Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

While negotiations on next year’s government budget are stalemated, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has proposed an amendment to suspend reform of the pension system for civil servants, school teachers and military personnel, which would benefit the party, but would be a blow to the government and the nation.

The KMT caucus said that the suspension of the pension reform is its top priority this legislative term, and the KMT convener of the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee on Monday initiated a review of the draft amendment of the Act Governing Retirement, Severance and Bereavement Compensation for the Teaching and other Staff Members of Public Schools (公立學校教職員退休資遣撫卹條例), which aims to restore the controversially high payments of civil servants’ pensions.

After Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman-elect Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) victory in the party’s leadership race, the KMT’s intent to bring in external forces to counter its domestic political rivals became all the more apparent.

There is no shortage of such stories in history. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, militant Wu Sangui (吳三桂) — in seeking revenge for the loss of his concubine after rebels captured Beijing — opened the Shanghai Pass to allow the Qing army to enter. While the Qing forces indeed defeated peasant rebel leader Li Zicheng (李自成), they ultimately destroyed the Ming Dynasty. Wu later rebelled himself, only to be crushed by the Qing army.