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How can the KMT rebuild its US ties after a 13-year absence?

How can the KMT rebuild its US ties after a 13-year absence?

Source:Ming-Tang Huang

After returning to power in 2008, the Kuomintang (KMT) shuttered its representative office in the United States. Now, 13 years later and no longer in power, Taiwan’s major opposition party wants to mend neglected ties – not an easy task amid a vastly different international situation and a lack of diplomatic talent.

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How can the KMT rebuild its US ties after a 13-year absence?

By Li-hsun Tsai
web only

With a national referendum on highly controversial topics coming up this month, the green and blue political camps remain embroiled in a fierce dispute over the import of U.S. pork. At the same time, the KMT, which staunchly opposes the imports, is preparing to rebuild its once strong interpersonal network in the U.S.

On November 30, Eric Huang, deputy director of the KMT Department of International Affairs, flew to Washington D.C. where he is expected to set up a KMT liaison office within three months.

Alexander Huang, director of international affairs, said that aside from Eric Huang, special envoys will take turns visiting the U.S. on behalf of KMT Chairman Eric Chu in the coming months. They will include Andrew Hsia, a former head of the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council, Chang Ta-tung, a former deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council, Shen Lyu-hsun, a former de facto ambassador to the United States, and Huang himself. “They have all served as administrative deputy foreign minister and top envoy to the U.S.; they are well connected there,” says Alexander Huang.

(Source: Ming-Tang Huang)

Compared with these party elders, I am just a little kid,” notes Eric Huang, hinting at his (by KMT party officer standards) tender age of 35.

Huang graduated from UVA & John Hopkins SAIS with a master’s degree in economics. He also once held a seat on the board of directors of the Taiwan Benevolent Association of America (TBAA), a pro-KMT group formed by Taiwanese-Americans, and joined the KMT in 2014. When Hung Hsiu-chu ran for the presidency in 2016, Huang was in charge of her campaign’s international media relations. He also helped organize past U.S. visits by Eric Chu during his first stint as KMT chairman, and former KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang when he served as a legislator.

Can sending a 35-year-old “youngster” as an advance party for a “group of retired special envoys” in their seventies help the KMT regain its influence in the U.S. and make the political establishment value its opinion and policy agenda?

During the past 13 years, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has featured much more prominently there.

When Chiang was elected KMT chairman in March of 2020, he immediately prepared for a U.S. trip. But as Huang Kwei-bo, professor at the Department of Diplomacy of National Chengchi University, who was in charge of that trip recalls, the plan was hampered by the party’s lack of money and the severe coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

“The KMT doesn’t have a voice in Washington,” laments Huang. When DPP representatives attend policy discussions of various scales, they always sit in the first two rows, eagerly raising their hands and asking questions. “Michael will state the DPP’s position regardless of whether people accept it, and he will immediately voice the DPP’s view, but who speaks for the KMT,” Huang asks rhetorically. The outspoken Michael to whom Huang refers is Michael Fonte, director of the DPP representative mission in the US.

Huang says without anyone speaking officially for the KMT, the party “is often being labeled; they always say we are pro-China.” Given the strong anti-China sentiment in the U.S., this very much works to the disadvantage of the KMT.

In contrast, the DPP has never let up in its efforts to cultivate its connections in the U.S. In 2000, then President Chen Shui-bian also closed the party’s mission in the U.S., although Fonte continued to serve as the DPP’s liaison officer in Washington. In 2013, the DPP revived its mission in the U.S. and kept it running also after returning to power in 2016, since party affairs and government affairs are better discussed separately.

During the 13-year hiatus in the KMT’s presence in the U.S., the DPP promoted its stance through Fonte, non-governmental organizations, and think tanks such as the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), the Global Taiwan Institute (GTI) and pro-DPP Taiwanese-American groups to pursue a consistent, long-term strategy to make its stance known.

But why has the KMT lost so much ground in the U.S., given that it had maintained strong relationships with the political establishment there for decades before it first lost administrational power in 2000?

First, the KMT, which once had a large pool of people who were at home in international affairs and U.S. political circles, has failed to cultivate fresh diplomatic talent.

Following its first fall from power in 2000, the KMT teamed up with the KMT splinter and fellow opposition party People First Party (PFP) to establish a U.S. representative office for the blue camp in 2004. The office was headed by Jason Yuan and his deputy Chang Ta-tung, both career diplomats who had previously served at Taiwan’s unofficial embassy in the United States.

(Source: Chien-Tong Wang)

“To be honest, the KMT does not have people of the stature of Jason Yuan anymore,” Alexander Huang admits. “We are sending one or two people over there, expecting them to turn the tide. Delivering stunning results won’t be easy,” Huang predicts.

The second reason that further diminished the KMT’s voice in the U.S. is that Yuan left the blue camp’s representative office after the KMT reclaimed power in 2008 to serve as Taiwan’s top envoy to the United States.

Then President Ma Ying-jeou, who doubled as KMT chairman, decided to close the KMT’s representative office while keeping the overseas party chapter. However, this unit was handling affairs relating to Taiwanese citizens living abroad and was ill equipped to liaise with U.S. government agencies and think tanks.

Meanwhile, the KMT has realized that it cannot leave the Washington stage entirely to the DPP. After returning as KMT chairman in October, Chu actively resumed work to improve the party’s ties with Washington.

Standing in the way of closer ties is the KMT’s opposition to U.S. pork imports.

Alexander Huang heads the KMT’s reinstated International Affairs Department, which has a guidance section and a work section under its roof. Huang belongs to the guidance section and counts among Chu’s special envoys. The current plan is to have the special envoys take turns spending several months in Washington D.C. and other areas in the United States where they are well connected. The work section will station staff permanently in the U.S. capital.

Regardless of who heads the KMT, the toughest challenge the once wealthy party faces is raising the funds needed to maintain a representative office in the U.S.

The party will also have to face U.S. misgivings about its staunch opposition to imports of U.S. pork to Taiwan.

(Source: Chien-Ying Chiu)

Alexander Huang believes that the pork issue, which has been played up in Taiwan for domestic political gains, does not figure prominently on the U.S. agenda given the intensifying power struggle between the U.S. and China. Washington’s foremost national interest lies in regional stability, Huang points out.

In contrast to the DPP, “the KMT can naturally do a good job in that regard, because we won’t disconnect with the Chinese mainland, and that’s what it takes to maintain peace and stability,” says Huang. He is keen to explain that such an approach is not to be equated with “appeasing China” or being “pro-China” but rather amounts to “mixing with both the United States and China.”

Before leaving for Washington, Eric Huang met with several foreign affairs experts in Taiwan to hear their opinions. During his trip he is tasked to pool the blue camp’s resources in the United States and to establish a contact point there.

Eric Huang has said he is confident that the KMT will be able to rid itself of the “pro-China” label once it can explain its cross-strait policy and other positions in direct dialogue with U.S. policymakers and think tanks. “We have always been an anti-Communist party. If we weren’t confident, we wouldn’t go to the U.S.”


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Translated by Susanne Ganz
Edited by TC Lin

Uploaded by Jane Chen

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