Wu Den-yih took office Sunday as the leader of Taiwan's main opposition Nationalist Party (KMT), a century-old party facing an uncertain future.

Speaking at the KMT party congress, Wu, elected in May but not sworn in until now as party chairman, vowed to reform the KMT, unify its members and "return (the party) to power" by winning next year's nationwide local elections and the presidential and legislative elections in 2020.

But to achieve that goal, Wu faces at least three immediate challenges.

First is the party's policy toward mainland China. When Wu's predecessor, Hung Hsiu-chu, was the party leader, the KMT's policy was to deepen the "1992 consensus" regarding "one China," and to study ending decades of hostility between Taipei and Beijing through a peace accord.

The new cross-strait policy approved Sunday replaces "peace accord" with "peace vision," a reference to the five-point vision for cross-strait peace reached in 2005 when then KMT chairman Lien Chan met with Hu Jintao, who was then president of China and leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

The change has not been well received by the party's hardliners and Beijing, as both view it as a signal of Wu's lack of political will to advance the agenda of unification with China.

Yet despite the change, the party reiterated its opposition to Taiwan independence. It expressed the strong belief that peace and stability benefit both sides and that only cooperation on the basis of the "1992 consensus" can create a win-win environment.

The second challenge relates to funding, and particularly the controversial issue of KMT assets.

For decades the KMT was described as the world's wealthiest party, as it acquired control of many properties and estates from the Japanese in 1945 when the island's former colonial power surrendered, ending World War II and losing all its colonial possessions.

For decades, the issue has been used by rival political parties to attack the KMT during election campaigns. And since President Tsai Ing-wen took office in May last year, the legislature controlled by Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party has passed legislation to dispose of what the Tsai administration called the KMT's ill-gotten party assets.

Under the new law, many organizations closely linked to the KMT have been ordered to disband or change their structure, and the party itself is required to pay NT$865 million ($28.5 million) into the state coffer by this week.

So as the KMT sees its traditional funding shrivel, developing new funding sources is one of its most pressing issues.

And thirdly there is the challenge of regaining public trust, especially among the youth of Taiwan.

With nationwide local elections only a year away, the KMT again faces a long-standing problem of finding and fielding enough suitable candidates.

In his augural address Sunday, Wu stressed the need for goals and ideals to attract young people, and proposed establishing volunteer groups to cultivate young talent and map out effective policies to revive the economy.

Urging the party to pay close attention to public opinion, Wu also called for the party's think tank to provide the KMT legislative caucus with policy proposals appealing to the general public.

And Wu said the party must strengthen its support base in China where there are many Taiwanese merchants, in foreign countries where many expatriates are traditionally loyal to the KMT, and among the increasing number of foreign spouses now living in Taiwan.

Statistics show that there are about 700,000 Taiwanese merchants and their families in China, 44,000 expatriates overseas and more than 525,000 foreign spouses in Taiwan including 350,000 from China and Hong Kong.