The KMT is back in Washington, here is what it means.

Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu announced the opening of the KMT Representative Office on June 9th. “We’re here! We’re back!”, he said, signaling the willingness of the KMT to work closely with the US to close ties between the two countries.

The KMT shuttered its representative office in the United States after its return to power in 2008. After 13 years, the party is no longer in power and is insufficiently funded, and wishes to reconnect the broken ties.

Chu stressed that the KMT “defends Taiwan, protects Taiwan’s democracy, and fights for peace, security, and prosperity.”; Alexander Huang, the KMT International Department director, points out that the KMT is being marked as pro-China without any representation in the US to speak for itself, and that works to the disadvantage of the KMT.

Indeed, the statement is very true in itself, with a previous national referendum battle supported by the KMT that wishes to ban imports of pork with ractopamine that mainly comes from the US, the party seems to be going against establishing more ties with Washington on every regard. While by a nearly two-to-one margin, people in Taiwan look to the U.S. more favorably than mainland China and shows widespread support to deepen ties with Washington.

Huang attempted to further the importance of the representative office by reiterating that “Washington’s foremost national interest lies in regional stability, and that is what the KMT does, by working with both the Mainland and the US.”

Despite the century-old party’s collaboration with the US in many regards in the past, its objective of promoting peace and stability wouldn’t change Washington’s preferences for either party in Taiwan. Washington’s reliance on strategic ambiguity towards Taiwan doesn’t shift in its nature, though there are signs of it moving more towards strategic clarity with Biden’s recent remarks to defend Taiwan during a Chinese invasion, it won’t benefit from favoring either party in the status quo.

Though suffering consistent defeats in the “politicized” referendum battle in December and initiatives to remove opposing legislators to the KMT, the party remains the largest opposition party in Taiwan that exerts great amounts of influence over national policies. Washington could still find a way to balance the benefits brought by the presence of both the DPP and the KMT without making many compromises.

The rise of the third party, the Taiwan People’s Party, led by current Taipei mayor Ko Wen-Je also poses political threats to the KMT to reconfigure its policy objectives for its support base. Popular political commentator Huang Wei-Han has reiterated that the rise of TPP would only draw supporters from mostly KMT’s support base, and the US-China dynamic would still work in DPP’s favor in next year’s local elections. Thus, if the KMT doesn’t take new measures to shift and redefine its image, the possibility of going back to power is zero to none, not to mention even remaining as the largest opposition party.

The question of whether the KMT can make actual advancements in closing the party’s ties with the US and potentially developing a new international direction under collaboration with the US still remains unanswered, yet it reveals the party’s strong objective to shake off the Pro-China and Anti-American label that has been following KMT for decades.