Understanding the KMT’s Evolving Foreign Policy

Eric Chu, chairman of Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), began his recent trip to the United States in San Francisco, where he celebrated the 130th anniversary of the party’s founding at its historic U.S. headquarters.

The trip was reminiscent of Chu's previous visit to the U.S. in June 2022, which also began in San Francisco and aimed to clarify the party’s approach to foreign policy. During that visit, Chu sought to reaffirm the KMT’s stance on Taiwan-U.S. relations and dispel the party’s pro-China label by declaring, “We are a pro-U.S. party – forever.”

Two years later, the KMT has indeed stepped up its engagement with U.S. officials and policy circles, though the party now emphasizes a more balanced approach between Washington and Beijing than Chu had indicated in 2022. This shift is reflected in his messaging on this trip.

Speaking to local media in San Francisco on August 16, Chu said that “maintaining close relations with the U.S., friendly relations with Japan, and peaceful relations with China [親美、友日、和中] has always been an important path for the KMT.”

While these objectives concerning relations with the U.S., Japan, and China have not been officially designated as the party’s comprehensive foreign policy, Chu has consistently referred to them as the “path,” or strategy, the KMT follows. More than just an outline of foreign policy objectives, however, the evolution of this strategy reflects the KMT’s efforts to align with public opinion.

Chu first announced the KMT would follow the path of “close relations with the U.S., friendly relations with Japan, and peaceful relations with the mainland” during the party’s annual national congress in August 2022. The timing of this announcement was significant, coming two months after his 2022 U.S. trip and just days after Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia’s controversial trip to China. Hsia’s trip drew widespread criticism, as it occurred right after China conducted its largest military drills in the Taiwan Strait in response to then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

Addressing the KMT national congress in 2022, Chu defended the party’s continued engagement with mainland China, arguing that only dialogue can help reduce cross-strait tensions. He added that to protect Taiwan’s people and interests, the KMT would not only reach out to Beijing, but step up its communication with the U.S., Japan, and the broader international community.

In the past two years, “close relations with the U.S., friendly relations with Japan, and peaceful relations with the mainland” has become the party’s mantra when discussing its foreign and cross-strait policies. The KMT has also publicized its outreach efforts aligned with this strategy, such as sending delegations to observe the recent national conventions of the Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S., hosting members of the Japanese Diet, and sending 17 KMT lawmakers to Beijing on an “ice-breaking” trip.

However, there has been a subtle change in one of these objectives. Instead of “peaceful relations with the mainland” (和陸), Chu called for “peaceful relations with China” (和中) during his interview in San Francisco on Friday. The same change in terminology can be seen in Chu’s social media posts during and before his U.S. trip, suggesting this shift in language was intentional.     

Chu’s motivation for revising this language is yet unclear, but its implications could be significant. The KMT typically uses “the mainland” (大陸) instead of “China” (中國) to refer to the territory under the Chinese Communist Party’s control. This terminology aligns with the KMT’s understanding of the “1992 Consensus,” which asserts that there is only one China, but whether it is represented by the Republic of China (ROC) or the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is open to interpretation.

By calling for peace with “China,” Chu would be implying that the ROC and PRC are separate political entities, a view that aligns more closely with current public opinion in Taiwan. A May 2024 poll by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation found overwhelming support for Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s statement that “the ROC and the PRC are not subordinate to each other.”

There is good reason to scrutinize the KMT’s use of language when it comes to this set of objectives. Before Chu officially introduced them as the party’s path forward in 2022, iterations of this strategy had already existed, each with subtle but significant differences.

After stepping down from the presidency, former President Ma Ying-jeou said that Taiwan’s “grand strategy” during his administration from 2008 to 2016 was to “build a peaceful relationship with mainland China, maintain a friendly relationship with Japan, and strengthen a close relationship with the U.S.”

Although Ma did not explicitly rank the objectives based on priority at the time, he reordered them four years later in 2020. In a speech criticizing then-President Tsai Ing-wen for prioritizing relations with Washington over Beijing, Ma argued that Taiwan risked becoming an “abandoned chess piece” in a great power competition unless it pursued the grand strategy he proposed. However, he suggested “slight adjustments” to this strategy, now advocating for “close relations with the U.S., peaceful relations with the mainland, and friendly relations with Japan.”

Ma explained the reshuffling of these objectives as a balancing act between cross-strait and international relations to better align with Taiwan’s interests. Yet this explanation did not address why he placed close relations with the U.S. before peaceful cross-strait relations – the very thing he had criticized the Tsai administration for doing.

A more plausible explanation was that downplaying cross-strait relations, even if only in rhetoric, resonated better with public sentiment in 2020. Later that year, Taiwan’s voters overwhelmingly re-elected Tsai and rejected the KMT, which they perceived as being overly pro-China.

The same reasoning could explain why, when Chu adopted Ma’s formulation in 2022, he reordered the objectives again, placing mainland China last. Though this sequence may not directly reflect the KMT’s foreign policy priorities, it underscores the party's responsiveness to public opinion.

Chu’s most recent revision from “mainland” to “China” could be part of a similar approach to better align the party with public opinion. Elected as KMT chairman in 2021, Chu promised to revitalize the century-old party by recruiting new blood and appealing to centrist voters, which required addressing the KMT’s image problem as the “pro-China” party. Adopting a foreign policy that balances relations with the U.S., Japan, and China fits into that mission.

Though this foreign policy inherits much of its language from Ma’s formula, deliberate revisions to its wording, balanced implementation of its objectives, and shifting party internal dynamics suggest both a symbolic and substantive deviation from the “grand strategy” of the Ma administration.

This internal transformation was highlighted by observations from Howard Shen, the assistant director of International Affairs for the KMT. In an op-ed for The Diplomat, Shen noted a rise in the party’s youth movement and a dwindling in the party’s “senior influence.” More strikingly, he confirmed that party leadership had distanced itself from Ma’s “statements regarding cross-strait relations” during the 2024 elections, a likely reference to Ma’s interview with Deutsche Welle, in which he said that Taiwan could not win in a conflict with the mainland and that it should “trust” Chinese leader Xi Jinping with cross-strait relations.

Whether “peaceful relations with China” represents a genuine shift in the KMT’s characterization of cross-strait relations remains to be seen, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first time Chu has signaled a major change in his party’s approach to foreign and cross-strait engagement when visiting the United States. Even if the implications of this change in terminology remain ambiguous, the KMT’s current strategy of “close relations with the U.S., friendly relations with Japan, and peaceful relations with China” is the culmination of the party’s efforts over the past three years to align itself more closely with public opinion.