CLSC Dialogues – Ep 28 – COL Kyle Marcrum and Dr. Jessica Liao – Taiwan’s Special Defense Budget and KMT Trip to Beijing, Part 2

In part two of this two-part episode, COL Kyle Marcrum and Dr. Jessica Liao discuss Taiwan President Lai’s special defense budget and the Kuomingdang Chair, Cheng Li-wun, visit to Beijing. Keywords: Taiwan, defense, budget

COL Kyle Marcrum Welcome back to the CLSC Dialogues, a production of the China Landpower Studies Center at the United States Army War College. The opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers, and not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, United States Army War College, or the US government. I'm Colonel Kyle Marcrum, director of the China Landpower Studies Center, and I'm again joined by Doctor Jessica Liao. We are picking up part two of our conversation on President Lai’s special defense budget. Last time we ended with Jessica raising Cheng's visit to China. And I'm glad you raised Cheng’s visit to Beijing, Cheng Li-wun, the chair of the KMT, just traveled against this whole backdrop. And I want to emphasize that this is an ever-increasing complexity where we have Legislative Yuan, the president's trying to pass this special defense budget. The Legislative Yuan is split on it. Dr. Jessica Liao Yeah. Marcrum President Trump and General Secretary Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet. It was postponed. And then in the meantime, the KMT chair travels to Beijing and meets with Xi Jinping. What do you think was the objective of that visit? Liao Yeah. There are several unique things, and also the objective that you talk about that is tied into this visit. Let’s start was like Cheng Li-wun herself. She's a very unique individual and like, you know, come from a very complex like political background. She actually started as the pro-independence movement player, like, you know, a part of the whole, like they call it Tangwai, the outside party alluding to KMT party, the movement, you know, before the Taiwan democracies. And so being the member of the DPP and then in 2005, she shifted from DPP to KMT. And in the recent years, she started to move into a very more of the pro-Beijing kind of stance within the whole KMT, like, you know, political candidates that was trying to jockeying for the new chairmanship. And really, she's coming from nowhere. It's just like, you know, a couple months ago, like she suddenly like, you know, rise to the center. And the reason that she was able to rise up so quickly, a lot of people, you know, speculated that Beijing had helped, but we don't have direct evidence on that. But she does have a lot of support from especially those like pro-Beijing stance veterans who still want to see a unified China and have a more stronger ideational like, you know, convergence with Beijing. And it's kind of like, you know, pan-Chinese, kind of like, yeah, identities. So those like, voters within KMTs are really like, you know, diehard supporters for Cheng Li-wun’s rise. And so she kind of like, just like, you know, shock everybody and then become the rising figures of this KMT chairman elections. So she went there. And it's very different from all the previous like KMT leaders to visit to Beijing. So the last time that KMT leaders like, met with the Beijing leadership was like a decade ago, that was Ma Ying-jeou, who was already there, and long standing KMT leadership. So she is really brand new, doesn't really have that kind of like foundation, like what all her predecessors are when they were meeting with Beijing. So in that sense, Beijing is also taking a gamble on her, right? Because she does not have that kind of like, you know, solid foundations within her party, that she just took the leadership. And on the other hand, because of this kind of like, complicated political background. I think the polls has showing that people, the public are not very, you know, trusting her political credential, like seeing her more as a, you know, a chameleon. So, you know, and, but she want to make a point about William Lai’s approach is wrong. And instead, this kind of peaceful approach