VETERAN Kuomintang (KMT) members are revamping a newspaper in Hong Kong in a bid to re-establish and sustain their influence now and beyond 1997.
It is understood that Beijing will allow the paper to continue after 1997 as long as it discards its reference to the Republic of China.
The New Hong Kong Times was established in 1993, when the KMT mouthpiece, the Hong Kong Times folded. The new paper was published every three days, but will become a daily from tomorrow.
Working on a three-year plan, it will be distributed initially to subscribers in Hong Kong and Taiwan and investors in the mainland.
Sun Cheng, publisher and editor-in-chief, said: 'Taking into consideration the 1997 issue and the fact that relations between Beijing and Taipei would witness new and big changes, we think an organisation which speaks for a certain group should exist.' A former KMT army officer and confidential secretary of late president Chiang Ching-kuo, Mr Sun acted as a secret envoy between Taipei and Beijing in the 1980s.
Early reports said the newspaper was supported by Taiwan's New Party and the KMT's non-mainstream faction.
But the 68-year-old Zhejiang native stressed that the paper received no support from any political groups in Taiwan although some leading non-mainstream KMT figures serve as the paper's advisers.