20101111 The opportunism of KMT members

The opportunism of KMT members

By Lee Hsiao-feng 李筱峰

This article is about the post-1949 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the KMT that fled to Taiwan, and about the structure of its membership, which can be divided into five categories. A doctoral thesis could easily be written on this issue, but given word limits here, a medium-length article will have to do.

Let’s start with the first of the five categories of membership, which constituted the main body of the KMT. It consisted of the fascist ruling clique, led by dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), that fled from China in 1949. This undemocratic group saw one-party dictatorship as the natural state of affairs, and thought it was only natural that party coffers and the state treasury should be one and the same. It was also natural that there should be no separation between party, government, military, police and intelligence agencies. No one with pro-democratic views of a sense of social justice would approve of such a party.

The second category consisted of the grassroots members that arrived together with those in the previous category. Most of them were low-level military personnel, civil servants or teachers. In the early days, they were not necessarily considered a vested interest, but now most of them are part of the class that enjoy 18 percent interest on their bank savings and retain their full salary in retirement.

The third category was the group of people that were forced by the rulers to join the party in order to receive a good year-end review or to obtain a promotion. It also included those who became party members because of the simple fact that since the party controlled all social and political resources, non--membership would make any kind of individual development very difficult.

The fourth category was composed of the ignorant, naive members who joined the party because they had been brainwashed by KMT--centered education. The party’s longstanding fascist education ignored anything to do with democracy, liberty, human rights and the rule of law, and it was replete with Chinese nationalist ideology and denial of anything Taiwanese.

This type of education made these people feel honored to become “righteous” members of the KMT. They were unaware of the KMT’s White Terror rule, the 228 Massacre, black gold politics and the melding of the state treasury with party coffers. For the people in this category, following party slogans was a conditioned response worthy of the dogs of Pavlov himself.

The fifth category of KMT members were the opportunists who wanted to cater to those in power. This kind of member was generally very intelligent and thus well aware of the KMT’s dictatorship, the White Terror, black gold and the fact that the party had direct access to the state treasury, but they didn’t care. Their outlook on life was never grounded on views of social -justice or idealism and they joined the KMT because of the wealth of resources under its control in the hope that they would be able to share in the spoils. Some of them also saw membership as a way of improving their individual status.

Many KMT legislators and civil servants at the local level today belong to this category. Some local mobsters have also used KMT membership as a way to whitewash their activities. This is the reason why most of the civil servants that have been convicted for bribery, vote buying or fraud in recent years are card-carrying KMT members.

In addition to these categories, there are groups or individuals that are more difficult to categorize, such as an old classmate of mine from junior high school who was discovered by the school military instructor as he was jumping over a wall to sneak away from school. The military instructor agreed not to report the incident on condition that my friend join the party, so that’s the story of how he became a party member. The question is under which category you should place this type of member.

As times have changed, there have also been changes to the KMT’s membership structure. The main body of the KMT now consists of the children of the Mainlander “nobility,” but they have changed their allegiance from the anti-communism of the Chiang era to that of fawning over the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The grassroots Mainlanders in the second category, naturally, make up the deep-blue support base. Only a few of them who dislike President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) flattery of the CCP have left the party fold.

Following Taiwan’s democratization, members in the third category who were forced into party membership but had integrity, canceled their party memberships or became “members that the party has lost touch with.” The number of naive members in category four has dropped dramatically as the public has become better educated and information has become more transparent. Meanwhile, the number of opportunists in category five has increased as they look after their own interests. In particular, following the gradual convergence of the KMT and the CCP and the increasing allure of China, they are prepared to fawn over China together with Ma even though they would have been chanting anti-CCP slogans together with Chiang.

This kind of opportunist who always gravitates toward those in power can be found at every level of government in Taiwan and they are now key to the issue of whether or not Taiwan will be annexed by China.

If we want to eliminate the crisis that democratic Taiwan is facing, we must use our ballots to thoroughly undermine the fawning pro-Chinese team of opportunist politicians.

Lee Hsiao-feng is a professor at National Taipei University’s Graduate School of Taiwanese Culture.