On Nov. 22, the Hsinchu District Court convicted Lo Chi-hsiang (羅吉祥), the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mayor of Hsinchu County’s Jhudong Township (竹東), on charges of vote-buying. It gave him a prison term of three years and 10 months, and deprived him of his civil rights for four years. Upon conviction, Lo was dismissed from office in accordance with the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
The Local Government Act (地方制度法) does say that county governments can appoint an acting mayor when a township mayor is suspended or dismissed from office, but the Hsinchu County Government used this power to designate Lo’s wife, Chang Shun-peng (張順朋), as Jhudong’s acting mayor. She took office on Nov. 29.
The county government said it made the move because Chang has considerable leadership and administration experience, is familiar with township affairs and can continue Lo’s policies.
The decision shows the county government’s strong support for a mayor mired in a vote-buying scandal. The county keeps telling everyone to reject vote buying, but it is reaffirming the policy achievements of a mayor who engaged in the practice.
The county’s message seems to be that it does not matter that Lo won his seat by election fraud, and that as long as the county supports him, someone from his circle can become acting mayor. What kind of a legal system produces such a ridiculous result?
The problem is that the Local Government Act only stipulates that “where the mayor of a ... township/city ... is removed from office ... the county government shall appoint an acting mayor.”
The act does allow the local government to exercise administrative discretion when appointing a mayor, but if a law’s implementation can lead to a result as absurd as allowing the spouse of a dismissed mayor to become acting mayor, then the law needs to be reviewed.
The Ministry of the Interior has officially interpreted this power as follows: “For the advancement of local government affairs, when a county government evaluates and appoints an acting mayor, it is advisable for it to assign a person of equivalent rank or who has a sufficient degree of administrative experience.”
The ministry used the language “it is advisable,” rather than “it should,” which is why the county could appoint Chang, although she lacks equivalent rank and administrative experience.
Even a Hsinchu County councilor can only call on the Legislative Yuan to amend the Local Government Act by qualifying such appointments with objective conditions, such as credentials and experience.
Although local powers of self-governance are important, they do no good if allowed to devolve into tools for political parties to consolidate their interests. Attaching objective conditions would be one way to safeguard proper township governance.
Joy Lien is a lawyer and a New Power Party Hsinchu County councilor.
Translated by Julian Clegg
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
When it became clear that the world was entering a new era with a radical change in the US’ global stance in US President Donald Trump’s second term, many in Taiwan were concerned about what this meant for the nation’s defense against China. Instability and disruption are dangerous. Chaos introduces unknowns. There was a sense that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might have a point with its tendency not to trust the US. The world order is certainly changing, but concerns about the implications for Taiwan of this disruption left many blind to how the same forces might also weaken
As the new year dawns, Taiwan faces a range of external uncertainties that could impact the safety and prosperity of its people and reverberate in its politics. Here are a few key questions that could spill over into Taiwan in the year ahead. WILL THE AI BUBBLE POP? The global AI boom supported Taiwan’s significant economic expansion in 2025. Taiwan’s economy grew over 7 percent and set records for exports, imports, and trade surplus. There is a brewing debate among investors about whether the AI boom will carry forward into 2026. Skeptics warn that AI-led global equity markets are overvalued and overleveraged
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
RSS