Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Han Kuo-yu/Facebook
INTERNAL SPLITS continue to occur in the KMT about the prospect of increasing defense spending. This occurs after the KMT had delayed review of the central government’s budget for over 220 days.
It appears that KMT chair Cheng Li-wun and legislative caucus leader Fu Kun-chi have come to a consensus about opposing any increase in defense spending to around 800 billion NT. Instead, defense spending would remain at 380 billion NT, with future purchases subject to approval by the legislature.
Cheng is slated to visit the US for a ten-day trip in June. The trip is a sign that Cheng has presidential ambitions, seeing as she previously visited China to meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping, and needs to counterbalance the perception that she is overly pro-China with a trip to the US. Cheng has stated that she wishes to meet with US president Donald Trump on that trip.
At the same time, it may be that defense spending is not an issue that Cheng refuses to budge on. During her trip, Cheng is likely to maintain the political narrative that the KMT does not oppose all defense spending, but that it merely wants more oversight over what Taiwan purchases from the US. Still, Cheng is probably prioritizing maintaining relations with China as integral to maintaining power in the KMT, with some analysts seeing Cheng as having built strong relations with Xi, with the promise to block any increase in defense spending in Taiwan.
Indeed, significant dissent in the KMT continues about the idea of increasing defense spending. Namely, US-skepticism has set in deep within the KMT.
Earlier this week, KMT vice chair Chi Lin-len called for the expulsion of Legislative Yuan president Han Kuo-yu, who was the KMT’s 2020 presidential candidate, from the party over Han’s support for an increase in defense spending to 800 billion NT. Other KMT heavyweights who have supported an increase in defense spending to 800 billion NT include Taichung mayor Lu Shiow-yen and legislator Ko Chih-en, who support defense spending between 800 billion and 1 trillion NT, as well as legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin, who supports discussing the notion of 800 billion NT in spending.
Fu Kun-chi has dismissed such dissenting views within the KMT legislative caucus as merely the viewpoint of individual KMT legislators, though Fu visibly tried to prevent Chi from making comments calling for Han’s expulsion from the KMT in the legislature. In the meantime, Cheng Li-wun called Han to emphasize that Chi’s comments were his individual viewpoints, not those of the KMT Central Committee. Han reportedly picked up the phone with the quip, “Are you calling to expel me?” That Cheng’s deputy chair got into a spat with Han is somewhat reminiscent of how her other deputy chair, Hsiao Tu-chen, previously got into a spat with former president Ma Ying-jeou. It may be that Cheng’s subordinates are attacking other KMT heavyweights on her behalf, while she tries to depict herself as at a remove from them, so as to build up Cheng’s path to any presidential nomination.
Hsu Chiao-hsin has come under fire for supporting at least discussing 800 billion NT in defense spending, with New Party deputy secretary-general You Zhi-bin accusing Hsu of violating lobbying laws in accepting foreign lobbying. The suggestion would be that Hsu being up for discussing these ideas would be due to her being paid off by foreign actors.
Such accusations are ironic for Hsu. Hsu previously raised eyebrows by claiming at the September 2024 U.S.-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference that “Chinese people will never make war on Chinese people.”
Still, that Hsu of all people faces allegations of being covertly backed by US interests shows how prevalent US-skeptic views are among some sectors of the KMT. Arguably, such US-skepticism has structural roots–seeing as the KMT maintained power in Taiwan for decades during the authoritarian era with US backing, in an era in which US power may be on the wane, individuals in the KMT who see themselves as having lost power in the process of democratization may believe that they can recover the privileges they once had through switching to another backer–that is, China. Just as China was demonized on anti-Communist grounds during the Cold War, in the period some have termed the “new Cold War”, the US must be demonized in similar terms.