Vote for ‘no losers’
On Sunday, former premier William Lai (賴清德) accepted President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) invitation to be her running mate to form the strongest combination for the Jan. 11 elections.
Lai said he was touched by Tsai’s sincerity when she offered him the invitation and that the most important thing was to safeguard Taiwan.
It was for this reason that he accepted, he said, adding that it was in the interests of uniting at this dark moment.
“As long as Taiwan wins, there will be no losers, but if Taiwan loses, then there will be no winners ... please support President Tsai,” he said. “Let us all walk side by side on the road to strengthening Taiwan and bring hope through action.”
Lai’s commitment to join the presidential campaign for Taiwan’s safety and future has been welcomed and earned a lot of support in the overseas Taiwanese community.
However, a small group of Lai’s fans previously vowed not to vote unless Lai was the presidential candidate. Now their decision has become difficult.
Some have said that they will follow Lai’s call, while others have said that the reason they supported him was because they wanted him to defeat Tsai.
Now that Lai is associated with Tsai, this is a different story.
This will be a good lesson for Lai to discover that some of his supporters had a different agenda.
Some have even said that they would rather vote for the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) candidate, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), over Tsai. They share the goal of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平): to defeat Tsai.
The election is critical for the nation and for overseas Taiwanese.
On the list of KMT’s legislator-at-large nominees approved by the party’s Central Standing Committee there is retired lieutenant general Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) — who in 2016 attended an event in Beijing to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) birth at which he stood for the Chinese national anthem — and retired Central Police University professor Yeh Yu-lan (葉毓蘭) — who called Hong Kong student protesters rioters and endorsed the violent crackdown by the Hong Kong police.
These are followers of Xi, favoring a Taiwan united by China. They are spies and really should be exiled to China.
Taiwanese should cherish the freedom and democracy they have. It took time to build, but if it is lost, we will become like Hong Kong, where students have to fight for basic human rights every day.
Han has said that he is an ordinary man who will be a humble president working for Taiwanese, even though he owned a US$2.4 million luxury apartment in 2011 and several others properties at other times.
Compared with Han, I would say that most overseas Taiwanese are living in poverty. It seems clear that Han is a liar and his party wants nothing more than unification with China.
There is no historical justification for saying that Taiwan is a part of China, and neither does any legal document exist that can prove that it is an inalienable territory of China.
Although the KMT’s presidential and legislative candidates have repeatedly attempted to push Taiwan toward China, it is totally unacceptable to the international community.
The US government is clear about who is the principle occupying power of Taiwan. The US’ Taiwan Relations Act only recognizes the governing authorities on Taiwan since Jan. 1, 1979.
Yes, vote for Taiwan. When Taiwan wins, there will be no losers.
John Hsieh
Hayward, California
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