The KMT has a new leader

Can Eric Chu revitalise Taiwan’s largest opposition party and should we expect any changes in the party’s cross-Strait and economic policies?

By Brian Hioe



Photo credit: 朱立倫臉書粉絲專業

Eric Chu was elected chair of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party on 25 September, marking the second time that Chu has taken up the role. Chu, also the former mayor of New Taipei and magistrate of Taoyuan County, previously served as KMT chair from 2015 to 2016, following Ma Ying-jeou’s resignation as party chair to take responsibility for the KMT’s losses in 2014 nine-in-one elections. However, Chu served only for a year because it was a by-election.

Chu defeated all other opponents by large margins, winning close to half the total number of votes. At the same time, the future direction of the party remains uncertain, with Chang Ya-chung of the Sun Yat-Sen School winning a third of the vote.

Chu is an establishment candidate, who was perceived as a moderate in the past, and has on several occasions sought high office in the party. After becoming chair in 2015, Chu also became the KMT’s 2016 presidential candidate, replacing Hung Hsiu-chu. Chu later sought the KMT’s presidential nomination in 2020, competing against Terry Gou and Han Kuo-yu, but was unsuccessful.

During Chu’s first stint as chair, Chu presided over a KMT that had just experienced the 2014 Sunflower Movement. The KMT had yet to experience the significant losses of 2016 elections, which put Tsai Ing-wen in power for her first term. Yet it was already clear that the KMT was experiencing significant blowback for its pro-China policies. Significantly, Chu was the first KMT leader to meet Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing in May 2015, the two meeting in their respective capacities as leaders of the KMT and CCP. This paved the path for Ma Ying-jeou to later meet with Xi in his capacity as ROC president in Singapore in November 2015. This may not have panned out well for the KMT, given the results of 2016 elections and subsequent defeats experienced by the party.

Chu seems cognizant of the KMT’s dire straits. Notably, when he sought the KMT’s presidential nomination in 2020, Chu went into the race calling for reform of the party to change the KMT’s perceived pro-China image, in order to win back the support of young people. But the party that Chu presides over at present is very different than in 2015, or even a year ago.

In fact, as was apparent in the debates that were held before KMT chair elections, the Ma administration is now remembered as a high point for the KMT, rather than the beginning of the party’s present decline. Both Chu and Johnny Chiang, the KMT chair incumbent that was defeated by Chu in his re-election bid, called for party reform. However, in the lead-up to chair elections, both instead advocated hewing to party fundamentals.

More broadly, the KMT can be seen as having shifted more in the direction of the deep end spectrum. In particular, the 2020 presidential run of Han Kuo-yu, who leaned heavily into support from deep blues that view the DPP as attacking the fundamental institutions of the ROC, seems to have had a large influence on this shift in the party. The shift of the party toward the deep blue spectrum can also be understood in the context of the crisis experienced by the KMT after its 2016 defeats, with voices emerging to call for reform that were, in turn, opposed by those that called for returning to party traditions.

This was the view that the KMT had diluted its message by making too many compromises to the DPP, as well as the terror of another Lee Teng-hui emerging in the party. Lee, after all, rose to become head of the party despite secretly hoping to advance pro-independence views and, since then, the KMT has feared that another party leader could potentially prove a similar turncoat. Indeed, this fear of Lee Teng-hui has prevented efforts at reform, with Johnny Chiang facing such accusations as chair, and former Legislative Yuan majority speaker Wang Jin-pyng -- formerly considered the leader of a comparatively pro-localisation faction in the party -- having also historically faced many such accusations.

To this extent, the challenge faced by Eric Chu from Chang Ya-chung is significant. Chang became the candidate representing party hardliners. It surprised many that, in becoming the representative of the deep blues, Chang Ya-chung was able to perform substantially better than Johnny Chiang to become Chu’s closest contender.