In part two of this two-part episode, COL Kyle Marcrum and Dr. Jessica Liao discuss Taiwan President Lai’s special defense budget and the Kuomingdang Chair, Cheng Li-wun, visit to Beijing.

Keywords: Taiwan, defense, budget

COL Kyle Marcrum

Welcome back to the CLSC Dialogues, a production of the China Landpower Studies Center at the United States Army War College. The opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers, and not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, United States Army War College, or the US government. I'm Colonel Kyle Marcrum, director of the China Landpower Studies Center, and I'm again joined by Doctor Jessica Liao.

We are picking up part two of our conversation on President Lai’s special defense budget. Last time we ended with Jessica raising Cheng's visit to China. And I'm glad you raised Cheng’s visit to Beijing, Cheng Li-wun, the chair of the KMT, just traveled against this whole backdrop. And I want to emphasize that this is an ever-increasing complexity where we have Legislative Yuan, the president's trying to pass this special defense budget. The Legislative Yuan is split on it.

Dr. Jessica Liao

Yeah.

Marcrum

President Trump and General Secretary Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet. It was postponed. And then in the meantime, the KMT chair travels to Beijing and meets with Xi Jinping. What do you think was the objective of that visit?

Liao

Yeah.

There are several unique things, and also the objective that you talk about that is tied into this visit. Let’s start was like Cheng Li-wun herself. She's a very unique individual and like, you know, come from a very complex like political background. She actually started as the pro-independence movement player, like, you know, a part of the whole, like they call it Tangwai, the outside party alluding to KMT party, the movement, you know, before the Taiwan democracies. And so being the member of the DPP and then in 2005, she shifted from DPP to KMT. And in the recent years, she started to move into a very more of the pro-Beijing kind of stance within the whole KMT, like, you know, political candidates that was trying to jockeying for the new chairmanship.

And really, she's coming from nowhere. It's just like, you know, a couple months ago, like she suddenly like, you know, rise to the center. And the reason that she was able to rise up so quickly, a lot of people, you know, speculated that Beijing had helped, but we don't have direct evidence on that. But she does have a lot of support from especially those like pro-Beijing stance veterans who still want to see a unified China and have a more stronger ideational like, you know, convergence with Beijing. And it's kind of like, you know, pan-Chinese, kind of like, yeah, identities.

So those like, voters within KMTs are really like, you know, diehard supporters for Cheng Li-wun’s rise. And so she kind of like, just like, you know, shock everybody and then become the rising figures of this KMT chairman elections. So she went there. And it's very different from all the previous like KMT leaders to visit to Beijing.

So the last time that KMT leaders like, met with the Beijing leadership was like a decade ago, that was Ma Ying-jeou, who was already there, and long standing KMT leadership. So she is really brand new, doesn't really have that kind of like foundation, like what all her predecessors are when they were meeting with Beijing. So in that sense, Beijing is also taking a gamble on her, right? Because she does not have that kind of like, you know, solid foundations within her party, that she just took the leadership.

And on the other hand, because of this kind of like, complicated political background. I think the polls has showing that people, the public are not very, you know, trusting her political credential, like seeing her more as a, you know, a chameleon.

So, you know, and, but she want to make a point about William Lai’s approach is wrong. And instead, this kind of peaceful approach and a more pro-Beijing kind of stance is a way to go and to be able to seek a peaceful coexistence with Beijing.

Marcrum

Which is interesting because I don't know if you saw the AI video that's making its rounds on social media, where, Cheng is at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial and he comes to life and he's like, “All right, China's united?” And she's like, “No.” And so then Chiang Kai-shek goes and beats President Lai with his cane.

So it kind of it kind of goes behind this idea that, you know, a united China or she's part of this united China idea. But I also wanted to point out that, you know, she's like you said, she's new to the movement, or to the KMT, fairly new. But she met with Xi Jinping.

I believe it was the—and this is where I'm going to show my ignorance of anything that's outside of China and Taiwan—it was I believe it was the United Kingdom. Their prime minister went to China and Xi Jinping, did not meet with him. Was it was it the UK? I'll have to look that up. It was a European leader. It was UK or may have been. . . somebody went to China and did a tour of China, but Xi Jinping did not meet with them.

Liao

I think. Yeah, you are right. There is a European leader recently I believe is the yeah.

Marcrum

Believe it was UK.

Liao

Right, yeah.

Marcrum

But it's the idea that Xi Jinping, a, you know, a country that is like China that is very focused on protocol and a national leader comes and does not meet with Xi Jinping. Then at the same time, we have KMT, who is a political party in what China believes to be a breakaway province, travels, and Xi Jinping does meet with her.

So what idea was Xi Jinping trying to show? It becomes another question. One of the things I was also really curious about because Chen Li-wun, when she was in China, she mentioned the 92 Consensus multiple times.

Liao

That's right.

Marcrum

But when I was in Taiwan, it seemed like the, you know, the 92 non—what was it?—the non-consensus consensus, like people were saying.

So for people not familiar the 92 Consensus was that there was one China but kind of ambiguous on who runs it. Right? But then, so, but that became was becoming less popular, particularly with the youth in Taiwan who identify themselves as Taiwans or Taiwanese versus Chinese-Taiwan or Taiwan. So she, but she mentioned it multiple times. Was her, I mean, I guess it goes back to this unified China idea. Is she trying to identify more with that? Does she think that she can rally a KMT behind that, or what do you think she's trying to do with that?

Liao

Right.

So yeah, the KMT, the Nationalist Party and also CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, they went way back to like early 20th Century. So this party, like this two party have like a very long standing relationship that they, you know, coalesce throughout, you know, the before, before 1949 when the PRC was born. And they and they still tried to carry that kind of like tradition on to say like we are still in many ways, you know, all started from like Sun Yat-sen, who was the founder of the Nationalist Party, but also a big advocate to say, let's accommodate the Communist Party inside the party movement, because after all, we are all nationalists and we all want to see a unified China in front of the whole, you know, colonial pressures and so on.

So I think there is a long tradition ever since 2005, when the KMT chairman, then Lien Chan, you know, visited Beijing, they had that kind of historical connections in or imagination, if you will, to really try to revitalize that kind of like, you know, linkage, like nationalist linkage. And I think Cheng Li-wun’s trip was trying to like, carry that kind of like historical memory in order to like, you know, enhance her legitimacy. That she is the one that, you know, like, received the torch from her, you know, predecessors. And part of this kind of like, you know, tradition continuing is to reassert her support for the 92 Consensus.

And the 92 Consensus, of course, it started from 1992. That was basically the both sides have this like first official statement after the Cold War talking about, you know, we are all China, but whether you want to interpret it as the PRC China, People's Republic of China in Beijing or the ROC China, Republic of China in Taipei, that is a respected interpretation that both sides can do their own justification, and we are not going to pick on those.

So it's sort of like an unwritten political fudge that you, you know, you're giving the wiggling room for both sides to make it. So it's in many ways like very politically, you know, genius kind of arrangement. However, after Xi came into power as the CCP leadership, he is no longer a, you know, tolerating so much wiggling room. He's increasingly insisting on taking away the second part of the 92 Consensus. There is no respected interpretation of 92. China is one China, and that is the PRC China, and Taiwan is part of it.

So a lot of people believe that, you know, Cheng Li-wun during her trip, she also reiterated her insistence to go back to the 92 Consensus as the baseline for the both sides to start a dialog. But what is being dinged on by a lot of Taiwanese is that she is also staying away from reiterating the respected interpretation, like all the previous KMT officials do. So a lot of people believe that she is siding with, you know, Beijing on the different interpretation, kind of, is increasingly become the PRC-dominated interpretation.

Nonetheless, on the event of her visit to Sun Yat-sen’s memorial, she did spill out ROC Republic of China. But she say it in the way as like, you know, this is the history where the ROC was bor...

CLSC Dialogues – Ep 28 – COL Kyle Marcrum and Dr. Jessica Liao – Taiwan’s Special Defense Budget and KMT Trip to Beijing, Part 2

CLSC Dialogues

CLSC Dialogues – Ep 28 – COL Kyle Marcrum and Dr. Jessica Liao – Taiwan’s Special Defense Budget and KMT Trip to Beijing, Part 2