Factionalism In the KMT

Chapter Four: Factionalism Inside the KMT

This chapter considers the nature of current factionalism within the KMT and how it relates to Taiwanese and international politics. Some major examples of factional disputes will be examined for the light they shed upon Taiwanese politics.

Some challenges to KMT governance and prestige have been external, notably from opposition parties such as the DPP and from blows to the international prestige of the KMT/ROC regime from the United Nations and United States. External challenge from the PRC influences Taiwan's identity and viability, independent of what shape the KMT determines for itself. These are matters that will be treated later. Internally, however, the KMT faces challenges as well, manifesting as different opinions about proper responses to issues. These challenges range from outright factional splitting of party membership, to formation of new opposition parties, to persistent factional debate within the party. This is debate not only over public policy but also over the proper internal party structure and administrative practices (e.g., Taiwanization), which again point to public policy as long as the KMT remains the principal party of governance.

Taiwanization and the KMT Old-Timers

Under pressures of time and of democratization, real-world factors of Taiwanization were bound to disturb first-generation mainlanders who had for so long ignored how unrealistic their party's principal priorities were. Consider jus

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of younger people into the KMT elite in the mid-1970s as a bold, radical move that, nevertheless, left ungrateful Taiwanese factions unsatisfied. Indeed, Wei's impassioned tone is also indicative of challenges posed by internal party factionalism in the KMT that begin with certain assumptions about the entitlements of mainlanders and Taiwanese in Taiwan, assumptions that could easily slide down a slippery slope toward ethnic politics. The Lee-Hau Factional Dispute Along the same lines, a widely reported political quarrel nearly degenerated into ethnic politics in 1994, when Lee Teng-hui proposed Hau Pei-tsun, then a non-mainstreamer of the KMT, as Premier of the Executive Yuan. Jaw Shau-Kang, former KMT member and then Secretary General of the New Party, objected because of Hau's mainlander ideology. Lee responded that Jaw was stirring up ethnic tension. Jaw, in turn, accused Lee of concealing a Taiwanese independence agenda. Public attack and counterattack increased, resulting in a demonstration known as the De Hui Street Incident, after which Jaw resigned his post with the NP (Yu, Jaw Shau-kang Dialogue, 1995, p. 175). Y.S. Wu says, "Stimulated by the tense political relations between Taiwan and the mainland over the y

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