The opposition camp often jeers at President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), saying that he looks more like a presidential candidate than a president, given that he so frequently bases his decisions on considerations for the next election. However, this is really a matter of the pot calling the kettle black, since the opposition has long since started campaigning for the presidential election.
The kneeling act of PFP chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) during Taipei's mayoral election campaign stirred a great deal of conjecture. Observers have good reason to believe that Soong's act was meant to give the KMT some face and appease Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) -- whose popularity appears to be soaring -- in the hope that Ma might not compete against him for the top job in 2004.
Even though KMT-PFP cooperation has become the pan-blue camp's key note in the run-up to 2004, the question of who will run for president has caused much consternation in the KMT. The endless backroom maneuvers and rumors coming from the party's aristocrats now make for the most intriguing show in Taiwan's political arena.
First came former Kaohsiung mayor and ex-KMT legislator Wu Den-yih
Recently, KMT Legislator John Chang
It is no wonder that, during a speech last weekend, former president Lee Teng-hui
One after another, these middle-aged politicians have denied they have any presidential ambitions. We do not know whether these rumors were part of party chairman Lien Chan's (連戰) pre-emptive strategy for subduing potential rivals, or whether any KMT politicians of a younger generation are in fact quietly building the momentum for a presidential ticket.
The dark maneuvers in the KMT also remind one of what happened within the DPP in the run-up to the 2000 election. Former party chairman Hsu Hsin-liang
In his pursuit of the presidential dream, Hsu ran as an independent candidate and did not hesitate to team up with then New Party Legislator Josephine Chu (朱惠良), so as to seek the support of his erstwhile opponents in the New Party.
That the presidential ambitions of a politician could cause a DPP man -- one who had advocated Taiwan's independence for all those years -- to make such an about face overnight and make friends with the New Party, makes a big joke of all he had stood for.
This makes one wonder whether there is anything more worthy of pursuit in Taiwan's political arena than becoming president. Politicians motivated by their own personal ambitions instead of the people's welfare will be dumped by voters. The 2004 election will attest to that.
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers