Is a Defiant Han Kuo-yu’s Hat Still in the Ring?

On June 6, a revolt led largely by Taiwanese youth successfully toppled the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Mayor of Kaohsiung, Daniel Han Kuo-yu 韓國瑜, winning a recall vote against him by nearly 50,000 more votes than Han was elected with in 2018. This follows on the heels of his loss in January as the KMT candidate for president, which saw a record high number of voters come out to give incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen 蔡英文 a landslide victory. However, Han’s reaction to the successful recall indicates that he remains undaunted by the loss.

Any normal politician in this situation would be contrite. Not Han, he’s no normal politician. As the outcome of the vote became clear he appeared at a press conference and gave a remarkable speech. His head high, his posture and voice defiant, he launched into a tirade. He thanked the voters of the city for originally giving him a chance to be mayor, was fulsome in his praise of his administrative team and defended his record, but the rest of the speech was dedicated to claiming that the recall campaign was a conspiracy to take him down.

In his speech, he accused the administration of President Tsai of not working for the people, but instead using the power and resources of the central government, and “all their heart and focus” across all ministries on recalling Han. He claimed “over 90% of the media” and “100% of the ‘internet army’” were against him, spreading “unceasing slander and rumors.” He claimed they orchestrated a “national Han recall army” and that the government was corrupt.

The four leaders of the recall effort speak after the successful recall (credit: WeCare)

Obvious untruths and wild claims

This is almost entirely untrue. The only complaints the Han camp came up with during the recall campaign that could possibly have any basis in fact are that more trains were scheduled before the recall, and a single state-owned university subsidized a bus for students. Was that a conspiracy, or perhaps they simply expected they would need the extra capacity to handle Kaohsiung registered voters living in other cities to need transport to get to the vote? In fact, in spite of the extra capacity, transport was packed and hard to come by. Some of Taiwan’s partisan media were certainly against him, but a big portion was for him, so “over 90%” is very much an exaggeration. The closest statement to truth is regarding online attacks, there were indeed many of those, including slander and rumors, however, Han had his own army of supporters who were very active as well.

Why wasn’t he apologetic? Why was he so defiant? Why the obvious untruths and wild claims of an orchestrated conspiracy? Surely this is a disastrous way for a politician to act if he ever wants to get elected again? Actually, it makes perfect sense if you reconsider what he’s likely trying to accomplish: Power inside the KMT.

Growing up in the embrace of the party

ROC propaganda poster from the 1970’s showing Sun Yat-sen 孫中山, Chiang Kai-shek 蔣介石, and Chiang Ching-Kuo 蔣經國.

Han was nurtured by the KMT and grew up in its embrace. When he was young, the party was everything and everywhere—Taiwan was effectively a one-party state that imposed a brutal martial law that was the second longest ever enacted in history. Their tentacles were everywhere: Spies in classrooms, in the workplace, in your neighborhood, even on campuses in the U.S. to check on the political activities of overseas students. Parents would hide the true history of Taiwan and the horrors committed by the KMT from their children for fear they would speak it aloud, exposing the entire family to retribution. Tens of thousands were killed and countless more jailed for political crimes, real or imagined. They controlled the biggest companies and ran a huge patronage system that rewarded the faithful, and punished those not fortunate enough to be considered one of them.

The society of Han’s youth was two-tiered: a ruling class of the faithful, and everyone else. The KMT and their Republic of China lost the civil war in China and brought the necrotic body of the Chinese state to Taiwan, propped it up in Taipei and proclaimed Taiwan “Free China”. They imposed it on a people who had previously been Japanese subjects for 50 years, and had a settler society not unlike the U.S. or Canada, built up over a similar time frame. Indigenous Taiwanese had lived in Taiwan for thousands of years, and the settlers in Taiwan who had arrived from China had their own customs and traditions quite distinct from the land they’d left hundreds of years before. The estimated two million plus Chinese who arrived in 1949, including their huge army, distrusted and often hated the Taiwanese, who had fought on the side of the Japanese Empire in World War II and often spoke and dressed as Japanese.

Not trusting the Taiwanese, the KMT put Chinese in all the key positions of power, influence and wealth. They then set about forcing the Taiwanese to speak Mandarin Chinese and embarked on a campaign to turn Taiwanese into “good Chinese”, and importantly, to be loyal to the KMT and the KMT’s ideology. They needed loyal subjects.

Han was born into a family of that 1949 diaspora. While not of the elite class, he was of the trusted ruling class of the true believers. From an early age, he was raised in this system, and was of this system.

The KMT is more like a church than a normal political party. The party structure is authoritarian and hierarchical. It rewards the faithful and provides a sense of place and belonging. In place of a bible it has Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People. They have songs, rituals, symbology, martyrs and villains, all woven into a legendary tragic epic of exile from their beloved motherland, robbed of their throne by evil, undeserving usurpers. They put their party symbol on the national flag and on the insignia of the military and police (where they remain today), as a testament to their faith in their mission and the glory of their cause.

Han Kuo-yu isn’t just a member of a political party. It is his identity. It is his mission. It is his religion. To be powerful in the KMT is glorious. The greatest of all the heroes in the KMT pantheon were also leaders in the party.

Playing on nostalgia and patriotism

After years as a has-been ex-lawmaker and minor player, Han rocketed to fame in 2018 in his run for mayor of Kaohsiung. He was fortunate in having some key political supporters, most especially the former speaker of the Legislature Wang Jin-pyng 王金平. Kaohsiung was in some ways ripe for the picking. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ran a candidate with all the charisma of a sack of bricks, and after 20 years of ruling the city acted as if it was theirs by rights. The city was tired of losing population and opportunities to the cities in the center and north of the country. They were primed for change.

Han was a clever campaigner. He honed a folksy style and came across as a straight, tell-it-like-it-is kind of guy. Unlike other politicians, he played heavily to nostalgia for the economic boom times in the late one-party state era. He sang songs from the era, including patriotic ones, and talked of bringing back economic prosperity. The nostalgia was a hit with the KMT base, but it also appealed to those in the 45-65 age demographic, including many Taiwanese. They grew up in the less openly brutal later period of the authoritarian era and remember their youths fondly as simpler times with economic opportunities for all. Han built a strong base of fans with intense loyalty and passion, like the political scene in Taiwan had never seen before: His ‘Han army’.

His campaign for mayor was largely run with a positive message, which got him some support outside of his core base. During the presidential race he turned more defiant and angry and he doubled down on his old school KMT ideology, fondness for China and ROC nationalism. By election day in January 2020, the electorate was sharply polarized. The Han army and the KMT base against everyone else, especially those under 40, who often openly loathed and mocked him.

The young didn’t grow up in Han’s era, and the young descendants of 1949 arrivals now mostly identify as Taiwanese and not different from their peers. They feared Han would sell out Taiwan to China and maybe even threaten democracy itself. In the KMT itself, less than 3% of its membership is under 40. He was also less popular among the oldest demographics, who remembered the earlier martial law era and people being shot in the streets. Han’s army and the KMT base were badly outnumbered and his opponents were highly motivated in stopping him, though Han did get significantly more votes than the KMT’s 2016 presidential candidate.

According to some reports in local media Han has also packed the KMT membership with tens of thousands of his followers. Han has a power base in the party, and he is working to keep them ginned up and loyal.

He’s even trying to give his Han army its first martyr. On the evening of the recall, after the results had come in, KMT City Council Speaker Hsu Kun-yuan 許崑源 fell to his death from his 17^th floor apartment. According to a KMT website translation of a local KMT-aligned newspaper earlier in the day of the recall Hsu said to his wife “What is the meaning of being alive if there is no right or wrong in society?”

According to the same report police have preliminarily determined the cause of death as suicide but have not confirmed any motive, but to Han’s fans, it was an act of despair over Han’s loss and an indictment of the Tsai administration, which is in their minds to blame.

Outside of the Han Army, many have doubts that despair over the recall was the only or primary reason. Citing a common rumor, one DPP politician suggested on Facebook that Hsu may have gambled big on the recall outcome, though he took that post down and apologized. That didn’t stop enraged Han fans protesting outside of his office and he has since received death threats.

At a rally held in the waning hours of his administration, Han tried to draw a parallel between Hsu and the free speech, democracy and Taiwan independence activist Nylon Deng 鄭南榕, who is widely considered a hero, especially in non-KMT circles. Deng self-immolated rather than be taken by police on charges of insurrection in 1989.

Nylon Cheng was a advocate for freedom of speech in Taiwan. (Credit: Keep Taiwan Free Facebook page)

Red meat for the Han army

Knowing all this, Han’s speech after the recall makes sense: It was red meat for his Han army. He wants to remain a player in the KMT, and it appears it is working. Within hours of the recall result coming in there were multiple articles and TV reports on the news all speculating about him running for KMT chairman in the next party election in May, 2021—in short, running for Pope of the KMT. Other reports speculated he will run for mayor of Taipei in 2022.

In any normal political party a politician who had just suffered two crushing defeats wouldn’t even be considered for a top post. Not so in the KMT, the hierarchy has many examples of repeated losers still considered influential heavyweights in the party, for example Lien Chan  連戰.

In a revealing Focus Taiwan article run the day after the recall vote Han was described as “a major political asset to the KMT” by former KMT lawmaker Chen Shei-saint 陳學聖, who added that Han “has a role in its future development.” The article continued:

A KMT lawmaker, who asked not to be named, told CNA that Han is still the most competitive KMT candidate in any election, including the KMT chairmanship next May, when the tenure of the incumbent Chiang Chi-chen (江啟臣) expires, and the 2022 Taipei mayoral race.

“It will be a huge loss for both the party and the country if Han retires from politics,” the lawmaker said.

Han’s recall was the result of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) mobilization of a “national team” to remove him from office, the lawmaker said.

Even by far the KMT’s most popular politician, New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih 侯友宜, was quoted in the same article saying, “I wish Han and his team all the best and hope they will continue to work hard, if given another chance to serve the country.” Hou had previously done everything he could to distance himself from Han, but this comment, and others like it are very different in tone. Why? Because Han continues to hold sway over a significant block of KMT members. Hou can’t afford to alienate them if he himself wants to run for KMT chair or take a stab at running for president.

So, what is the future for Han Kuo-yu? The idea that he might run for mayor of Taipei or some other elected post seems unlikely, he’s a proven election loser now. If he does, it would be a risk to his credibility. A legislative run in a by-election in a ‘safe’ KMT district might be feasible. He may also be eyeing an appointed position in a future KMT government after 2024 if they win, such as premier. He’d almost certainly be a shoe-in for a party appointed party list candidate for legislature if he wanted it in the 2024 elections.

The big question is: Will Han run for chair of the KMT? It’s certainly very possible. He still has a seat on the Central Standing Committee of the KMT, and did run for KMT chair in 2017, so we know he wants the position. It would be tough to win, however. The KMT has suffered two landslide defeats in national elections in a row, and the party membership wants to win and Han probably won’t look like their best bet.

However, there are some ways he could pull it off, but there are a lot of questions. We know the bloc of his supporters in the KMT membership isn’t a majority. How big will that bloc be in May, 2021? How many of those who signed up during the presidential run will renew their memberships when they come due? Just how big is his Han Army currently?

Han looks out over the crowd after giving his speech at his farewell rally. (Credit Han Kuo-yu Facebook page)

One key thing to watch will be if Han can draw large crowds at events going forward. So far the only test of that was his rally when leaving office. It drew a crowd of thousands, and they filled the grasslands by Fengshan Administrative Center, but it is a fairly small venue. Notably it was a much smaller crowd than he regularly drew in the past election rallies. However, that rally wasn’t a very representative case, as it was organized on very short notice and was held on a Thursday afternoon.

We also don’t know who else will throw their hats into the ring for KMT chair, and that will be a big factor. If New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih does, and he is as popular then as he is now, he would be tough to beat. If the current chair who was recently elected in a by-election, Johnny Chiang Chi-cheng 江啟臣, does a good job, he could also be tough to beat—but there are indications that he might not carry enough weight in the party to enact true reforms. Probably Han’s best bet would be if there was a divided field of candidates where his own bloc could be decisive and carry the day. Or if he was the only credible candidate, facing a field of nobodies—which is fairly unlikely.

Daniel Han Kuo-yu will remain a player, and one to watch.

(Cover photo: Han Kuo-yu Facebook page)