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Taiwan’s election of Kuomintang lawmaker Han Kuo-yu as legislative speaker raises concerns about the future of Taiwan’s informal relations with Europe.
The election of Kuomintang (KMT) lawmaker Han Kuo-yu as Taiwan’s legislative speaker earlier this month was always controversial. Viewed as a China-friendly populist with a penchant for shooting from the hip, Han is best-known for his failed tilt at Taiwan’s presidency as the KMT candidate in the 2020 election.
On the back of his landslide loss to the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen, Han suffered further ignominy when he was recalled from his position as mayor of Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second largest city – the first mayor to be removed in Taiwan’s democratic history.
Aside from domestic concerns, Han’s political rehabilitation could signal trouble for Taiwan’s informal relations with Europe, according to Taipei-based experts.
Han lacks international heft
Having flourished under outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen, parliamentary diplomacy with Europe may suffer with Han at the helm, according to analysts, who believe Han lacks the requisite experience and international heft. This will likely mean responsibility for maintaining exchanges with foreign legislative groups will fall to Han’s deputy Johnny Chiang, who has served on the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee for over a decade.
“KMT officials realize that Han doesn’t have an international profile, but Chiang does,” says Marcin Jerzewksi, head of the Taiwan office of the European Values Center for Security Policy. “So parliamentary diplomacy will be delegated to him. I think this is a yellow flag.”
As the first and, thus far, only think-tank from a European country to open a permanent office in Taiwan, the Prague-headquartered EVC has worked tirelessly to boost Taiwan’s visibility and facilitate ties with European nations, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe.
Chiang’s background provides some cause for optimism, says Jerzewski, noting that the former KMT chairman holds a doctorate in international relations and reinstated the party’s department of international affairs during his time in charge. However, the advances that outgoing speaker You Si-kun made in “institutionalising the role of the Legislative Yuan as a body responsible for Taiwan’s international outreach” are at risk for other reasons.
AFP via Getty Images
Han Kuo-Yu (C), presidential candidate for Taiwan’s main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party, gestures as he conceded defeat in the presidential polls during a rally outside the party headquarters in Kaohsiung on January 11, 2020. (Photo by HSU Tsun-hsu / AFP) (Photo by HSU TSUN-HSU/AFP via Getty Images)
In The Taipei Times op-ed from January 26th, academic Liu Shih-ming highlighted remarks by Han that suggested the speaker’s role would afford opportunities to monitor potential malfeasance by the DPP government of president-elect William Lai. The insinuations, Liu noted, were nothing new, with Han having levelled largely baseless claims of corruption at the DPP in the run up to January’s presidential election and during his own presidential campaign in 2020.
The remarks portend the potential abuse of a role that should be “administratively neutral,” wrote Liu, an adjunct associate professor at National Taipei University of Education. For this reason, Han was “not fit” for the speakership.
“He’s unequivocally a firebrand,” says Jerzewski, who supported Liu’s view that a Han speakership could lead to friction between Taiwan’s legislative and executive branches in a January 31 op-ed. The piece, which was co-authored with EVC Executive Director Jakub Janda and also appeared in The Taipei Times, indicated that this, and Han’s “ostensibly close ties to the Chinese Communist Party” could negatively impact the progress of parliamentary diplomacy with the EU.
In response, the KMT’s assistant director of international affairs Howard Shen penned a rebuttal, which appeared in the editorial pages of the same newspaper on February 2nd. Arguing that there was “no evidence whatsoever to support claims that executive-legislative tensions” would harm ties with Europe, Shen wrote that any such impasse would stem from Taiwan’s foreign ministry refusing to support overseas visits by parliamentary delegations, based on antipathy toward Han.
While Shen gave no reason for this claim, the argument that a KMT-controlled legislature spells trouble for the smooth execution of Taiwan’s foreign policy is credible. We need only look at the last time the KMT held the legislature while the DPP was in power to conclude that faith in the KMT behaving as a loyal opposition is at best misplaced.
Lessons from the Chen administration
During the DPP presidency of Chen Shui-bian (2000-2008), the KMT-controlled legislature consistently blocked the passage of important bills, including economic relief packages and a huge US arms deal, which was held up for years before most of it was shelved.
While Chen showed an early eagerness for cross-party cooperation by appointing opposition figures to his Cabinet, including the China-born former general Tang Fei, the KMT demonstrated no such goodwill. It routinely hobbled the DPP government – both domestically and in the international arena, often with no other motive than to leave Chen looking impotent.
During its 50-plus-year authoritarian rule that began in China and was transplanted to Taiwan, the KMT gained crucial foreign policy know-how and built a powerful diplomatic network that gave it a virtual stranglehold in foreign policy circles at the time of the DPP’s ascension to power.
When the DPP finally became the first party other than the KMT to rule Taiwan, after Chen’s victory in the 2000 presidential election, the new government was hampered by its relative inexperience in diplomacy. Democracy activists who would go on to serve as DPP officials had gained some know-how through US-based organizations such as the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, but this could not immediately make up for decades of exclusion from formal diplomacy.
The DPP’s naivety and lack of foreign policy heft was exacerbated by KMT efforts to undermine and isolate the Chen administration by leveraging old-boy networks abroad and to ridicule the government in the legislature and local – largely KMT-controlled – media for its foreign policy missteps.
Admittedly, there were plenty of these. Several high-profile cases of checkbook diplomacy gone sour were gleefully leapt-upon, and the steady stream of so-called “diplomatic allies” defecting to Beijing further bolstered the perception of DPP ineptitude.
AFP via Getty Images
Taipei, TAIWAN: Legislators from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) chant slogans before voting to the session to recall President Chen Shui-bian at Parliament in Taipei 27 June 2006. AFP PHOTO/Sam YEH (Photo credit should read SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images)
All of which is to say: The last time the KMT sat in opposition but controlled parliament, legislative chaos became a defining feature of Taiwanese politics; domestic and foreign policymaking suffered; and relations with the West hit a low ebb.
Having been invited to speak at the European Parliament in 2003, Chen was persona non grata just a few years later. Brussels joined Washington in censuring his decision to suspend the National Unification Council – admittedly a provocative and largely symbolic gesture – and criticized Chen’s insistence on holding a referendum on UN participation under the name Taiwan alongside the 2008 presidential election.
Despite the legislative loggerheads, Chen was able to pass more legislation than his successor Ma Ying-jeou, who held the presidency while the KMT also retained legislative power. This was thanks, in no small part, to the commendable impartiality of KMT speaker Wang Jin-pyng. But, as political scientist Dachi Liao recently observed in an interview for Taiwan’s Central News Agency, Han is not cut from the same cloth as Wang.
In fact, it’s hard to imagine a much wider gulf in experience, talent, and personality than between the equanimous and conciliatory Wang and the brash, unlettered Kuo. One built a career on bridge-building, while the other has frequently sown division.
Policymakers and analysts in Europe and the United States are, thus, justified in their wariness of a legislature with Han at the helm.
Some Taiwanese analysts are more optimistic. “Parliamentary diplomacy is useful, and there’s cross-party consensus in Taiwan [on that],” says Yu Ching-hsin, director and distinguished research fellow at National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center. “Regardless of their position, all [parties] support expanding Taiwan’s relations with European countries. They all concur on this.”
The DPP may have been more active under outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen in pushing for closer EU ties, but there was general agreement across the political spectrum that, “Taiwan should be expanding relations with countries other than the US.”
Yu points to growing frustration with China, particularly during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, as creating new opportunities for alliances based on a sense of shared values. “As China became globally resented during Covid, relations with the EU improved,” he says.
For Chien Heng-yu, deputy editor of Storm Media, a major news outlet in Taiwan, Chiang’s presence as Han’s deputy should have a stabilizing influence. “When Chiang was KMT chairman, he invited the current European Council president [Charles Michel] to give a speech at KMT headquarters,” says Chien. “This shows he understands relations with Europe and has European policies, so maybe we don’t have to worry so much.”
As ‘significant minority’ – TPP plays a role
Another factor, Yu believes, could be the role of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which won eight seats in the legislature. Led by the unpredictable former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je, who has shown himself willing to work with whichever party best suits his interests, the TPP could yet play a part in helping relations with Europe stay on track.
The presence of figures such as outgoing Secretary-General Chou Tai-chu (also known as Tom Chou), who is Taiwan’s former representative to the Netherlands, shows that the TPP values foreign policy know-how, Chien suggests. “Each party has people who understand how to work and enhance relations with Europe,” says Chien.
Getty Images
TAICHUNG, TAIWAN – JANUARY 06: Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) presidential hopeful, Ko Wen-je, gives a speech during the election campaign on January 06, 2024 in Taichung, Taiwan. Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) presidential hopeful, Ko Wen-je, seeks a middle ground with China, attracting young voters, and hopes to establish a “third force” outside the two major parties that dominate Taiwan’s politics. Taiwan will vote in a general election on Jan. 13. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
Privately, one Taipei-based European academic cast doubt on the TPP’s foreign policy know-how. “Tom Chou stirred a lot of shit when he was posted to Saint Lucia,” says the academic. During his time as ambassador to St. Lucia (2007-2012) under the KMT administration of former President Ma Ying-jeou, Chou was accused by St. Lucia’s main opposition party of using development assistance funds to bribe legislators from the ruling party. While the allegations were not conclusively proven, they eventually led to Chou’s recall.
Furthermore, Ko – under whom the TPP is essentially a one-man party – has apparently decided that foreign policy is not a priority.
“From what I understand, he didn’t quit his role [as TPP secretary-general]; he was asked to leave by Ko himself who thought his experience was useless for TPP’s next big mission, which is the 2026 local elections.” This, says the source, “leaves the TPP with zero international expertise.”
For Jerzewski, maintaining the momentum that built up during Tsai’s second term will be crucial. He notes that You Si-kun established an International Affairs Working Group – later upgraded into a Department of International Affairs; hosted his counterparts from the Czech Republic and Lithuania; and led delegations to those two countries and Poland.
“It remains to be seen to what extent parliamentary diplomacy will remain a priority with a KMT speaker,” he says. “And also how effectively the KMT will maintain or even expand the [legislature’s] international posture.”
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TNL Editor: Kim Chan (@thenewslensintl)
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