The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) newly appointed presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) is ready for battle and he began his campaign by attacking what he and others believe to be the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Achilles’ heel — the cross-strait relationship.
Chu questioned DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) over whether her pledge to “maintain the ‘status quo’” encompasses a “two-state theory” and the DPP’s “Taiwanese independence platform.”
“[China] believes that there would be no ‘status quo’ without the [so-called] ‘1992 consensus,’ how would Tsai be able to maintain it [without recognizing the ‘consensus’]?” he asked.
It is not surprising that Chu chooses, or is left to choose, cross-strait relations as his first and main battlefield. A slumping economy, soaring housing prices, stagnating wages and abysmal prospects for young people — issues that former KMT candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) raised, which made one question if she understood which party is in power — are topics the KMT administration wants to avoid, or have carefully crafted responses to.
It would be politically insensitive of Chu if he were to forget that last year’s Sunflower movement was not just about the public’s concerns over closer ties with China, but also an expression of the angst young people have about how closer economic integration with China — which under the current administration is based on the “1992 consensus” — has failed to deliver, if not hurt, the economic outlook of the general public, let alone the younger generation.
Chu might be able to appeal to an abstract call for stability, but for the public, life struggles and hardships are no less palpably felt.
This might be the reason Chu is trying to stoke debate — not exactly about how the “improved” cross-strait relationship has benefited Taiwan, but rather about Tsai’s ideas over Taiwan’s fundamental political status, which could stir up fears about a war, regardless of how remote the possibility is.
Would this be a good campaign strategy?
According to a Taiwan Indicators Survey Research poll, with more than one answer allowed to a multiple-choice question on understanding of the state of cross-strait affairs and expectations over their development, “one side, one nation” — literally, two states — garnered 69.3 percent support, the most-popular option, while a “Republic of China (ROC) constitutional institution” had 69 percent support. Curiously, “one China, different interpretations” and “the 1992 consensus” only gained 36.2 percent and 27.4 percent respectively.
What the survey revealed is a repudiation of what the KMT and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) have been advocating: that if you recognizes the ROC Constitution framework, you have to accept the “1992 consensus” of “one China, different interpretations.”
The electorate obviously thinks otherwise.
The survey also casts doubt on the effectiveness of a campaign strategy aimed at forcing the DPP to denounce its independence party platform.
With Tsai’s middle-of-the-road recognition of the ROC, Chu’s hard-hitting question pressing the DPP on the nation’s official status could boomerang to hurt the KMT.
What is the KMT’s official stance on Taiwan’s status? If Hung’s “ultimate unification” is considered unacceptable, does that mean the KMT has renounced its goal of the re-unification of China? If Chu believes the DPP with its party platform could not be a steward of the “status quo,” could the KMT resist the temptation to further integrate with China, which would likewise constitute an alteration of the “status quo?”
Chu might be putting on a show, using “cross-strait stability” and “1992 consensus” rhetoric for the benefit of China and the US, but at the end of the day, he will need to win over the Taiwanese electorate if he wants to lead the nation.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS