KUOMINTAN TRANSFORMATION—A PATH DEPENDENCE PERSPECTIVE
By
King Kuo-Ｃhu
Department of Political Science
Chinese Culture University
Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China
ABSTRACT
Chairman: Yang Tai-Shuenn
Mr. Sun, Yat-sen, a revolutionary and founder of the Republic of China, had dedicated his entire life to the overthrow of Qing Dynasty for the establishment of a democratic republic. The success of dismemberment of the imperial China was not met by international recognition and support as a result of a successive regime controlled by warlords and torn apart by military cliques, leaving the country in a de facto political turmoil and democratic catastrophe. In the face of domestic and international unrest, Mr. Sun sought to reform the Kuomintang, the Chinese nationalist party, by consulting the Soviet experience. The historical period has taught the KMT a lesson with the importance of reform, which later led to the embarkation of democratization in Taiwan against the background of rapid socio-economic shift and rise of opposition party.
The KMT had launched an intra-party reform towards the end of Chiang Ching-kuo administration to confront the evolution of time. Lee Teng-hui, Chiang’s successor, took on the same path of facilitating democratization, officially tagging the party a democracy in its 14th Representatives Meeting.
The KMT has witnessed an array of reforms throughout its history of development other than amendments to the party’s constitution. In other words, the party has always been functioning based on a fixed pattern. The article addresses the perspective of dependent path, on which the KMT has progressed, probing exactly what has and what has not been changed in all the said reforms.
