Taiwan’s Opposition Leader, Once for Independence, Turns Toward China
She says Taiwan must embrace its Chinese heritage to avoid war. Her critics say she wants to steer the island into Beijing’s orbit.
Back in her days as a Taiwanese student activist, Cheng Li-wun gave fiery speeches urging the island to sever its Chinese bonds and declare independence. She lashed out at the Nationalist Party, which had ruled over Taiwan for decades after fleeing defeat in China, casting it as the latest colonizer to oppress the island.
Now Ms. Cheng is, to the astonishment of many, the leader of the very Nationalist Party that she once despised, after winning the party’s leadership election in October. She recently bowed in respect at the grave of Chiang Kai-shek, the draconian Nationalist Party leader whom she once reviled. These days, she says that Taiwan’s people should proudly declare that they are also Chinese.
Ms. Cheng’s abrupt rise to power in the Nationalist Party and her urgent calls for rapprochement with Beijing have made her the most polarizing and potentially disruptive opposition leader that Taiwan has seen in years.
The plan, intended largely to buy weapons from the United States, will be one of Ms. Cheng’s first major political tests. Ms. Cheng has not said outright whether she opposes the increase, but she has questioned whether Taiwan can afford it, and whether the arms orders would help secure peace or make tensions worse. She said that Mr. Lai was recklessly turning the Taiwan Strait into a “powder keg.”
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