Image source,Facebook Eric Chu/Johnny Chiang
Zhu Lilun (left) and Jiang Qichen (right) will compete for the new KMT chairman.
The Kuomintang, the largest opposition party in Taiwan, opened the primary election for the party chairman. The former chairman Zhu Lilun competed with the current chairman Jiang Qichen, who represents the KMT “Young and Zhuang” faction, and is expected to vote for the next party chairman on September 25. Since this year, Zhu Lilun has repeatedly raised American issues, saying that the Kuomintang needs to “rebuild” relations with the United States, which has aroused concern.
In his candidacy statement issued on August 2, Zhu Lilun stated that Taiwan needs to strengthen friendly relations with the United States and Japan, and criticized that the Kuomintang has closed the Washington office in recent years as unwise, saying that if he is elected, he will be on the first day. Restart at the US staging point. The current party chairman Jiang Qichen’s team told the Taiwan media that the Kuomintang has never been alienated from the United States and has never interrupted its high-level contacts with the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). “Anti-American pigs do not mean anti-American”.
Both candidates for the chairman of the Kuomintang Party took the lead in expressing their views on Taiwan-US relations at the beginning of the campaign, which is different from the past. Willam A. Stanton, the former director of the American Institute in Taiwan, told the BBC in Chinese that the Kuomintang is currently in a difficult situation. If the “92 Consensus” continues to be the core program, it will be difficult to attract the majority of Taiwanese voters.
“Beijing has changed the rules of the game in the past few years. In the Hong Kong demonstration in 2019, one country, two systems has been buried. From the perspective of Beijing’s global deployment strategy, it is impossible to accept that any ruling party in Taiwan is too close to the United States. It’s already a good time to spend the water between the United States and China.”
Zhu Lilun’s Pro-American Consensus Theory
Before announcing his candidacy for party chairmanship, Zhu Lilun began to comment on Taiwan-US relations and even the exchanges between the Kuomintang and the United States. In early April, he said, “The Republic of China has always adhered to freedom and democracy. Pro-American or pro-democracy is what we must do. Not only the United States, but also democratic camp countries such as the United Kingdom and the European Union. This is not my pro-American card, but The consensus of the whole people.”
Image source,Reuters
The Kuomintang legislators once threw pig offal to protest the introduction of American pork, but the two party chairman candidates both made Taiwan-US relations their first issue.
After that, Zhu Lilun held a Taiwan-US regional security video conference with The Hoover Institution of Stanford University. After the conference, he told Taiwan media that he had “expressed the Kuomintang’s firm pro-US position to the United States.”
On August 3, Zhu Lilun’s declaration stated, “In the face of the international situation and the cross-strait deadlock, we will stick to the stand of’Republic of China, Freedom and Democracy’, re-strengthen the mutual trust and communication between the United States, Japan and other important international friends, and we must also restore cross-strait relations. A platform for benign interaction and exchanges to maintain cross-strait peace and promote regional security and stability.”
Two days later, Zhu Lilun said on the radio program that during his last visit to the United States, “I was very emotional, because the Kuomintang had no office or representative office in the United States in the five and a half years since it was in opposition. I was the first day of the party chairmanship. Establish an office or representative office in the United States“.
Situ Wen, the current vice president of Taiwan’s Yangming University, said that Zhu Lilun “studied in New York for many years and is a supporter of the Yankees baseball team. He should be the one in the Kuomintang who maintains the most open attitude towards relations with the United States.”
Image source,EPA
American politicians and military aircraft frequently visit Taiwan. U.S.-Taiwan relations during the DPP government have become increasingly close.
On Tuesday (10th), Jiang Qichen had a video discussion with American policy experts such as David Brown, the former acting director of the American Association in Taiwan. He also emphasized that the KMT always supports closer bilateral relations. He believes in the deepening of relations between the Republic of China and the United States. “It is in the interests of the United States and is also conducive to peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.”
Jiang Qichen’s meeting emphasized that the Kuomintang supports reasonable US military purchases. “To call the Kuomintang an anti-US party is definitely a malicious slander.”
Jiang Qichen also emphasized that the Kuomintang adopts a “pro-US and mainland” stance, that is, as long as the United States and China are not completely hostile, they can deepen relations with the United States while improving cross-strait relations. The two do not conflict. “This is why the Biden administration has always encouraged cross-strait dialogue.”
KMT Chairman Jiang Qichen: Do not rush to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping
How did the Kuomintang replay the American card?
However, since Zhu Lilun announced his candidacy, Taiwan’s public opinion has continued to pay attention to the issue of how Zhu Lilun can “rebuild relations” with the United States while opposing Taiwan independence, and whether his strategy can also be accepted by Beijing. When former Kaohsiung Mayor Hanguo Yu ran for president last time, the Kuomintang he represented was considered too close to China and far away from the United States, and this image continues to this day.
Soon after Korea Yu won the election for the mayor of Kaohsiung, he visited Hong Kong, paid a high-profile visit to the Liaison Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and received courtesy from Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet, which aroused the attention of public opinion on both sides of the strait. After Han became the candidate of the Kuomintang, he did not follow the convention of Taiwan’s previous candidates to “visit Washington”, which also sparked discussion.
Image source,BBC NEWS CHINESE
The Central Party Headquarters of the Kuomintang. When former Kaohsiung Mayor Hanguo Yu ran for president last time, the Kuomintang he represented was considered too close to China and far away from the United States, and this image continues to this day.
In 2020, Han Guoyu was defeated in the presidential election, and Jiang Qichen, a “knowledge blue” and international relations scholar who had good relations with the United States, served as the chairman of the Kuomintang party. In recent years, supporters of the U.S. hawks and Korean Yu (Korean fans) within the Kuomintang have continuously criticized the U.S. policy toward Taiwan. For example, when Lu Xiuyan, the mayor of Taichung of the Kuomintang member, met with the director of the American Taiwan Association, he suddenly spoke out of the paper in front of the media and publicly expressed anti-American pigs, which triggered the American Association in Taiwan to publicly criticize Lu Xiuyan and the Kuomintang politicians, and some local public opinion believed that the Kuomintang. It seems that it has moved towards alienation from the United States.
However, Lev Nachman, a postdoctoral researcher at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University in the United States, told the BBC that Jiang Qichen has recently mentioned that the KMT is preparing to restart the Washington DC office, so he does not think that the KMT has lost ties with the United States, and that the United States There should be no change in the attitude towards equal exchanges between Taiwan’s political parties, mainly because they hope to maintain cooperation with Taiwan’s democratic parties.
However, Nan Le also emphasized that the Kuomintang, which retreated to Taiwan in 1949, has a deep historical connection with the United States. At this moment, it is still necessary to clearly express the Kuomintang’s cross-strait policy stance. “It is really difficult to attract the support of young voters by relying on the 1992 consensus alone.”
Situ Wen told the BBC that the Kuomintang’s bigwigs’ persistence to the 1992 consensus makes it difficult to persuade young Taiwanese voters and gain support. As far as Beijing is concerned, the connotation of the 1992 Consensus is already “one China.” China wants to win Taiwan, which almost no one can accept in Taiwan. Beijing hardly gave Taiwan too many choices, and the Kuomintang still struggled with the 1992 consensus as a cocoon.
Zhang Junhao, a professor at the Department of Political Science of Tunghai University in Taiwan, analyzed and pointed out that the Kuomintang’s chairmanship is actually a far-sighted outpost in the 2024 Taiwan presidential election. At this moment, Taiwan-US relations are thrown out to test the water temperature. “Basically in Taiwan, Taiwan-US relations are the triangular relationship between the United States, China and Taiwan. The Kuomintang cannot allow its cross-strait policy to be accepted by the Taiwanese, so it keeps focusing on Taiwan-US relations.”