  The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) national congress yesterday adopted new policy platforms that include enhancing the so-called “1992 consensus” on the basis of the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution and exploring possibilities for ending cross-strait hostility through the pursuit of a peace accord.

  The congress, meeting at the Zhongshan Hall on Yangmingshan in Taipei, passed the platforms following a speech by KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), who characterized the measures as necessary to combat the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) “pro-independence party constitution” and “de-sinicization agenda.”

  The amendments were drafted as a response to the January presidential and legislative elections and sources said Hung had backed the changes as a part of her reform package, meant to adjust the party’s strategy to its status as an opposition party with a legislative minority.

  

  Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu delivers a speech at the party’s national congress at the Zhongshan Hall on Yangmingshan in Taipei yesterday.

  Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times

  The master agenda is to carry out “honest reflections and bold reforms,” while the revised policy platform is to clarify the party line on issues encompassing diplomacy, cross-strait issues, democratization, economics, education and judicial affairs.

  The party is to facilitate cross-strait exchanges and pursue a peace accord with China, while the “1992 consensus” is to be consolidated on the basis of the Constitution, it said.

  However, unlike the platform adopted in July last year under then-KMT chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), in which the text clearly included “the 1992 consensus with ‘one China’ and each side having its own interpretation,” the platform passed yesterday left out “one China, with each side having its own interpretation.”

  Former KMT lawmaker Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 said that he had made up the term “1992 consensus” in 2000 when he was head of the Mainland Affairs Council.

  The new platform said the KMT would “exercise initiatives to explore the possibility to end cross-strait hostilities” via a peace agreement, and ensure the welfare of Taiwanese by “playing an institutionalized role” in promoting peace.

  KMT Legislator Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), the former legislative speaker, said before the congress that the inclusion of a peace accord would offer Taiwanese and the government a vision and a potential option, which everyone can discuss and build a consensus upon.

  A survey carried out by the party showed that 51.5 percent of respondents approved of the new policy platform, while 20.2 percent were opposed to it, KMT Central Policy Committee director Alex Tsai (蔡正元) said.

  However, former vice president Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said before the congress: “I always insist that the words ‘1992 consensus’ must never be separated from the words, ‘one China, with each side having its own interpretation.’”

  KMT Youth League head and Central Standing Committee member Hsiao Ching-yan (蕭敬嚴) also dissented over the omission of the phrase, saying the new version “pandered to an even smaller minority of the voting population.”

  The platform did not represent a significant shift in the party’s cross-strait agenda, KMT Culture and Communications Committee director Chow Chi-wai (周志偉) said, adding that it is a continuation of former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policy of maintaining the “status quo.”

  Hung, in her address to the congress, took aim at the Act Governing the Handling 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), saying the KMT politicians who are willing to concede on the issue are mistaken.

  The KMT’s failure to contest the issue will be construed as a “tacit admission” that the assets are “an abyss of sins,” Hung said, adding that the party merely seeks “fair treatment” in the handling of assets that “made Taiwan great” and “are absolutely not the party’s original sin or shameful in any way.”

  The assets issue is a result of the DPP’s “power-grabbing and belligerent nature” that has not changed since it took power, and is an act that “radicalized hatred” against the KMT, resembling a “politically motivated purge,” she said, reiterating that the act is a “betrayal of democracy and the rule of law” and “the shame of Taiwanese democracy.”

  Hung said former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) was an example of “pragmatism and selflessness” that party members must “thoroughly educate themselves in,” adding that the “Chiang Ching-kuo path” will lead to the restoration of public trust in the KMT and its return to power.

  Although the KMT has made errors that need to be corrected, its hard work made contributions to the nation that did full justice to the land and its people, Hung said, adding that the ROC is “the most precious party asset” that the KMT brought to the people of Taiwan.
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