Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Cheng Li-wun returned to Taiwan on June 16, ending a two-week trip to the United States. This trip follows Cheng’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in April, significantly boosting Cheng’s international profile. His meeting with Xi came a month before US President Donald Trump’s summit with the Chinese leader.
Although Cheng declared in advance that she hoped meeting Trump, that ultimately did not happen. Before heading to Washington as part of his trip, Cheng aimed to flatter the US president, saying he could be the “greatest statesman of the 21st century” if he was able to resolve tensions across the Taiwan Strait. President Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) also sought to flatter Trump by suggesting that he deserve a Nobel Peace Prize if he could convince Xi to renounce the use of force against Taiwan.
Taiwan’s ties to the United States were questioned after the Trump-Xi summit, especially after Trump seemed echo Xi’s language on Taiwan following the meeting. However, Trump’s comments suggesting he is still considering arms sales to Taiwan, as well as his assertion that he opposes Taiwan independence, also indirectly echo Cheng.
After his meeting with the KMT chairman, Cheng suggested that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the KMT could find common ground on their shared opposition to independence. Trump’s current blockade of arms sales to Taiwan also echoes Cheng’s. current claim that the KMT will only approve new defense spending for Taiwan if the United States notifies its arms sales.
Cheng’s trip to Washington allowed him to meet with policymakers, politicians and think tanks, including the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Brian Mastand Director of the Asia Program at Defense Priorities Lyle Goldstein.
Much media attention in Taiwan has focused on one suddenly canceled meeting between Cheng and the National Security Council. Before the meeting took place, the meeting location had already been downgraded from the White House to the Washington offices of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the U.S. representative office in Taiwan in the absence of formal diplomatic relations. Ultimately, Cheng met with U.S. government officials lower than Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen during her own trip to the United States in March.
Cheng also did not meet with AIT’s Washington director, Ingrid D. Larson, who met with Lu.
Speculation is that it could be retaliation a previous argument between the leaders of the KMT and the AIT. As the United States calls on Taiwan to enact defense spending, which has been blocked by the KMT in the Legislature, Cheng’s vice president, Hsiao Hsu-tsen, criticized AIT Director Raymond Greene for his advocacy of defense spending. Hsiao only called Greene a platoon leader.
Not surprisingly, Cheng was asked about the KMT’s defense policy during her trip. The KMT and its partner, the Taiwan People’s Party, have repeatedly blocked and cut defense spending, most recently passing a supplemental budget devoid of almost all funding for domestic defense programs, including drone research and development. Cheng claimed that the KMT was not opposed to Taiwan’s defense, including the development of drones, but that the defense bill contained provisions introduced by the DPP that were unacceptable to Taiwan. She said her trip was aimed at clearing up misunderstandings. Cheng also defined her policy positions as being in the interest of regional peace, stating that she hoped to abolish the first island chain and instead create a “chain of peace and prosperity”.
To this end, Cheng said she hoped to establish a direct line of communication between the KMT and Washington – although this opens the door to allegations that Cheng, just as during his April trip to meet Xi, is seeking to circumvent Taiwan’s democratically elected institutions to conduct his diplomacy. With his call to meet with Trump, there was concern in Taiwan that Cheng was seeking to appeal to isolationist elements in the Trump administration, who might welcome the KMT’s return to power if it meant Taiwan disappearing as a geopolitical risk factor.
Yet Cheng’s trip to the United States sparked more controversy over events that took place during other stops. In addition to visiting Washington, DC, Cheng also made stops in Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
During his other stops, Cheng was reported by Taiwanese media, as appearing with figures monitored by the United States for their links to the work of the CCP United Front, such as Chen Heng, president of the China Fujian Association. Chen was reportedly under investigation by the FBI and other U.S. national security agencies for acting as an unregistered foreign agent and at the direction of Chinese intelligence services. Chen was among the organizers of counterprotests in New York against former President Tsai Ing-wen’s stops when she was in power, and he has been linked to individuals who operated an illegal overseas Chinese police station in New York’s Manhattan Chinatown.
At a banquet in Boston, Cheng sat at the same table as Gary Yu, who has been accused in the past of working for the Chinese United Front. After the Boston dinner, the KMT declared that Yu had not been invited at the banquet organized by the political party, but had been invited by Taiwanese expatriates abroad.
Cheng has been publicly confronted on several occasions. At an event at the Asia Society in New York, Cheng was confronted during a question-and-answer session with a man who identified himself as a Chinese pro-democracy dissident, who warned that Taiwan would share the fate of Hong Kong if it sought closer ties with China. The man was removed from the event by security.
In Los Angeles, members of the China Democracy Party alleged that they were silenced and forcibly removed during a question-and-answer session at an event after questioning Cheng about why the KMT sided with the CCP rather than contributing to China’s democratization efforts.
After returning to Taiwan, Cheng, exceptionally didn’t do any public comment on his tour of the United States. Nonetheless, his trip to the United States is likely a sign that Cheng has presidential ambitions. Taiwanese political candidates from the KMT and DPP regularly visit the United States to boost their international reputation and diplomatic credentials ahead of a presidential campaign.
The KMT has always campaigned on the claim that it is the only political party in Taiwan capable of communicating with the CCP and, in this way, maintaining stable relations across the Taiwan Strait. But the KMT presidential candidates must also signal to the public that they can maintain relations with the United States – the other major external stakeholder in cross-Strait relations, after China.