Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Cheng Li-wun/Facebook
COMMENTS BY NEWLY elected KMT party chair Cheng Li-wun have led to outrage, in an unusual case of the KMT foraying into the matter of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In an interview with German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Cheng defended Russian President Vladimir Putin as a democratically elected leader, rather than a dictator. Cheng claimed that Russia had been a democracy for many years after the transition away from the Soviet Union.
Cheng then went on to frame the war in Ukraine as a result of NATO’s eastward expansion rather than Russian aggression, and suggested that Putin was only hoping to keep the peace. Cheng stated “Of course not” when asked if Putin had started the war in Ukraine and asserted that it was Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy who had provoked war through efforts to join NATO. Cheng subsequently criticized the DPP, stating that Taiwan could become “a second Ukraine” if it continues with “words and actions” that stoke cross-strait tensions.
During the interview, Cheng lashes out several times at reporter Tzou Tzung-han. Given the public fallout that has ensued after the interview aired, KMT supporters have often tried to pin the blame for the interview on Tzou, claiming unprofessionalism.
Strangely, this is at least the third time that a KMT leader has fared badly in an interview with Deutsche Welle. Other such occasions include an interview in January 2024, where former President Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT claimed that Taiwan could never win in a war against China and that Taiwan should look to the example of East and West Germany as to how to achieve peace. A more disastrous interview entirely was when KMT chair Eric Chu stormed out of an interview with Deutsche Welle after the KMT’s 14% approval rating was brought up. These examples are cases of when Taiwanese politicians find themselves struggling in interviews with international media, which eschews the highly scripted nature of interview questioning in Taiwanese media culture, and often places great pride in not sending questions ahead of time for candidates to prepare pre-written answers.
Still, Cheng’s comments are revealing. For one, Cheng’s understanding of Ukraine is obviously a projection of her understanding of Taiwan.
It has become increasingly common in past years for the KMT to allege that the DPP is provoking China through strengthening relations with the US. The suggestion is that the invasion of Ukraine only occurred because Ukraine became too close to NATO and that China, similarly, would be provoked into attacking Taiwan if Taiwan became too close to the US.
In the course of such allegations, the KMT emphasizes the danger of Taiwan becoming another Ukraine, and frames a position of appeasement toward Russia as being a pro-peace position. To this extent, the resistance of the Ukrainian people against Russia’s military aggression is downplayed, with the framing that Ukraine’s battles against a much larger power are futile. And yet, as Cheng’s comments on Putin go to show, this goes hand-in-hand with a view of Russia that absolves it of guilt,
Presumably, Cheng does not want to criticize Russia, which is aligned with China. But Cheng’s comments also illustrate to what extent skepticism of the US has set in in the KMT, as the corollary phenomenon to the party’s rapprochement with China in the past two decades in spite of historically having been a US-backed antagonist of China during the Cold War. US-skepticism is deep-set enough that other enemies of the US, such as Russia, come to be seen in a positive light.
Indeed, views that the Ukraine-Russia conflict only occurs because of America’s desire to sell arms and fan the flames of conflict are also increasingly common in the pan-Blue camp. The KMT makes such allegations about US weapons sales to Taiwan, claiming that the arms that the US sells to Taiwan are useless and only sold for the sake of profit rather than meeting practical defense needs. Cheng has, in the past, claimed that the US uses Taiwan as an “ATM” when it comes to arms purchases. Ironically, to make such arguments, the KMT has sometimes drawn from western anti-war discourse imported into Taiwan by the leftist scholars of the “Anti-War Working Group.”
Cheng’s controversial comments again point to the fact that she will be a KMT chair in the mold of Hung Hsiu-chu, another hardliner on cross-strait issues. Hung has, in past years, traveled to Xinjiang to praise “anti-terrorism” efforts by the Chinese government and deny that genocide is being carried out against Uyghurs by the CCP there. Other comments by Cheng that have raised eyebrows include doubling down on a view that she hoped to see Taiwanese “proud to be Chinese” and that “Taiwan and the mainland should join forces to reach new heights in human civilization.”