This article is by Yi-chih Wang, translated by Luke Sabatier and edited by Sharon Tseng. Originally published by CommonWealth Magazine. Used with permission.

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Competition in the opposition Kuomintang’s presidential primary was intense, with business tycoon Terry Gou bombarding the airwaves desperately seeking support to fulfill his presidential ambitions.

In the end, however, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu emerged victorious in the primary (conducted exclusively through opinion polls) with 44.8 percent support to Gou’s 27.73 percent and former New Taipei Mayor Eric Chu, who had the most administrative experience in government of all the candidates, with 17.90 percent.

There was considerable squabbling during the process, with other candidates feeling the KMT was doing what it could to engineer a Han candidacy. Han had voiced reluctance to openly contend for the KMT’s nomination, at least on the surface, because he did not want to be seen as abandoning Kaohsiung so soon after taking office on Dec. 25, 2018. But he never ruled out being “drafted” for the nomination, and the party ended up including his name in the primary without his overt consent to accommodate him.

As Han was publicly hemming and hawing about making a run, his loyal, hardcore support base, came out in force in early June during a huge rally on Ketagalan Boulevard initiated by 300,000 Han fans to prod their hero to go for the presidency.

The Han fans in the crowd were not just from around Taiwan, but from around the world, with many flying in from the United States, Japan and China to show their support.

Hardcore Old Guard Base

They were there in part because of their anger at the injustice of what they saw as an intensive campaign by the government, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and pro-DPP media to smear Han that was hurting him in the polls, but they also knew the importance of this rally.

“If this is done well, it will be the key to ending the decline in Han’s poll numbers, which would be tantamount to delivering a presidential candidate to the KMT,” observed Niu Tse-hsun, a professor in Chinese Culture University’s Department of Advertising.

This rally once again proved the validity of the phrase “when Han fans go to battle, there is complete devastation.” That’s not only the case for their attacks and sieges on Han’s enemies, making it hard for them to retreat. Their relentlessness in combat and unity from northern to southern Taiwan also results in massive crowds and energy every time he holds a rally, and other politicians dare not take him on head on.

Photo by Justin Wu/CW

Who exactly are these legendary Han fans made of steel? Over the past six months, there has been a lively debate over the image and composition of the fanatical Han fan base.

Some people see them as the KMT’s old special party branch of loyal supporters consisting of fans of former KMT legislator (and for a short time at least presidential candidate in 2016) Hung Hsiu-chu, a pro-unification advocate, and public employees (teachers, military people and civil servants), long a loyal KMT base of support.

Others have portrayed them as a coalition of public employees, middle-aged and elderly voters, and young people with a high school or vocational high school education or below. Some netizens have even looked at back-end data to conclude that Han fans do not live in Kaohsiung and are middle-aged or elderly men who use Android phones.

A closer look at people attending the rally on Ketagalan Boulevard revealed the core supporters to be generally older and more likely to be male than female, with many of them from the working class representing farmers, fishermen, and laborers. The other main group, based on their accents and mannerisms, were people from military dependents’ villages (who come from “mainlander” families that arrived in Taiwan in the late 1940s from China as the KMT was losing the Chinese civil war) and public employees.

The Atypical KMT Candidate

Chang Wu-ueh, a professor with the Graduate Institute of China Studies at Tamkang University who has known Han for 37 years, observes that his grassroots supporters see him as straight-talking, easy to understand, and down-to-earth, as someone who really connects with people. This kind of person is a rarity in Taiwan’s political circles, Chang says.

Some Han fans resemble fanatical followers of celebrities. They never before voted for a KMT candidate but were won over by the distinctive personality and charisma of the decidedly un-KMT-like Han.

His “Five Tiger Generals” – a literary and cultural reference for outstanding groups of five people – are a case in point. The five are Han fans who made a name for themselves for their diehard support for Han before the November 2018 mayoral elections that propelled Han into office, and their live streams continue to draw big followings.

One of them, nicknamed “Almond Brother,” became famous when he switched allegiance and threw his support behind Han. His real name is Wu Yu-chuan, and he has now set up a stall selling almond tea at the Liuho Night Market in downtown Kaohsiung that has reached new heights as his fame has grown, selling 20,000 to 30,000 cups of his special brew a month.

When Wu was young, he had little interest in school and decided to apprentice in restaurants at the age of 14, eventually learning to cook Chinese, Western and Japanese food.

Ten years later, he decided to become his own boss, setting up his own food stall. He tried selling everything from baked pasta and chicken cutlets to smelly tofu and fried bread sticks with squid, but in the end the once confident Wu admitted defeat and shut down his business, leaving piles of kitchen implements in his house.

It was not until he began making almond tea that he developed a stable business capable of supporting his family.

Over the past 20 years, the business of street food vendors has fluctuated with the vagaries of the economy. Wu had never supported the KMT, and in fact had worked as a “promoter” of Democratic Progressive Party rallies, until he saw Han Kuo-yu. It was then that he realized the culprit behind the difficult life he led was the DPP government he had believed in for so long and that had controlled Kaohsiung since 1998.

From the end of last year, Wu’s almond tea stand has traveled to wherever there is a Han rally. At the event on Ketagalan Boulevard, Wu said he was not a person who was passionate about politics but rather an ordinary citizen who simply longed for a good life.

Winning over Traditional KMT Voting Blocs

Many Han fans have not had easy or smooth lives, much like their hero himself. Han drinks, plays mahjong, has once hit a person while driving and was unemployed for 17 years. He has been a failure more than a tower of strength.

“When these Han fans see Han, they see themselves,” suggests veteran political commentator and pundit Huang Wei-han, explaining that Han fans project their own backgrounds onto their idol.

Born in a military dependents’ village and educated in a military academy, Han has a solid “blue” (pan-KMT) background that positions him to easily capture the hearts of “mainlanders” and public employees. That was especially noticeable at his mayoral campaign rallies, where more than once Han fans holding the country’s flag would break out singing the national flag song, leaving former Central Police University professor Yeh Yu-lan inexplicably moved and thanking Han for “bringing out the love Taiwan’s people have for their country.”

At the Han rally in Taipei, Han asked “Why doesn’t the president ever call this country the Republic of China, instead saying only ‘this country’ or, when absolutely forced to, saying six characters – “Republic of China Taiwan?’” With this simple question, Han connected with supporters who identify with the Republic of China, Taiwan’s official name that the KMT brought with it in 1949 when it retreated to Taiwan after losing the Chinese civil war.

“Han has given people who are patriotic the chance to see national flags at his side,” says an analyst who is a member of the DPP. Only Han Kuo-yu dared to talk about the “1992 consensus” in Kaohsiung. It should have been a death sentence, but instead he pulled it off.

The “1992 consensus” was the basic formula under which Taiwan under a KMT government and China built closer relations from 2008 to 2016. It said the two sides agreed there was only one China, which each side free to interpret what that meant.

The DPP has never accepted that such a consensus was reached in 1992 and has rejected it because it implies that Taiwan is a part of China. Mentioning it in the strongly “green” (pro-DPP) city of Kaohsiung was a sure way to lose votes before Han arrived.

Ninety-four-year-old Grandma Lu grew up in a well-to-do family and her husband was a reporter for a military newspaper, enabling the couple to move into a community of military dependents in Kaohsiung. Her daughter was well-known for her work as a reporter before retiring.

In August 2018, before Han Kuo-yu became a household name, Lu saw him on television and to get a closer look to see whether his actions matched his words, she went to KMT headquarters where he was attending a gathering with women from other countries who have gotten married in Taiwan and now live here. Lu was impressed with his apparent lack of interest in seeking fame or fortune and his willingness to sacrifice for Taiwan’s future.

Since then, Lu has attended almost every one of Han’s campaign rallies and pretty much ordered her children and grandchildren to return to Taiwan from their homes abroad and vote for Han Kuo-yu (Taiwan does not have an absentee balloting system).

Speaking slowly at the Taipei rally in her mainland China-accented Mandarin, she said Han was slowly delivering on his election promotions and described him as a “parent-like official” dedicated to serving the country and the people, in contrast to most politicians who talk big but never come through.

“For such a good parent-like official to be deliberately treated brutally by councilors in the city council, I really felt it was an injustice,” Lu says, referring to Kaohsiung City Council hearings in previous months in which DPP councilors asked questions that were designed to embarrass Han and make him look bad to bring down his popularity, with some success.

A Big Overseas Following

At the Taipei rally, there was also a relatively sizable contingent of overseas businesspeople and Taiwan expatriates who were concerned about the KMT’s presidential primary. When they heard about the rally in Taipei, they immediately bought plane tickets to head to Taiwan to attend.

The contact person of the Shanghai “Friends of Han” association, Chiu Chih-hsien, who runs an animation and culture business in the Chinese city, said there was too little advance notice of the event and a substantial amount of time was spent trying to confirm the event’s details; otherwise more people would have returned to Taiwan to support Han.

“Since he’s become mayor, you really do see more Taiwanese fruit in Chinese supermarkets,” Chiu says, referring to Han’s repeated pledge during his mayoral campaign to help farmers find markets for their fruit overseas.

“What’s wrong with doing your job and consulting with each other on issues? Is maliciously flinging abuse really our democratic value?” Cheng Chia-chang, a Taiwanese businessman in Shanghai and the founding president of the Shanghai “Friends of Han” association, asks indignantly, having seen reports of how city council members were frequently giving Han a hard time on purpose during their hearings.

An expatriate who lives in the United States and had just arrived that morning could not hide his exhaustion, but as soon as he put on his vest and grabbed a flag, he was repeating after the event’s host at the top of his voice: “Han Kuo-yu, run for president.”

This expatriate said they [the overseas community] had been disengaged from politics in Taiwan for too long, but Han had given them hope. “The expatriates who were not able to return won’t worry about the time difference and get up early in the morning to watch the event broadcast live on television. They fully support Han,” the individual said.

Academics for Han

There was also a group of people observing the event calmly from the outer periphery of Ketagalan Boulevard who were not waving flags or yelling chants who defied the conventional image of the poorly educated, low-income Han fan. They were actually well-educated intellectuals who support the Kaohsiung mayor.

It turned out after interviewing them that they were professors at such prestigious institutions as National Taiwan University, National Normal Taiwan University, Tamkang University and Chinese Culture University, senior officials from several institutions, and somewhat older Ph.D. candidates with past work experience.

“Without including Ph.D. students and professors from central and southern Taiwan, there are probably more than 50 of us who have come here,” said a female professor, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

As someone who has taught at universities for 22 years, she said she rarely participated in political rallies, but after engaging in group chats or sending messages, she become determined to support Han Kuo-yu. She called herself a “rational but resolute supporter.”

This short-haired, simply but elegantly dressed female professor described her group of intellectual Han fans as facing a brain drain in Taiwan’s higher education sector that was disappointed with irrational policies, and determined to nurture the next generation.

“I’m not worried that our pensions could be cut. What worries me most is that young people are being led along by the DPP’s policies that may look good but don’t work,” she says.

She argued that she and this group of experts and academics spanning many fields are rational and moderate, and because of the nature of their work, their ability to engage in social activism is limited. That explains why Han’s perseverance and fearlessness and his courage in speaking bluntly appealed to them.

Yet as a professor with an analytic mind, didn’t she think Han’s habit of fumbling around and avoiding questions during the Kaohsiung city council hearings reflected his image as a “blockhead” as portrayed by some media?

“It’s unlikely for us to be influenced by the media or pundits,” she says, arguing that Han’s discourse has core values, and he is extremely able to think logically. The professor sees the “blockheads” as the top officials currently in power.

Han’s five-point statement made in late April in which he said he would not run in the KMT’s primary as it was constituted at the time caused an uproar and left many Han fans uneasy and ready to give up, but the professor feels it reflected Han’s true feelings and signaled structural problems that have existed in the KMT for a long time.

Photo by Justin Wu/CW

Three Types of Han Fans

The political commentator and pundit Huang Wei-han believes there to be three types of Han fans – the ones who will only vote for Han and nobody else, Han supporters, and people who support the KMT.

“Han supporters” refer to those who are willing to cast their ballot for the Kaohsiung mayor but are not diehard supporters and could change their minds because of a news incident or a blemish to his personal image.

“KMT supporters” refer to those who back the KMT and will therefore cast their votes for Han as the party’s nominee but were more than prepared to get behind whoever the party nominated.

As for the people who will only vote for Han, they are the most fanatical of the Han fans and will not easily abandon their hero. If Han had not won a place in the presidential race, they would not have voted for any pro-blue nominee. They rationalize any controversy surrounding the Kaohsiung mayor and hit back if they feel Han Kuo-yu is being pushed around.

Huang estimates the true Han diehards account for about 60 percent of all Han fans, with “Han supporters” accounting for 30 percent and “KMT supporters” only 10 percent.

“If the KMT ends up nominating Terry Gou rather than Han Kuo-yu, he will only get about 20 to 30 percent of Han fans and no more,” Huang said before Han won the nomination.

Based on turnout in the 2010, 2014 and 2018 mayoral elections in Kaohsiung, Huang conservatively estimated there being at least 1 million diehard Han fans around Taiwan. But with roughly 19 million eligible voters in the country, Han will have to figure out how to broaden his base beyond his true believers if he hopes to have any chance of winning.