Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) is still the “presumptive” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential nominee, awaiting confirmation by a party congress scheduled for next month.
However, with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) purportedly dropping out of the running in the name of party unity, and the ecstasy with which the nomination of Hung was met by pan-blue supporters — who had been anxiously waiting for a candidate who they could focus their support on — it will be hard for the KMT to surrender its support for Hung.
However, as many of her critics have pointed out, Hung has demonstrated a naivety — even to the point of ineptitude — when it comes to strategic thinking on foreign relations, including cross-strait affairs, an area that the KMT has long touted as its field of expertise.
She brazenly proclaimed she would not visit the US unless she were to be received by higher-ranking officials than those who welcomed Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), resisting an “interview-like” visit and asking the US to come to her if they have misgivings about her. She later backtracked, saying she had merely been “flirtatious” (sa jiao, 撒嬌), only to days later again say that she is not running for “overseas [Taiwanese] representative.”
To say she is a “loose cannon” would be a serious understatement, although Hung might gladly accept the label, as it was once used to describe Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). However, while Ko was a political novice, Hung has been immersed in politics for more than 25 years.
It is all the more surprising, then, that a recent poll found an overwhelming majority of respondents deemed Hung far less globally oriented than Tsai. In the same poll, Hung’s cross-strait platform, which is based on her proposed “one China, same interpretation” policy, was also not welcomed. On Monday she further stressed that it is an “enhanced version” of the so-called “1992 consensus,” which she admitted had met with opposition from the public and indirectly led to the Sunflower movement.
It is curious that Hung calls for marching toward the “deep-water zone” rather than backtracking, especially while acknowledging that the KMT’s cross-strait policies have been plagued by doubt.
That a potential candidate for a party aiming to win the presidency in a democratic election would willingly surrender a stance that has won it votes in the past, and raise the banner for one of the more extreme positions in Taiwan’s political spectrum, is disconcerting, to say the least.
While characterizing Tsai as “hollow,” Hung has yet to set out her domestic and social policies in any substantial way. That, combined with her going against the grain of the public’s expectations by championing a “scaled-up” version of the “1992 consensus,” has left many wondering what her goal is in running.
Some academics have recently suggested that Hung might be fulfilling the same function as an Internet “troll.” By loudly broadcasting her unification-leaning cross-strait policies, Hung might create a furor over cross-strait affairs, thus setting the agenda for the presidential campaigns and preventing the DPP from focusing its campaign on domestic issues as it plans to.
Hung would then win the votes of those who, while not pro-unification, are vehemently anti-DPP. She could then claim any votes for her as support for her cross-strait stance.
As an advocate of unification, Hung has nothing to lose.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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