Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Taiwan president cautious over KMT resurgence
By Kathrin Hille in Taipei
Published: March 28 2008, FT
Winning a presidential election with a margin of 16 percentage points would be considered a triumph for most politicians or their parties.
But Ma Ying-jeou, who defeated his rival by a landslide in Taiwan’s presidential poll last weekend, speaks of “feeling fear” as he considers his term, while Wu Po-hsiung, who chairs Mr Ma’s Kuomintang (KMT) party, has declared: “This is not a victory of the KMT.”
Prompting such a cautious response is anxiety that Mr Ma could struggle to get his party under control, and that the KMT’s return to power could be short-lived if it is seen to abuse the dominant position it has gained in elections this year by winning both the presidency and a two-thirds majority in parliament.
Once omnipotent in Taiwan, the KMT today is a collection of factions and individuals with little in common beyond the consensus that the local economy needs to be fixed. The one thing holding it together is Mr Ma’s overwhelming popularity, which has both helped it win back power and put a heavy load on his shoulders.
“Faced with this huge responsibility, I feel I need to be very careful, and I feel fear,” Mr Ma said after his election triumph.
The KMT, under Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership, retreated to Taiwan in 1949 after defeat by the Communists. It ruled the island under an authoritarian, one-party regime for more than 40 years, imposing a Chinese nationalist ideology and claiming to be the legitimate government of China. But after trying to “localise” its message in the 1990s, it lost power in 2000 to the Democratic Progressive party (DPP), founded by former dissidents keen to pursue Taiwan’s formal independence and an agenda of social justice.
Since then, the KMT has developed into a concoction of ideological directions and policy orientations.
Chen Chien-chung, an official at the party’s central policy committee, said; “I admit that, in contrast to the DPP, the [KMT] doesn’t really have any core values or ideological beliefs.”
In recent years, KMT conservatives favouring a return to the Chinese nationalism of the party’s founding fathers, have gained ground.
Simultaneously, KMT lawmakers concerned with building personal support bases have increasingly opted for populist posturing – blurring the party’s traditional pro-business image.
For example, Lee Chi-chu, a legislator now considered a possible choice for finance minister, took part in efforts to ground DPP attempts to privatise government banks and reform an overcrowded and underperforming financial sector.
KMT legislators have also in recent years blocked most of the government’s planned weapons purchases from the US, with one protagonist – the former general Shuai Hwa-min – seen as a potential candidate for defence minister in Mr Ma’s cabinet.
The past unruliness of the KMT has raised questions over whether Mr Ma will be able to control his party.
“He is far too soft for our liking, and many of us had to swallow their hate before we voted for him,” says Chang Ling-chen, a professor of political science at National Taiwan University and a KMT conservative.
Mr Ma’s decision to surround himself with a small circle of trusted advisers – none of whom holds a post in the KMT hierarchy – has created distrust among other senior politicians in the party. He is also at odds with major factions.
A descendant of a mainland family, born in Hong Kong and a former aide to the late president Chiang Ching-kuo, Mr Ma has the wrong background, in the eyes of “localised” KMT factions. Pro-China stalwarts, meanwhile, view him with suspicion because he insists he will not negotiate a re-unification with the mainland, and insists on criticising Beijing’s human-rights record.
But people close to Mr Ma say that his demonstrated popular support means the party will have no choice but to follow him.
“He is all the party has got,” said one senior aide.
“If the result had been close, there might have been claims by certain people in the party that he owed his victory to them. But that is out of the question now.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Published: March 28 2008, FT
Winning a presidential election with a margin of 16 percentage points would be considered a triumph for most politicians or their parties.
But Ma Ying-jeou, who defeated his rival by a landslide in Taiwan’s presidential poll last weekend, speaks of “feeling fear” as he considers his term, while Wu Po-hsiung, who chairs Mr Ma’s Kuomintang (KMT) party, has declared: “This is not a victory of the KMT.”
Prompting such a cautious response is anxiety that Mr Ma could struggle to get his party under control, and that the KMT’s return to power could be short-lived if it is seen to abuse the dominant position it has gained in elections this year by winning both the presidency and a two-thirds majority in parliament.
Once omnipotent in Taiwan, the KMT today is a collection of factions and individuals with little in common beyond the consensus that the local economy needs to be fixed. The one thing holding it together is Mr Ma’s overwhelming popularity, which has both helped it win back power and put a heavy load on his shoulders.
“Faced with this huge responsibility, I feel I need to be very careful, and I feel fear,” Mr Ma said after his election triumph.
The KMT, under Chiang Kai-shek’s leadership, retreated to Taiwan in 1949 after defeat by the Communists. It ruled the island under an authoritarian, one-party regime for more than 40 years, imposing a Chinese nationalist ideology and claiming to be the legitimate government of China. But after trying to “localise” its message in the 1990s, it lost power in 2000 to the Democratic Progressive party (DPP), founded by former dissidents keen to pursue Taiwan’s formal independence and an agenda of social justice.
Since then, the KMT has developed into a concoction of ideological directions and policy orientations.
Chen Chien-chung, an official at the party’s central policy committee, said; “I admit that, in contrast to the DPP, the [KMT] doesn’t really have any core values or ideological beliefs.”
In recent years, KMT conservatives favouring a return to the Chinese nationalism of the party’s founding fathers, have gained ground.
Simultaneously, KMT lawmakers concerned with building personal support bases have increasingly opted for populist posturing – blurring the party’s traditional pro-business image.
For example, Lee Chi-chu, a legislator now considered a possible choice for finance minister, took part in efforts to ground DPP attempts to privatise government banks and reform an overcrowded and underperforming financial sector.
KMT legislators have also in recent years blocked most of the government’s planned weapons purchases from the US, with one protagonist – the former general Shuai Hwa-min – seen as a potential candidate for defence minister in Mr Ma’s cabinet.
The past unruliness of the KMT has raised questions over whether Mr Ma will be able to control his party.
“He is far too soft for our liking, and many of us had to swallow their hate before we voted for him,” says Chang Ling-chen, a professor of political science at National Taiwan University and a KMT conservative.
Mr Ma’s decision to surround himself with a small circle of trusted advisers – none of whom holds a post in the KMT hierarchy – has created distrust among other senior politicians in the party. He is also at odds with major factions.
A descendant of a mainland family, born in Hong Kong and a former aide to the late president Chiang Ching-kuo, Mr Ma has the wrong background, in the eyes of “localised” KMT factions. Pro-China stalwarts, meanwhile, view him with suspicion because he insists he will not negotiate a re-unification with the mainland, and insists on criticising Beijing’s human-rights record.
But people close to Mr Ma say that his demonstrated popular support means the party will have no choice but to follow him.
“He is all the party has got,” said one senior aide.
“If the result had been close, there might have been claims by certain people in the party that he owed his victory to them. But that is out of the question now.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Labels: Taiwan
¶ 7:36 PM
