Sunday saw Premier Su Tseng-chang (
Vice President Annette Lu (
This is likely to create a selection headache for the DPP, but it is the kind of dilemma that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would be only too happy to have.
Realistically, only one of the four will end up satisfied, as a vice presidential slot is unlikely to appeal to those who fail to get the nod for the top job.
President Chen Shui-bian (
The DPP will be looking to avoid a situation similar to the one that beset the KMT in 2000, when James Soong (
But if the negotiations turn sour and certain candidates prove unwilling to take a back seat, then it may prove a wise move for the party to wait for the outcome of judicial investigations into the use of special funds by the four in their previous posts as county commissioners and mayors before making a final decision. Which of them, if any, are indicted could have an important bearing on his or her chances in next year's battle.
After all, in the current political climate and with "corruption" allegations hanging over the heads of the president and former Taipei mayor and KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
And there is every chance to believe that the chosen DPP candidate will be facing off against Ma, as it would be the height of folly for the KMT to select anyone else. So far, only Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
It is imperative, therefore, that the DPP nominate someone with a spotless image. This will hand the party's nominee the moral high-ground and help the party to focus the election campaign on other, more important issues.
The nation's most important electoral contest degenerating into a no-holds-barred mudslinging "battle of the indicted" benefits no one who has Taiwan's best interests at heart.
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
The bird flu outbreak at US dairy farms keeps finding alarming new ways to surprise scientists. Last week, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed that H5N1 is spreading not just from birds to herds, but among cows. Meanwhile, media reports say that an unknown number of cows are asymptomatic. Although the risk to humans is still low, it is clear that far more work needs to be done to get a handle on the reach of the virus and how it is being transmitted. That would require the USDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to get
For the incoming Administration of President-elect William Lai (賴清德), successfully deterring a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attack or invasion of democratic Taiwan over his four-year term would be a clear victory. But it could also be a curse, because during those four years the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will grow far stronger. As such, increased vigilance in Washington and Taipei will be needed to ensure that already multiplying CCP threat trends don’t overwhelm Taiwan, the United States, and their democratic allies. One CCP attempt to overwhelm was announced on April 19, 2024, namely that the PLA had erred in combining major missions
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