Who Can Lead Kuomintang Out of Four Predicaments： Eric Chu or Johnny Chiang？
The Storm Media, August 4, 2021
The chairmanship election of Kuomintang (KMT) was originally scheduled in June this year, but because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, it will be delayed until September 25. This election will have great impact on the nine-in-one local elections next year and the presidential and legislative elections in 2024. After KMT lost the local elections in 2014, with the exception in 2018, its popularity rate has continued to slip. Whether the KMT can reverse the losing trend and rebuild itself depends heavily on who will lead the KMT after the election.
It is almost certain that the candidates for the KMT chairman will be Johnny Chiang, the incumbent chairman, and Eric Chu, former chairman and former mayor of New Taipei. Chu’s biggest weakness is his previous records of indecisiveness when he avoided the battles of presidential election and the by-election of KMT chairman last year. KMT supporters doubt whether Chu has the guts to lead KMT to re-emerge from failures.
On the contrary, Chiang’s advantage is that he is the incumbent KMT chairman controlling the party apparatus and voice. But when the pandemic is rampant and the public opinion is dissatisfied with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, Chiang has yet to seize the opportunity to attack the DPP and boost the support for KMT.
In his Facebook candidacy declaration for KMT chairman, Chu pointed out four predicaments that the future KMT leader needs to address. They include the: KMT’s gradual loss of attention internationally, loss of communication channels with mainland China, lack of trust by the Taiwanese public, and loss of passion from supporters.
Chiang’s team has always adopted the policy of favoring the United States and keeping distance from the mainland. To get support from the Taiwanese people, the Chiang camp has tried very hard not to be labeled as favoring China. Beijing has deemed the Chiang-led KMT as taking the policy of “independence of Taiwan.”
In September last year, Chiang appointed former president of the Legislative Yuan Wang Jin-pyng to attend the Strait Forum to revive the relationship between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party. But after anchor Li Hong of the program Strait Express of the China Central Television (CCTV) said that Wang would go to Beijing to ask for peace, Wang cancelled the trip, and the relationship between KMT and the Communist Party has quickly frozen. Afterwards, the KMT caucus in the Legislative Yuan introduced proposals such as the re-establishment of diplomatic ties between Taiwan and the United States and the assistance for Taiwan’s defense by the U.S. military, and the connection between the KMT and Communist Party has completely been cut off.
With regard to Taiwan’s purchase of BioNTech vaccines from Shanghai Fosun Pharma, KMT was unable to communicate with the other side through previous channels. After Yonglin Foundation and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) signed the purchase contracts, KMT began to organize four local governments it controls and the pro-KMT Chinese Association of Industry and Commerce (CNAIC) to follow suit. But CNAIC was persuaded not to proceed by the DPP administration. From this incident, we can see that the KMT does not enjoy better relations with mainland China than the DPP.
As to Chu, he pointed out last year that in order to rebuild itself, KMT has to follow the basic policy of “safeguarding the Republic of China, favoring the United States, and opposing Communists” of former President Chiang Ching-kuo. Moreover, WikiLeaks had exposed that Chu had close relationship with the United States and Chu had many straightforward dialogues with officials of the American Institute in Taiwan.
In his declaration of candidacy posted on the Facebook, Chu reiterated his position that he will uphold the position of “The Republic of China, freedom and democracy.” This position is similar to Chiang’s statement that he will uphold the “value system of freedom and democracy of the Republic of China” to replace the “1992 Consensus.” When KMT debated whether to abandon the “1992 Consensus” last year, though not mentioning “1992 Consensus” explicitly, Chu said subtly that KMT must get rid of the malign label of sucking up to the Communists, favoring China, and selling out Taiwan.
Therefore, there are not many differences between Chiang and Chu on policies towards mainland China and U.S.-Taiwan relations. But Chu enjoys two advantages.
First, when Chu was KMT chairman in 2015, he led a delegation to attend the 10th KMT-CPC Forum in Shanghai. Chu later went to Beijing to meet with CPC’s General Secretary Xi Jinping. The Chu-Xi meeting indicated that Beijing has certain degree of trust in Chu.
Second, Kao Yu-jen, Chu’s father-in-law and chairman of the 21st Century Foundation, maintains good relations with Beijing. When Chu advocated the policy of favoring the United States and opposing Communists from time to time last year, Kao went to Beijing to attend a forum of think tanks. Kao criticized the DPP’s policy of favoring the United States and opposing China, saying this policy will be abandoned by people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. While Kao’s statement may have slightly embarrassed Chu who advocated favoring the United States and opposing China, Chu still emphasized that the KMT’s insistence on favoring the United States had never changed.
Before Chu announced that he will run for KMT chairman, Kao again participated in a video conference organized by the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of China’s State Council. Kao Su-po, Chu’s brother-in-law argued that Kao’s participation in the conference had nothing to do with Chu, and if Kao had wanted to contact China on Chu’s behalf, Kao would not do so through a public video conference. However, as Chu’s father-in-law was able to attend a conference organized by TAO, this at least means that Beijing retains the window of dialogue with Chu.
Internally, the KMT gradually has lost the popular trust and the passion of its supporters. These two symptoms have their origins during the previous administration of President Ma Ying-jeou from 2008. The situation became worse when Chu was the party chairman and has become hopeless during Chiang’s tenure. Even when the pandemic greatly hurt the DPP, the KMT’s criticisms of the government’s epidemic prevention policies are not as sharp as those of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je. The KMT has not gained advantages from the pandemic situation but saw the rising support for Mayor Ko’s Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).
Besides, the KMT was prepared to deal a severe blow to the DPP through the referenda originally to be held in August, but the referenda will be delayed because of the pandemic, so Chiang loses the potential success.
Over the past eight years, whenever the KMT reversed its failing trends, the reasons were the DPP’s errors. But when the DPP corrected the errors, the KMT fell back to the low points, so the old KMT has lost the momentum to lead the directions. Now if the DPP commits errors, it may not be the KMT, rather the TPP led by Mayor Ko Wen-je, which reaps the political benefits.
The KMT elites understand that the KMT’s membership is aging but they do not have solutions. In the by-election of the KMT chairman last year, only 9122 party members were under 40, representing 3.16 percent of the total membership. In comparison, during the 2020 national elections, 666,000 voters were under 40, representing 34 percent of total voters. The aging KMT has difficulty in arousing supporters’ passion, it could only wait for the populist leader like Han Kuo-yu to rejuvenate the morale of KMT supporters. But the KMT has suffered from Han’s non-typical and destructive force.
When Chu declared his candidacy, he said that “Hope comes from change, and change comes from resumption of leadership.” Chu’s declaration is aimed at Chiang. Over the past year, Johnny Chiang has had great difficulties to deal with the external and internal challenges Chu pointed out and committed errors often and easily. If Eric Chu is able to resume leadership and wishes to have sweeping victories to regain the glory of the century-old KMT which established the republic, Chairman Chu will also face great many predicaments.