“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ [危機] is composed of two characters — one represents danger and the other represents opportunity,” former US president John F. Kennedy said.
The quote surely comes as an apt description of the situation currently facing embattled Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強), who’s been engulfed in a controversy over seemingly dubious ties between the police and the underworld and questionable police integrity following a shooting on May 28, in which four Taichung police officers were found at the scene yet failed to intervene.
While a recent poll conducted by the United Daily News suggested the incident has impacted Hu’s approval rating, which took a dip of 9 percentage points, the truth of the matter is that he could easily have tried to translate a tough stance on crime into votes for his November re-election bid.
How? By exercising determination and getting to the bottom of the incident with transparency and impartiality regardless of who may be involved. Sadly, Hu has failed miserably despite repeated pledges to crack down on crime in the city.
As the result of slow action from Hu’s government, the incident has turned it into a national guessing game with many members of the public questioning the police investigation and mounting speculation over whether ranking officials were involved in some sort of conspiracy behind the shooting.
Hu’s incompetence is evident by the fact that it took the Taichung City Police Department a full 10 days after the killing to release a surveillance tape of the incident on Monday night. The delay in making the tapes public raises questions about the police investigation, but the fact that they were incomplete also fuels suspicion that the police have something to hide.
The surveillance footage revealed the four police officers were indeed playing mahjong at the time, contrary to the police department’s statement that they were not present. If the officers lied about that, one cannot but wonder what else they might be concealing.
Also, why has no sketch of the suspect been released even though his image was caught on tape? Again, the police’s mysterious delay on the issue has led the public to question whether there are “inconvenient truths” behind the case.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this incident is the possibility that the supposed forces of justice are playing for the other side.
In light of the way Hu and his government have handled the case, some Taichung residents may be wondering whether Hu deserves their support in November. Be that as it may, Hu’s term is not over yet, which means he is responsibile for the maintenance of public order in the city, weeding out unfit police officers and saving residents from a crime-rampant nightmare.
One way to put mounting suspicions surrounding the case to rest is for the police department to take timely and transparent action to get to the bottom of the matter regardless of the consequences and punish the officers involved.
Hu must make sure the police department takes action before the incompetent city government makes a difficult situation worse by further fueling negative impressions of the city police’s work ethnic and integrity.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
Media said that several pan-blue figures — among them former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), former KMT legislator Lee De-wei (李德維), former KMT Central Committee member Vincent Hsu (徐正文), New Party Chairman Wu Cheng-tien (吳成典), former New Party legislator Chou chuan (周荃) and New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) — yesterday attended the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. China’s Xinhua news agency reported that foreign leaders were present alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) is expected to be summoned by the Taipei City Police Department after a rally in Taipei on Saturday last week resulted in injuries to eight police officers. The Ministry of the Interior on Sunday said that police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by an estimated 1,000 “disorderly” demonstrators. The rally — led by Huang to mark one year since a raid by Taipei prosecutors on then-TPP chairman and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) — might have contravened the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), as the organizers had
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) last week made a rare visit to the Philippines, which not only deepened bilateral economic ties, but also signaled a diplomatic breakthrough in the face of growing tensions with China. Lin’s trip marks the second-known visit by a Taiwanese foreign minister since Manila and Beijing established diplomatic ties in 1975; then-minister Chang Hsiao-yen (章孝嚴) took a “vacation” in the Philippines in 1997. As Taiwan is one of the Philippines’ top 10 economic partners, Lin visited Manila and other cities to promote the Taiwan-Philippines Economic Corridor, with an eye to connecting it with the Luzon
RSS