Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman-elect Eric Chu (???) will assume leadership of the opposition party at a ceremony on Oct. 5, a KMT official said Wednesday.
Chu, who comfortably won the KMT chairmanship election on Sept. 25, will take over from the interim incumbent Johnny Chiang (???).
The handover date was decided Wednesday in a meeting of the KMT’s Central Standing Committee, which also confirmed the results of the chairmanship election and approved Chiang’s resignation, according to the KMT official.
Chiang, a legislator from Taichung, has been serving as interim leader of the opposition party since March 2020, when his predecessor Wu Den-yih (???) resigned following the KMT’s resounding defeat in the presidential and legislative elections in January that year.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Central Standing Committee member Lin Chin-chieh (???) proposed that Chu assume leadership of the party as soon as possible, in light of the upcoming national referendums in December and the imminent need for fundraising to maintain the party’s operations, the KMT official said.
The committee decided to hold a ceremony on Oct. 5, at which Chiang will hand over the party leadership seal to Chu, who had served previously as KMT chairman for a year from 2015, according to the party official.
In a meeting with party members in Yilan County Wednesday, Chu said that as KMT chairman, one of his first priorities will be to campaign for the recall of Taiwan Statebuilding Party Legislator Chen Po-wei (???) in the Oct. 23 vote.
The recall campaign was initiated by Yang Wen-yuan (???), one of Chen’s constituents, who said the lawmaker had been neglecting his constituency, behaving outrageously in the Legislature and on social media, and supporting the government’s decision to lift a ban on pork imports containing the livestock drug ractopamine.
Meanwhile, commenting Wednesday on Chu’s election as leader of the KMT, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (???) said an exchange of messages between Chu and Chinese President Xi Jingping (???) after the KMT chairmanship election showed that their two parties had a common stance against Taiwan’s independence and in favor of the “1992 consensus.”
On Sept. 26, Xi sent Chu a congratulatory message, in which he reiterated the importance of the “1992 consensus” and China’s opposition to Taiwan independence. In response, Chu said he hoped that their two parties would move toward common ground, while respecting their differences, with the “1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwan independence serving as the foundation for such developments.
At a press briefing in Beijing, Zhu declined to say whether China will resume meetings between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the KMT or will invite Chu to visit.
She, however, said Beijing is willing to negotiate with any party, group or individual in Taiwan to seek solutions to the divisions between the two sides, as long as they recognize the “one China” principle and the 1992 consensus.
Beijing has taken a hardline stance on cross-strait relations since the current Democratic Progressive Party administration in Taiwan refused to recognize the “1992 consensus” — a tacit understanding reached in 1992 between the then-KMT government of Taiwan and the Chinese government.
Under the consensus, both sides of the strait acknowledge that there is only “one China,” with each side free to interpret what “China” means, according to the KMT.
Beijing has never openly recognized that each side is free to make its own interpretation, although it has also never denied that.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel