KMT Central Committee member Chiang Yung-hsiung has launched a petition asking the party’s discipline committee to expel former broadcaster Jaw Shaw-kong after he interviewed the DPP’s Taipei mayoral candidate. Party headquarters stressed unity, and several figures publicly objected.
According to the China Times and the Liberty Times (ltn), KMT Central Committee member Chiang Yung-hsiung started a petition asking the party’s discipline committee to expel Jaw Shaw-kong, the former chairman of the Broadcasting Corporation of China. Jaw was the KMT’s vice-presidential candidate in 2024 and has long hosted the political talk show ‘Shao-kong’s War Room’. The reports we reviewed do not say how many other committee members signed or who they are.
광고 문의 · 300×250As described by the Liberty Times, the petition calls Jaw’s interviews with Shen Po-yang, the DPP’s Taipei mayoral candidate, ‘serious misconduct and dereliction of duty’ for a senior party figure. Its argument is that, with the local election entering its final stretch, a veteran member should not use his personal media exposure to damage the party’s reputation or split the blue camp. Reports say Jaw has interviewed Shen twice.
Jaw’s reaction was characterized by the China Times as a shrug, essentially telling the petitioners to go ahead. The Liberty Times gave more detail: he said the petition’s logic amounts to ‘green media are unfair, so blue media should be unfair too’, which he rejected, arguing that even if others are unfair the KMT should be fair and not become the bad guy. He asked whether his interview alone could make the KMT lose, and claimed the party’s recent polling looks grim, with more Taipei and New Taipei voters backing the DPP. The reports gave no figures for that polling, so we cannot verify it.
Party headquarters moved quickly to cool things down. According to the Central News Agency, Chen Yi-hsin, director of the Culture and Communication Committee, said in a press release that the party ‘absolutely does not wish to see internal disputes’ and that unity is the shared goal with the year-end local elections about 40 days away. Headquarters has already contacted the members involved in private, asking them to put the big picture first and settle differences rationally. The leadership said it can tolerate differing views but that infighting must not blur the campaign or disappoint supporters.
Senior figures also spoke up publicly. Taoyuan Mayor Chang Shan-cheng wrote on Facebook on October 16 that the petition was very unwise, describing Jaw as an upright, outspoken media figure and asking whether hosting another party’s candidate should really be grounds for expulsion. Hung Meng-kai, deputy secretary-general of the KMT caucus, argued that members should not be expelled over differing opinions and that the energy would be better spent helping Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an win votes. Jaw replied under Chang’s post with thanks and said he firmly supports Chiang’s re-election.
The petitioners’ side is best understood in the context of campaign strategy: the worry is that a prominent figure on the same side giving a stage to an opposing candidate just before voting could unsettle supporters. How much sympathy that view has inside the party remains to be seen. We have seen no report that the discipline committee has accepted the case or begun deliberations, and the China Times said Jaw is scheduled to interview Chiang Wan-an next Monday.
