TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — KMT-leaning commentator Huang Wei-han (黃暐瀚) said the U.S.-China dynamic played a large role in the four referendums on Saturday (Dec. 18) and that if Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party maintain an anti-American image, they will continue to lose into next year.

In a Pop Radio 91.7 broadcast, Huang on Tuesday (Dec. 21) claimed the referendum revealed three things, according to a NewTalk report. Firstly, it showed the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) base is much larger than the KMT’s.

Secondly, it showed that the Taiwanese public is very keen to establish good relations with the U.S. Finally, most Taiwanese are antagonistic toward China.

Washington is pulling Taiwan closer for its own gain, Huang claimed, and so as soon as the referendum on pork was framed as an anti-American campaign, it was set to fail.

The DPP effectively led the public to believe that a vote against ractopamine pork was a vote against the U.S. Clearly, the Tsai administration is much closer to Washington than the KMT thought, in Huang's opinion.

The opposition party is far more distant from the U.S. government than anyone could have guessed, he added.

Do not think that next year’s local elections will be any different, Huang said. The cross-strait tensions and U.S.-China dynamic will be just as decisive, even if that was not usually the case for local elections in the past, the pundit claimed.

The DPP’s repeated playing of the “cross-strait card” (“兩岸牌”) as Huang called it, should alarm the KMT and Ko Wen-je’s Taiwan People’s Party. The effectiveness of this tactic may wear out one day, but no one is sure when, Huang speculated.

Huang said that it was a mistake to let the original two referendum questions become four, which increased the chance of party members to diverge on positions. He went on to say that labeling New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-ih (侯友宜) as having “blue skin and green bones” (“藍皮綠骨”) and the calls by some for Hou and others to leave the party were counterproductive.

“If the KMT throws half of its people out, it will soon be a smaller opposition party than the TPP,” he said.