Can the Kuomintang Return to Power in Taiwan? by Camphor honcho, Flob legend

Chiang Wan An

Thatā€™s ridiculous. Ma was reviled by Lee Teng-hui before the latterā€™s death; and is now mortal enemies with Wang Jyn-ping and the ā€œlocalā€ KMT faction after struggles over the cross-straight service accord (of course not passed after the Sunflower students intervened). Ma is now as far away from the local Taiwan-centered parts of the KMT as one could imagine.

Guy

The main problem the kmt has, is itā€™s nomination system. There are around 350,000 members of the KMT, but a lot of them donā€™t pay their dues on time do ineligible to vote or donā€™t vote anyway. This is more than half there members.

So the voting numbers are actually like 160000 or a bit more. Around 50,000 of that are the ex military, super pro China hardcore group the Huang Fuxing. This group is full of really old guys that are still run like a military. They have generals and meetings and make sure their members all vote on mass for the same candidate. They also always pay their dues on time. Think the 2% of Taiwanese who see themselves as Chinese and want reunification.

So what happens is the party, itā€™s leaders, and chairmen, need to appease this weird group who are at the fringes of Taiwan society. People like Eric Chu and Johnny Chiang are not stupid, they know there is no interest in the 92 consensus from not just the average Taiwanese, but even general blue voters donā€™t care. But basically itā€™s the bottom line for them to get support in the nomination.

So basically, the KMT are stuck in a process where they are spend more time appeasing weirdos, and less on the things that might get them elected

Ma was promoted by Lee, as waa Wu Denyih, who they also want cleansed.

Zhangā€™s politics is that of the New Party. He will bring in Chiu Yi and those guys

So basically New Party.

Exactly. Expect him to bring in New Party people in key positions

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Hope Chang wins. Heā€™s notorious at school too. He spreads his bullshit theory in all his lectures at the political science department lmao.

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Chang is currently leading in opinion polls as well. One of Chu and Chiang need to leave the race, to consolidate their votes

The plot of the KMT chairman (because itā€™s always men) race takes a dramatic turn. Nathan Batto at Frozen Garlic explains how.

Guy

When asked if the KMT would split if Chang were elected, Chu answered that he hoped not but believed it would, adding that the TPP would be the biggest beneficiary and the DPP would set off celebratory fireworks.

I can see @gain providing the fireworks :rofl:

Iā€™ll buy them for you to deliver :wink:

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Iā€™m not sure where people on the forum are getting the idea that a mere 2 percent of Taiwanese people in principle support reunification with China (this same figure was given in another thread). I would have thought anyone with even a minimal familiarity with Taiwan and Taiwanese people would realise that it couldnā€™t possibly be correct.

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Are you going to explain to us what those mystery ā€œfour conditionsā€ are?

Do you think they are accurate, attainable, or reasonable?

Example: I would support unification with China if:

a) I could go eat dim sum in Guangzhou every weekend;
b) the government ceased arbitrarily detaining Canadians yanked off the streets;
c) the HK government stopped arresting students for desiring to participate democratically in their city; and
d) the people of Xinjiang were no longer subject to genocide.

There you have my four conditions! I guess I approve of unification now.

Guy

Anyone capable of reading a bar graph can see that the four conditions are presented below the bars: Independence-Peace; Independence;Unification-Same Conditions; Unification-Different Conditions. Anyone who clicks on the attached article will also see that, in this poll carried out by Taiwan Chengchi University, these four conditions were put to the participants with the following questions:
1 If Taiwan could still maintain peaceful relations with the PRC after declaring independence, then Taiwan should establish a new, independent country.
2 Even if the PRC decides to attack Taiwan after Taiwan declares independence, Taiwan should still become a new country.
3 If the economic, social, and political conditions were about the same in both mainland China and Taiwan, then the two sides should unify.
4 Even if the gap between the economic, social, and political conditions in mainland China and Taiwan is quite large, the two sides should still unify.

Anyone genuinely interested in finding out more about how Taiwanese people feel about unification (rather than just spouting obviously ridiculous claims - e.g. 2 percent support for unification) can read the article. One takeaway is that this poll suggests that, when the threat of Chinese military repercussions is taken out of the equation, a big majority of Taiwanese people favour independence even under ideal conditions (political and social conditions in mainland china similar to Taiwan). Even with a large political and social gap with China, however, a large minority of Taiwanese people, more than 10 percent, would support unification.

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More like 6% would, and it will be 2% soon.

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å¼µäŗžäø­ represents the 0.7% who want unification as fast as possible

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The figures in that graph differ from other surveys, such as the chengchi university one I provided a link to or, for instance, this one by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation that found:

Around 54 percent of respondents support official independence for Taiwan. Meanwhile, 23.4 percent prefer maintaining the status quo, 12.5 percent favor unification with China, and 10 percent do not hold any particular view on the matter, the survey found. Poll shows highest ever support for Taiwan independence | Taiwan News | 2020-06-22 12:24:00

An advantage of the Taiwan Chengchi University survey is that it puts the question in different categories (independence in peace vs war etc) thus providing a more nuanced picture. Also, the survey you linked gives a choice of ē»“ꌁēŽ°ēŠ¶ā€¦ obviously, ēŽ°ēŠ¶, status quo, may mean different things to different people. I note also that the survey you link also drops precipitously from approx 13 percent favouring movement towards unification in just 2 years and support for quick independence jumping form 13 to 28 percent in that time. Those are wild fluctuations. This survey actually underestimates support for independence - giving a mere 52 percent support for any move towards independence (a more probing questionnaire would have shown that support for independence is much higher than that if war is taken out of the equation). It hides support for independence, but it presumably also hides within the ā€œdecide at later dateā€ category people who in principle favour unification but only under certain conditions they feel are not being met at this moment (e.g. the political situation in mainland china)
These may be some of the reasons why the wording of the questionnaire in this particular poll gives such a low figure for support for unification (compared to other polls, of which I have given two examples) for 2019 and 2020

The most obvious reason is how Beijing and its lackeys have behaved in HK. Itā€™s clear that the one country two systems model is now in the garbage can of history. Unlike the genocide in Xinjiang, the events in HK widely televised, and many HK people are here in Taiwan. These people have effectively lost their home as they knew it, and this lesson was not lost on people here.

Guy

The reason why the results of that particular poll are different from others conducted at the same time is Beijingā€™s behaviour in HK? That doesnā€™t make sense.

As for the hypothesis that Taiwanese people are rejecting unification because of Beijingā€™s behaviour, the chengchi uni survey indicates that, if the threat of attack is removed, a big majority of Taiwanese people would support independence even if political conditions on the mainland were comparable with those on Taiwan. Beijingā€™s behaviour/political system would seem to be the determining factor in favouring independence or not only in the case of the subset of Taiwanese people who, the threat of attack removed, would favour unification but only in a hypothetical situation where the mainland had developed political rights and freedoms comparable to Taiwanā€™s. Presumably most of the people in this subset, who favour unification in principle, are more than aware that, as you correctly point out, unification under one country two systems (or even under any system so long as the political situation on the mainland remains as it is) would almost certainly lead to the erosion of democracy and freedom on Taiwan.