Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Cheng Li-wun/Facebook
THE KMT AND TPP advanced several controversial bills in the legislature last week, setting a precedent for what comes next in the new year. It should be clear that the KMT and TPP intend to continue their scorched-earth approach to politics, particularly as contention between the pan-Blue-controlled legislature and DPP-controlled executive continues.
Some of the legislation passed by the KMT and TPP targets traditional party issues of the pan-Blue camp. For one, changes to the Satellite Broadcasting Act aim to make it easier for television channels to renew broadcasting licenses. If an administrative lawsuit is ongoing, channels are allowed to continue broadcasting and put the onus on authorities to provide remedies.
Changes to the Satellite Broadcasting Act are perceived as attempting to put CtiTV back on air. CtiTV lost its broadcasting license in 2020, after a series of incidents in which CtiTV emphasized coverage of KMT presidential candidate Han Kuo-yu, including inflating the crowd count of Han’s mayoral swearing-in ceremony and devoting 70% of coverage to Han. This took place in the context of news reports from outlets including the Apple Daily and Financial Times that Want Want Group-owned media were accepting Chinese funding, and allowing China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to have direct say in their editorial policy.
The Lai administration has stated that the Channel 52 news slot formerly occupied by CtiTV is now occupied by CTS, and it cannot be restored to CtiTV, as this would infringe on CTS’s rights. Still, the KMT and TPP are expected to try to assert the opposite.
To this extent, changes to the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations exempt the China Youth Corps from the scope of party assets legislation. Such legislation was originally passed to target assets retained by the KMT from property seizures from the authoritarian period, as well as organizations that are nominally independent of the KMT but clearly operate in its orbit.
Likewise, in spite of controversy late last year about KMT-advanced legislation accused of making it easier for legislators to embezzle subsidies meant for hiring aides–one of the most common categories of corruption by legislators–legislation was passed to put aides’ salaries under the broader category of legislative subsidies. This, too, has been criticized as opening the door to legislative corruption, in reducing accountability over whether such money actually goes to paying aides. In this sense, some of the KMT’s moves are seen as opening the door to political corruption, whether with regards to former party assets or corruption involving legislators.
What has received the most attention, however, is the KMT advancing the TPP’s defense budget. The TPP’s defense budget reduces between 60% and 70% of the spending asked for by the DPP, while cutting key elements of the DPP’s defense program, including the “T-Dome” missile defense system, funding for drones, and efforts to separate Taiwan’s supply chains from China.
The DPP has criticized the TPP’s version of the defense budget as haphazard in nature, in that the legislation specifies certain forms of ammunition and does not allow for flexibility on the kinds of munitions purchased. The Ministry of National Defense has also stated that the budget does not have provisions for the storage and maintenance of equipment.
The KMT siding with the TPP to push its version of defense procurement, after ten times in which the two pan-Blue parties blocked the DPP’s defense procurement bill, is likely to try to come off as bipartisan rather than unwilling to block all defense spending. And yet, with between 60% and 70% of defense spending cut at a time in which the US has threatened to suspend support for Taiwan if it does not increase defense spending, it is unlikely that this will placate the US. One notes that the KMT under newly-elected chair Cheng Li-wun has increasingly leaned into the narrative that Taiwan faces risks through a closer relationship with the US, along the lines of what is claimed to be the means by which Ukraine provoked Russia through closer ties with NATO.