Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Lai Ching-te/Facebook
THE KMT AND TPP seem set to take aim at Taiwan’s domestic submarine program in the upcoming legislative session, with questions about whether the pan-Blue camp will engage in the same scorched earth tactics that characterized the first legislative session.
Based on statements by KMT lawmakers such as Hsu Chiao-hsin, Wong Hong-wei, and others, the KMT is expected to try and shoot down the 284 billion NT plan. The KMT has suggested that the timeline for domestic submarines is uncertain and would entrap future administrations, but the actual aims of the KMT are probably to try and prevent it from occurring altogether.
The TPP’s stance on the domestic submarine program is less clear, particularly as TPP legislator Huang Shan-shan’s brother Huang Shu-kuang is the convener of the domestic submarine program. TPP politicians such as caucus convener Huang Kuo-chang have continued to evidence an interest in maintaining the TPP as critical of Chinese military threats against Taiwan, with Huang criticizing the use of Chinese electronic parts in military vehicles and at military bases. Yet TPP politicians such as Lin Yi-chun have also been critical of the domestic submarine program. Huang Shan-shan’s influence in the party may also be curtailed if she ends up taking the fall for the TPP’s recent financial stumbles.
It was not clear as to whether the TPP and KMT might be less antagonistic toward all measures that the DPP attempts to pass in legislation in the next legislative session. Nevertheless, the domestic submarine program could potentially be a flashpoint for attacks by the TPP and KMT. And if the TPP and KMT are intent on digging their heels in regarding Taiwan’s domestic submarine program, this is a portent as to how they will behave for Taiwan’s military budget as a whole.
Wang Yu Ching/Office of the President/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
After all, even if Taiwan has seen historic increases in the military budget this year, the KMT is likely to criticize the DPP, with accusations that the DPP is purchasing weapons systems of little utility to Taiwan and that potentially stand to drag Taiwan into conflict with China. This has increasingly been a refrain of the KMT in past years, with targets including anything from sales of Volcano landmine systems that could deter a beachhead invasion to ammunition depots in strategic positions.
The domestic submarine is especially likely to be targeted, as a project that the DPP has sought to drum up national pride regarding. The KMT would like to take the wind of the DPP’s sails where Taiwan’s domestic submarine program is concerned.
Ironically, there have also been criticisms of the domestic submarine program as excessive focus from Taiwan on a big-ticket item, rather than adopting means of asymmetric warfare that might be less flashy but could potentially be more effective in fending off Chinese military threats. But this is not the KMT’s criticism.
Still, the KMT may inflame anger against it from those who were proud of Taiwan’s domestic submarine program. Likewise, the KMT is likely to potentially anger those associated with the military, a demographic that has historically supported the KMT.
Even so, the KMT’s actions may create a political opportunity for the DPP, in allowing the DPP a chance to undermine the KMT’s historic base of support. Similarly, it would be further ironic if the KMT’s actions ended up pushing the Taiwanese military toward asymmetric means of warfare, precisely because of the need to avoid big-ticket items that the KMT would try to shoot down.
To this extent, if the protests against the KMT’s actions in the legislature that occurred during the first legislative session were characterized by anger over the KMT’s efforts to expand legislative powers, anger in the second legislative term may end up being over efforts by the KMT to shoot down Taiwan’s domestic submarine program, or military spending as a whole. Indeed, the protests known as the Bluebird Movement to a large extent were about the view of the KMT as acting as a proxy for China, even if Chinese military exercises directed at Taiwan rarely came up in and of themselves. It would dovetail many of the existing threads in Taiwanese politics if this ended up being what social movement mobilization in Taiwan was instead channeled toward.