A New Face for Taiwanese Nationalists

Taiwan’s opposition Nationalist Party, labeled sclerotic, corrupt and a dinosaur, is showing signs of a pulse thanks to new Chairman Ma Ying-jeou.

The charismatic, Harvard-educated Taipei mayor has a down-to-earth approach to party politics, a startling shift for Nationalists who ruled Taiwan with an iron fist for decades and never quite found their footing under democracy.

But Ma faces the challenge of winning over the island’s electorate in advance of an expected presidential run in 2008. Whether he succeeds will have a bearing on cross-strait relations, Taiwan’s young democracy and the island’s relationship with the United States, analysts say.

Ma, 55, was named party head in July after an open election, the first time the selection wasn’t made in a smoky back room. He has held key party meetings outside the capital, also unprecedented, and pledged to shed more light on party finances. Ma also recently forced out legislator Ho Chih-hui as head of a judiciary committee, a position Ho held despite his indictment on corruption, theft and breach-of-trust charges.

Relative to his predecessor, Lien Chan, a grim-faced, two-time presidential loser, Ma brings good looks and a Mr. Clean image to the political battlefield. As justice minister in the mid-1990s, he waged a campaign against corruption before resigning when resistance became too great.

Ma has often managed to stay above the fray in Taiwan’s back-biting political world. When independent legislator Li Ao recently called Ma better suited for show business than government, the mayor thanked him for his comments and dropped it.

Critics say he’ll need more than a nice-guy image, however, to pull the party out of its slump and change its entrenched culture. “The Nationalists are now benefiting from Ma’s image,” said Emile Sheng, a political science professor at Soochow University in Taipei. “But the long-run question is whether he can reform the rot inside the party.”

Some also question whether he has the organizational and other skills to pull factions together, motivate people at the grass-roots level and win Taiwan-wide elections. This is of particular concern if Ma is serious about fighting corruption, given the party’s long dependence on down-and-dirty machine politics, analysts say. Island-wide local elections in December will be a key test.

Wang Jin-pyng, the Nationalists’ legislative speaker, who lost the chairmanship race to Ma, questioned the focus on corruption. “He’s trying to reform an issue that’s never been a problem,” said Wang, who is aligned with the party’s old guard.

Ma also has a mixed record as mayor, analysts say. His quarantine policies during the SARS epidemic in 2003 may have accelerated the transmission of the respiratory disease, and his decision to leave the Taipei emergency center during a 2001 typhoon to attend a conference was widely questioned.

“Ma has been Taipei mayor for two terms, but his performance hasn’t been too impressive,” said Lee Yi-yang, secretary-general of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. “Ma Ying-jeou is a competitive opponent, but he’s hardly unbeatable.”

Even Ma’s reputation for virtue can cut both ways. “If something dirty turns up, his image could change pretty quickly,” said Hsu Yung-ming, a researcher with Academia Sinica, a Taiwanese think tank.

Ma got a taste of this recently, when he announced plans to sell some party assets. The move was designed to show greater openness and blunt long-standing criticism that the Nationalists, currently worth at least $1 billion, looted public funds during decades of one-party rule. But critics quickly labeled his initiative a conflict of interest because anyone buying party land or buildings would need development permits from the mayor’s office.

Ma’s birthplace, Hong Kong, may also be a liability. Taiwan’s electorate has increasingly identified itself as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, with every president elected since democracy dawned in the late 1980s born on the island.

Bridging this divide and attracting the political center may require fancy footwork. Ma favors eventual reunification with China but can’t afford to look like he’s in Beijing’s pocket, particularly with an estimated 700 Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan.

“Ma views the future of Taiwan from a Chinese perspective,” presidential office Secretary-General Yu Shyi-kun charged recently. “Ma fails to put Taiwan first.”

Ma is helped, however, by the disarray of his political opponents. The ruling DPP, led by President Chen Shui-bian, has not settled on a strategy to counter Ma’s growing popularity as its own ratings have slipped.

No matter the outcome of the 2008 election, however, analysts say a revitalized Nationalist Party is good news. By offering voters a real choice, both parties are forced to emphasize policy over petty infighting.

Analysts say a Ma presidency, with a presumably less-confrontational approach toward China’s Communist Party, could tilt Taipei closer to Beijing. Although that might strain U.S. ties with Taiwan, some say Washington may find Ma’s stable, measured style easier to deal with. Chen has a history of rapid-fire changes and inflammatory statements that has earned him a reputation in Washington as a loose cannon.

In an interview at Nationalist headquarters, Ma pledged to modernize an institution he’s been part of for 38 years.

“I don’t want to see one of the most important parties in Chinese history fade away,” he said. “I want to change the so-called Leninist party image, make a modern democratic party and try to wash away the image of corruption.”

Even as he remained coy about running in 2008, he said the Nationalists can do a better job managing relations with China, which in turn will spur the economy and reduce the need for defense spending, ultimately increasing Taiwan’s security.

“No matter how much you spend, there’s no way you can engage in an arms race with the mainland,” he said. “We have to be very careful.”

At the same time, Ma sought to underscore issues on which he differs with China. He strongly opposes Beijing’s anti-secession law, he said, despite his support for reconciliation with the mainland. And Beijing must own up to the brutality of its 1989 crackdown on student protesters at Tiananmen Square.

“Sorry, but the best way is to admit your mistake and correct it,” Ma said. “This would be my advice to the Communist Party. Face history.”

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Special correspondent Tsai Ting-I contributed to this report.