KMT making bold reforms

The decision by newly-installed KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou to call for a new election of the party's Central Standing Committee (CSC) signals yet another evolutionary change that should be welcomed by all.

This move was undertaken after reports confirmed widespread gift-giving by CSC candidates in last week's election, prompting widespread condemnation after Ma had promised to reform the party.

The decision to make CSC members give up their seats and hold a new election was a wise move that will hopefully help reverse decades of cronyism within the party. It also marks another bold step away from the party's traditional Soviet-inspired organization.

Some people believe the KMT is too old and entrenched to change its ways. But over the century of its existence, the KMT has changed and evolved many times as the party has seen its fortunes rise and fall.

The KMT's historic defeat in the 2000 presidential election, which saw the party ejected from power for the first time since retreating to Taiwan in 1949, marked a major turning point that helped the party move away from its authoritarian past.

After the party regained power with Ma Ying-jeou's victory in the presidential election and by winning a parliamentary majority in 2008, Ma vowed to move reforms into high gear.

But this is far from the first time that the KMT has been faced with the challenge of re-inventing itself to survive.

Starting off as a small group demanding the overthrow of China's Qing Dynasty, the KMT, at the time called the Tongmenhui, or Revolutionary Alliance, first gained political power in southern China's Guangdong province after the 1911 Xinhai (Hsin Hai) Revolution that toppled the Qing.

The KMT's founder, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, realized he would need to establish stronger discipline within his party if he could ever be able to defeat the warlord armies that dominated most of China in the chaotic period following the Qing's demise.

Desperate for aid and assistance, Dr. Sun reluctantly agreed to a Soviet offer of help to his fledgling government in exchange for admitting Chinese Communist Party members into the KMT's ranks in their capacity as “individuals.”

The communists capitalized on positions granted to them in the KMT to expand their own organization at the KMT's expense.

Moscow sent advisers to Guangzhou, who helped Dr. Sun reorganize the KMT into the structure that largely remains the same today.

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