The Taiwanese opposition party Kuomintang (KMT) said it would open its office in the United States next year.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu will also make a trip to the US after the Lunar New Year. That was the word from the KMT in a press conference on Tuesday.
The KMT’s international affairs director Alexander Huang said that next year’s mid-term elections in the United States, local elections in Taiwan, and China’s 20th Party Congress will be important events to watch.
He also said the Kuomintang would present its national security report and open its US office next year.
KMT Chair Eric Chu was originally scheduled to visit the US in January but that trip has been postponed until after the Lunar New Year. He will visit both the east and west coasts and plans to meet with US officials.
About Kuomintang (KMT)
The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD) or the Chinese Nationalist Party, is a political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Taiwan after 1949. Originally the sole ruling party under the Dang Guo system, the KMT is currently the largest opposition party in the Legislative Yuan.
In Taiwanese politics, the KMT is the dominant party in the Pan-Blue Coalition and primarily competes with the rival Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The Kuomintang opposes de jure Taiwan independence and Chinese unification under “One Country, Two Systems”, instead favoring cross-strait relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and maintaining Taiwan’s status quo under the Constitution of the Republic of China. The current chairman is Eric Chu. The KMT is one of two major historical contemporary parties in China, the other being the Chinese Communist Party.
The Kuomintang was founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1919, after the 1911 Revolution, which overthrew the Qing dynasty, and the establishment of the Beiyang regime. From 1926 to 1928, the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek successfully led the Northern Expedition against regional warlords and unified the fragmented nation. From 1937 to 1945, the Nationalists led China through the Second Sino-Japanese War against Japan. By 1949, the KMT was decisively defeated by the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War and withdrew the Nationalist government to Taiwan, a former Qing prefecture-turned-Japanese colony that ruled from 1895 to 1945.
From 1949 to 1987, the Kuomintang ruled Taiwan under martial law and was hostile to the Communist mainland, before Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek’s son, lifted authoritarian restrictions and initiated democratic reforms in the late 1980s. The KMT also oversaw Taiwan’s economic development, but experienced diplomatic setbacks, including the Republic of China losing its United Nations seat and the United States switching diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China in the 1970s.
In the 1990s, President Lee Teng-hui pursued constitutional reforms and was re-elected in the 1996 Taiwanese presidential election, the first direct presidential election under the ROC Constitution. However, the 2000 presidential election put an end to more than half a century of KMT rule that dominated Chinese politics for over 72 years. The Kuomintang reclaimed power with the landslide victory of Ma Ying-jeou in the 2008 presidential election, whose presidency from 2008 to 2016 significantly loosened restrictions placed on cross-strait economic and cultural exchange. With the 2016 presidential and legislative elections, the Kuomintang lost both the presidency and its legislative majority, returning to the opposition.
