by Brian Hioe

語言:
English
Photo Credit: Fu Kun-chi/Facebook

THE KMT HAS illustrated that it intends to continue to engage in scorched earth tactics against the Lai administration, sending the proposed budget back to the Procedural Committee of the Legislative Yuan. This was accomplished in coordination with the TPP.

The KMT did, indeed, criticize the budget on several procedural grounds. This includes criticizing the Council of Indigenous Affairs’ budget for not having enough funds for compensation payments, and not raising the price for the acquisition of public food stock.

At the same time, some KMT moves are unusual. The KMT, for example, criticized subsidizing losses by Taipower. In the past, the KMT would have acted similarly, seeing as Taipower is a state-run power utility and it was historically close to the KMT party-state.

More specifically, the KMT has taken aim at the Executive Yuan’s budget for publicity to promote government initiatives. The KMT has criticized the increase from 590 million NT to 900 million NT of the budget for next year, framing this as an attempt by the DPP to create a “green party-state”.

In particular, the KMT has suggested that such funds will be used for media friendly to the DPP. The KMT, then, likely intends to continue to attack the DPP over the approval of Mirror TV’s broadcast license, as the first new television network to receive such approval in over a decade. The KMT has alleged that the approval only took place because Mirror TV leans pan-Green.

The KMT has taken this stance because of the Tsai administration declining to review the broadcast license of CtiTV in 2020. CtiTV is one of the newspapers and television networks owned by Tsai Eng-meng, the founder of the Want Want Group. Tsai acquired such outlets in the early 2010s, making no secret that his interest in acquiring media platforms was to advance positive views of China in Taiwan, with pro-unification aims in mind. Tsai, originally a foodstuffs entrepreneur, had made his fortune on the basis of factories in China. Attacking the Executive Yuan’s publicity budget would be a form of retribution, as well as framing the DPP as simply targeting political enemies.

The KMT is likely to target the military budget as well. The KMT has already signaled that Taiwan’s domestic submarine program is likely to become a battleground issue, with the KMT leaning into the narrative that the domestic submarine program is a significant expenditure that would not ward off the threat of China, and that funding such military programs could, in fact, provoke China.

It is also probable that the KMT will try to target sections of government that they do not view themselves as able to politically influence in terms of budget cuts. Indeed, undermining branches of government not under KMT became a recurring theme of the past legislative powers.

This was mostly visible in an attempt by the KMT to expand legislative powers to grant legislators powers normally reserved for the executive and judicial branches of government. Such powers would allow legislators to summon and question people, with fines and jail time imposed for those who do not comply. Likewise, the KMT has called for reviving the Special Investigation Division of the Ministry of Justice–which was previously used to investigate individuals that the KMT was not politically fond of–and subordinating this to the control of the legislature rather than the Ministry of Justice.

Similarly, with a number of justices set to retire in October, the KMT has sought to prevent the Constitutional Court from being able to make rulings. This would be through new legislation requiring a specific minimum number of justices for rulings to take place. If this passed and the KMT were able to block the justices that the Lai administration seeks to appoint after October, this would effectively prevent the functioning of the judiciary in terms of the separation of powers.

That the KMT intends to dig its heels in regarding the issue. In effect, this would be the KMT attempting to freeze a branch of government and overturn the fundamental division of powers in Taiwan because it does not control that branch of government. This further illustrates the KMT’s current scorched-earth approach to politics.

In the meantime, the TPP has seen fit to lean into the narrative that the Lai administration is engaged in a “Green Terror” targeting opponents such as TPP chair Ko Wen-je. Nevertheless, even as such allegations are made by pan-Blue political parties, one sees attempts by the pan-Blue camp to prevent the government from functioning outright if it is not able to control the executive and judicial branches of government.
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