Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), the chairwoman of the Chinese Nationalist Party, or KMT, said that she met with Senator Steve Daines during her recent trip to Washington, but his office told Domino Theory that the senator did not meet with her, and that she instead met with his staff.
Cheng included Daines on a list of lawmakers she visited in Washington during her recent trip to the United States. It was then widely reported that the meeting had taken place.
But on June 23, Ming Chiang (江明信), a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur, claimed Daines told him at a banquet that he hadn’t met with Cheng. This was widely picked up by Taiwanese media but has not been reported in English.
The KMT has not responded to multiple requests for clarification.
Daines led a Congressional delegation to China in May this year, meeting with senior Chinese officials. His office told Domino Theory that the senator got “stuck in committee” on the day of Cheng’s visit. It’s not uncommon for lawmakers to leave guests waiting while they attend other appointments. But it does suggest the meeting with Cheng was not a priority.
The Washington leg of Cheng’s two-week trip to the U.S. appeared to hit a bump in the road after rumors emerged in popular China-watching newsletter Sinocism that lawmakers did not want to meet with her because she had the support of the Chinese Communist Party.
Cheng was reportedly going to meet with Matt Tritle from the National Security Council. That was already a step down compared to Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕), the KMT mayor of Taichung, who met with Tritle’s boss, Ivan Kanapathy, the senior director for Asia. However, Taiwanese media Liberty Times reported that even the meeting between Cheng and Tritle was canceled.
The KMT chairwoman made a stop at the Hoover Institution at the beginning of her trip for a meeting with scholars and students at Stanford University. It was “a closed-door session with a bunch of people who are pretty well-connected in some cases to the current administration or to people on Capitol Hill,” said Kharis Templeman, who leads Hoover’s Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific.
But Cheng did not ask questions or show much interest in other participants, he said. “It was very much a one-way street where she had a bunch of talking points she wanted to deliver and she just kept repeating them.”
“There’s a belief in parts of Washington that she is doing Xi Jinping’s (習近平) bidding or she is at least too close to Xi Jinping,” Templeman said. He added that she needs to do more to change this perception.
The muted reception the American political class gave to Cheng stands in stark contrast to fellow KMT member Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), who visited the U.S. at the end of June with a tri-partisan delegation of Taiwanese legislators. Han, who is speaker of the Legislative Yuan, met individually with House Speaker Mike Johnson. He also attended a reception with over 30 representatives, including former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
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