The former chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT), Eric Chu, says that his party’s annual forum with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), should focus more on civilian exchanges.
Chu, who is the Mayor of New Taipei City, was speaking on Monday. His comments came on the heels of a KMT report that listed suggestions for party reforms. The report also gave 14 reasons for why the party suffered a massive defeat in the January elections, which translated into its first ever loss of its majority in the legislature.
The report said that the KMT had been criticized for its strong ties with China. It said the party should cancel its annual forum with the CCP, called the Cross-Straits Economic, Trade and Cultural Forum.
Chu said Monday that last year he had already brought up the possibility of altering the format for the forum.
“Last year the forum already underwent some initial changes," said Chu. "We hope that in the future, Chairman Hung Hsiu-chu can work with the Mainland to make more adjustments. After all, there are different missions and ways of going about exchanges at each stage in cross-strait relations. As to the kind of transformation, first of all, last year we did not want to make a big show of [the forum]. Second of all, we care about grassroots youth concerns -- facing problems and solving them. I think that now that the KMT is an opposition party, we should discuss civic concerns. We can hold the forum, but it should not be as large-scale as it was in the past.”
When asked whether cancelling the forum meant that Chairman Hung would lose out on an opportunity to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who is head of the CCP, Chu said that there would be other opportunities.
Chu also spoke about the part of the KMT reform report which said that divisions among the party leadership had left a bad impression on the public. He said that everybody knew that was true, and that’s why the party needed to conduct a thorough review.