The Rise and Fall of Han Kuo-yu (Part 1): The Holy Grail of Taiwan Politics 

This is a translation of the original 全面解析韓國瑜的暴起暴落 by Chiang Ping-lun (江昺崙), a Ph.D. student at National Taiwan University. Originally published by Business Today Magazine. Translation by Tim Smith and Chieh-Ting Yeh.

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Why did “Han Fans” come out of the woodwork in 2018? Even as Taiwan moved on from its authoritarian past, some people are nostalgic for that bygone era. Han was their connection to the past.

The height of Han Kuo-yu’s career was on March 29, 2019. On that day, he traveled to the Macau and Hong Kong Liaison Offices (China’s central government body in charge of Macau and Hong Kong affairs) and met with Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam. After returning to Taiwan, his followers gave him an enthusiastic welcome at the airport, as if he were ready to become president the next day. Han was at the top of the world.

At the time, he probably couldn’t have imagined meeting with Carrie Lam and the Hong Kong Liaison Office would haunt him for the rest of his presidential campaign, as turmoil in Hong Kong became central in Taiwan’s rejection of China and its “One Country Two Systems” unification policy.

Once protests erupted in Hong Kong opposing the Extradition Bill in June of last year, Taiwanese society began to become more critical of China’s overtures. Furthermore, on January 1, 2019, Chinese leader Xi Jinping declared in his “40th anniversary of talks with Taiwanese Compatriots” that the “92 Consensus,” once the mantra for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for Taiwan-China relations, was one and the same as agreeing to the One Country Two Systems framework. Since then, the 92 Consensus has steadily lost its appeal to Taiwan.

Han resorted to inflammatory speech to rowse up his base, but his base kept shrinking. His words and actions alienated mainstream Taiwanese, and he lost the support of Taiwan’s political center, leaving him with his devoted support base of around 30%.

Where it all started 

Following the rising and falling momentum of Han Kuo-yu, politicians started to grasp at the so called “Chiang Ching-kuo Legacy.” Chiang Ching-kuo was the son of Chiang Kai-shek, who took over as dictator of Taiwan from 1978 to 1988.

There’s a joke that goes like this: at his deathbed, Chiang Ching-kuo’s advisers asked him whom he was appointing as his successor. Chiang whispered: “Wait a minute (ni deng hui’r)” before drawing his last breath. The crowd around him thought he said “Lee Teng-hui” (sounds like “Wait a minute” in Mandarin), and that’s how Lee became president of the Republic of China.

Of course, what really happened was that the dictator had no clear successor in place, and a power vacuum formed. While the elders from various factions vied for power, Lee took advantage of the situation and climbed his way to the top. By February 1990, he was anointed the Chairman of the KMT.

But Lee himself came up under Chiang Ching-kuo first and foremost as a technocrat. His identity as a pre-1949 Taiwanese was carefully kept out of focus. During the 1990s when Lee steered Taiwan’s constitutional reforms towards democracy, he took a careful and balanced approach as to keep the more conservative factions within the KMT in check.

Even though his grand vision differed greatly from the KMT fundamentalists, he couldn’t stage a true “revolution.” He simply disrupted the KMT’s authoritarian foundation in Taiwan.

Lee Teng-hui’s approach was not without its side effects; his gradual approach allowed the growth of KMT’s Taiwanese local factions, a crony network of politicians, local strongmen, and organized crime. Even Han Kuo-yu himself was a crony under Chang Jong-wei’s family in Yunlin.

In any case, Lee Teng-hui had never completely inherited Chiang Ching-kuo’s political legacy, but neither did he completely destroy it. Lee was only able to reframe Chiang’s legacy. And now, Chiang’s legacy has been the Holy Grail of Taiwanese politics.

Chiang Ching-kuo’s legacy

So what is Chiang Ching-kuo’s legacy? In the 1970s when he ruled, Taiwan experienced its “economic miracle.” Taiwan’s post-war boomers grew up in this wonderful period, and they’re understandably nostalgic for this bygone era.

Suppose your family was unable to buy school supplies or shoes when you were a kid in the 1950s. When you became a young adult, your monthly income was only around several thousand dollars. But after a decade or two, as long as you listened to the government (i.e., the KMT) and didn’t get involved in opposition political movements, you could become a mid-level manager or have a stable business, doubling or tripling your income.

Now you would feel a sense of confidence from having “started from scratch” or having “pulled yourself up by your bootstraps,” or fantasize that “if there’s a will, there’s a way.” On top of that, you had the KMT’s one-party rule to thank, for making all your dreams come true.

This is the reason for the post-war boomer generation’s “nostalgia for authoritarianism.” This generation is currently a core component of society, and they mostly occupy a status of mid-level managers, like Ko Wen-je was at NTU Hospital. They have a hold on mainstream society’s public discourse. Younger generations, born after the lifting of martial law, also have to contend with their parents, teachers and bosses from the boomer generation. This is why contemporary Taiwan still lives in the long shadow of Chiang Ching-kuo and his perceived achievements.

The “Post Chiang-Ching-Kuo Era” officially began with Lee Teng-hui coming to power in the 1990’s. Since then, for nearly 30 years every politician vying to become president has tried to sell themselves as the rightful heir to this legacy.

Game of thrones

The first person to claim to continue Chiang’s vision was James Soong Chu-Yu (宋楚瑜). Soong was Chiang’s personal English-speaking secretary, becoming the dictator’s chief of staff of sorts. Later on he became the head of the Government Information Office, the propaganda ministry that clamped down on freedom of speech and expression, the KMT equivalent of the Nazi’s Goebbels. In 1994, Soong was elected as the governor for Taiwan Province by imitating Chiang’s style of “getting in touch with the common folk,” earning the support of Taiwanese voters and becoming the heir apparent to Chiang’s legacy after Lee Teng-hui.

Claiming Chiang Ching-kuo’s legacy means getting the support of roughly 60% of the electorate. In 1994, in the only-ever election for provincial governor, Soong got 56% of the vote, with 4% going to Ju Gau-jeng (朱高正) and 38% for the DPP’s Chen Ding-nan (陳定南).

But Soong didn’t see this coming: Lee Teng-hui eliminated the Taiwan provincial governor’s office in 1997, effectively ending Soong’s career while promoting rival Lien Chan as Vice President. As a result, in the 2000 presidential election Soong ran as an independent, splitting the KMT vote with Lien Chan. That and a high profile scandal led to the demise of Governor Soong, allowing the opposition DPP’s Chen Shui-bian to become president.

Soong had the legitimate claim to Chiang Ching-kuo’s legacy, but his powers were stripped away by Lee Teng-hui and Lien Chan. Soong was resentful and as a result, left the KMT to form the People First Party, preparing to take back his rightful place in a presidential bid just four years later. He never knew that after twenty years on the campaign trail, after running for president four times and even for mayor of Taipei once, his presidential ambitions had slipped further and further away from his grasp.

As for Chen Shui-bian, in his eight years as president he tried to forge a path away from Chiang Ching-kuo’s legacy, but as his party was in the minority in the legislature, he still had to cater to the KMT. He famously claimed in his first inaugural address he would not declare independence nor change the name of the country, essentially promising he would not push the envelope further than Lee Teng-hui. Even though in his second term he did try to push his “one country on either side” agenda, his own scandals stopped him doing anything meaningful.

The second person to inherit Chiang Ching-kuo’s legacy was Ma Ying-jeou. Like Soong, Ma was also an English secretary for Chiang, a teacher’s pet. By the way, Chiang is remembered to be “clean and a friend of the people”; Ma only got the clean part and Soong only got the friend of the people part.

Ma’s luck was much better than Soong’s. In 1998 he rode his image as a clean, uncorrupt politician and defeated Chen Shui-bian as Taipei mayor. Afterwards, he took over Chiang’s legacy and took over as the president and leader of the KMT.

In 2008, Ma promised that he will “bring back honesty and goodness,” clearly trying to channel Chiang Ching-kuo’s bygone feel-good era. Ma even made sure he regularly visited Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo’s mausoleums in Taoyuan to pay his respects.

Unfortunately, Ma did not get the “friend of the people” part of Chiang’s legacy. Towards the end of his presidency, his government failed to address perceived wealth inequalities and tried to push through a trade agreement with China, which ignited the Sunflower Movement. These crises revealed Ma’s true nature: too nice, but incompetent. KMT supporters believe that the KMT lost in 2014 and 2016 exactly because their man was too mild-mannered compared to the uncouth, grassroots DPP.

Rise of Ko Wen-je and Han Kuo-yu

The third person to attempt to channel Chiang’s legacy is Ko Wen-Je. Though he started out with a “deep green” image, emphasizing his family as a victim during the 228 Massacre, he revealed his reverence for Chiang Ching-kuo as early as September 2014, during his first run for Taipei mayor. He said, “Chiang Ching-kuo is the prime example of how officials should behave and conduct their relationships with the powerful and wealthy. Everyone in politics should learn from Chiang.”

Pro-Taiwan supporters were shocked. Pan-green supporters remember Chiang Ching-kuo’s darker side, like the murder of democracy advocate Lin I-hsiung’s mother and daughters and the mysterious “suicide” of Prof. Chen Wen-chen. At the time, pan-green supporters wishfully thought Ko was just pandering to pro-China supporters, but a few started doubting Ko’s true intentions–the first generation of Ko critics.

As things panned out, Ko indeed followed in Chiang’s footsteps. His brand of a “non-politician” is just channeling Chiang’s image of a “friend of the people.” Even after Hong Kong’s protests broke out in 2019, he suggested Chinese leader Xi Jinping should learn from Chiang Ching-kuo.

In 2014, Ko said “your core value is that thing you’d never trade for anything.” Ko’s core value is Chiang Ching-kuo’s legacy.

After Ko became Taipei mayor, he fancied himself the next holder of Chiang’s legacy after Ma Ying-jeou fizzled out. Ko thought, in addition to Chiang he could pull in some support from pan-green moderates, and carve out a niche of independents and moderate voters. If he could earn more than a third of the votes, he could become president in a three-way race.

But Ko could not foresee the rise of Han Kuo-yu. In the beginning, Han was just a middleman between Ko and Yunlin’s Chang Jong-wei, but Ko really noticed Han after Han made a brief public appearance at the Taipei City Council. Ko even considered making Han his deputy mayor, and Han had said “all these years, the only person to think highly of me is Ko Wen-je.”

Han would later go on to run for mayor in Kaohsiung, traditionally a DPP stronghold. His quick rise to fame had a lot to do with his own brand of “a friend of the people,” especially compared to the professorial and elitist image of Tsai Ing-wen.

KMT supporters saw in Han another heir of the Holy Grail of Chiang Ching-kuo. Han’s momentum in the first half of 2019 was unstoppable. Ko Wen-je was left trying to stay in the spotlight by making ever more shocking statements in public.

(To be continued)