New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, arrived back in Taiwan on Friday last week after an eight-day visit to the US.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hailed the trip as a success, with Hou visiting New York City, New Jersey, Washington and San Francisco, including meetings with New York Mayor Eric Adams and members of both houses of the US Congress. He also visited think tanks, met with US executive bureaus and attended banquets arranged by overseas compatriots.
Chu said that the activities were well organized and proceeded smoothly.
“The power of unity is back,” he added.
Chu’s expectation that the trip would give the party a fresh boost of confidence shows that it was not only about whether Hou could overtake his rivals in the polls, instead of being stuck in third place. Another important reason was that the US and other democracies are concerned about whether Taiwan would resolutely defend democracy while bearing the brunt of encroachment by authoritarian China.
Observers wonder whether the KMT, which is seen by some as China-friendly, would weaken Taiwan’s unity in defying the external threat.
Can Hou’s US trip diminish skepticism of the KMT?
Skepticism toward the party exists for a reason. Leaders of the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) met in 2005, with the KMT adopting an unspoken strategy of “joining hands with the CCP to control Taiwan.”
During former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) eight years in office, his KMT government threw Taiwan’s doors wide open to China. Its political stance diverged from the resolute anti-communism of former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). Economically and politically, Taiwanese were locked into the “one China” birdcage that Beijing created and lost many opportunities.
Nowadays there is an international atmosphere of resistance to China, and its interference and expansionism regarding Taiwan and other countries in the region. Comparing today’s situation with the optimistic wishful thinking and misjudgements of the past highlights the absurdity of the KMT’s stance.
While powerful democratic countries recognize that the CCP poses a serious threat, Ma and his ilk continue to tout the so-called “1992 consensus,” insisting that Taiwanese should swallow it, even though it only benefits China.
While China’s actions toward annexing Taiwan become increasingly blatant, self-deluded supporters of the pan-blue political camp try to convince other Taiwanese that China’s actions are not aimed at the majority, but are only meant to punish the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government for “relying on the US to seek independence for Taiwan.”
The failures of the century-old KMT to keep up with changes in the international environment and its constant repetition of the tired “one China” tune can only help Beijing to carry out its cognitive warfare and “united front” offensives.
Thankfully, mainstream opinion in Taiwan clearly understands what is going on.
In the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, voters rejected the KMT’s China-friendly line. The overwhelming results of those years clearly demonstrated society’s collective skepticism toward the KMT.
In January 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) proposed exploring a version of the “one country, two systems” framework tailored for Taiwan to expand CCP interference in the nation’s elections, which appeared to push forward China’s timetable for unification. Observers said that the CCP narrowed its definition of the “1992 consensus,” not only removing any scope of “each side having its own interpretation,” but making it basically the same as “one China” and “one country, two systems.”
The tendency of KMT members to cozy up to China has generated a lot of controversy.
A few months after Xi’s proposal, Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who had just been elected mayor of Kaohsiung, paid a surprise visit to China’s special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. Later that year, he became the KMT’s presidential candidate.
While clearly promoting a China-friendly line, Han told then-American Institute in Taiwan chairman James Moriarty that he would cancel a trip to the US because his schedule was too full.
With a trade dispute heating up between the US and China at the time and expanding into other areas, Han projected an impression that he wanted to get closer to China and distance himself from the US. This did a lot of harm to his electoral prospects and caused the US to grow more skeptical of the KMT.
In 2020, the party was once again defeated in the presidential election. Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), who took up the post of KMT chairman in the wake of that defeat, was willing to adjust the party line. He even frankly stated that “the 1992 consensus is getting a bit old.”
Nonetheless, Johnny Chiang could not resist the backlash from conservative elements within the party. Even now, the imaginary “consensus” lingers within the KMT, controlling the direction of its discourse.
Hou’s low opinion poll ratings have forced him to move closer to old forces within the party and consolidate his core by singing the same old tune, but this has made it difficult for him to widen his support base. He started by trying to be himself, yet he has not been able to forge a new political path.
His campaign so far has struggled to push him above third in the polls, so it is fair to say skepticism about the KMT has affected him the most.
His most vital task on the US trip was to dispel skepticism about the KMT on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. While there was a focus on the interactions Hou had in political and academic circles on the trip, a more important aspect of his time in the US was to influence how Washington would view the KMT.
The intense schedule of visits and meetings showed how much effort KMT leaders put into the trip. Hou was accompanied by, among others, KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言), and KMT legislators Johnny Chiang and Wu I-ding (吳怡玎), all of whom know much more than Hou about Taiwan-US affairs and have a much better command of foreign languages. Their assistance with interpreting and polished delivery played a crucial role during conversations Hou was involved in. That is why Chu could boast that Hou’s visit was “well prepared and full of highlights.”
More precisely, Chu wanted Hou’s visit to convince Americans that the KMT has changed from four years ago.
However, Hou’s narrative regarding relations across the Taiwan Strait mainly consisted of the KMT’s previous rhetoric, albeit repackaged. Hou told his US audiences that he is a “risk reducer” and stressed that, if elected, he would deepen cooperation between Taiwan and the US while reducing cross-strait tensions through dialogue, but when it came to how tensions could be reduced, he stuck to the “1992 consensus” formula.
Hou has repeatedly said that he “opposes” Taiwan independence, which, compared with the US’ position that it “does not support” Taiwan independence, is more restrictive of the democratic self-determination of Taiwanese.
It actually resembles the kind of language used by the CCP.
A trip to the US cannot eliminate skepticism of the KMT. If its words and actions are more in line with the CCP than the DPP, excessive packaging will only draw attention to the political intentions that the KMT is trying to keep under wraps.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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