Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) son yesterday withdrew from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and announced he would run for Greater Kaohsiung city councilor as an independent.
Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) declared his intention to run in the year-end elections earlier in the week. His formal announcement yesterday came in the wake of the Taiwan High Court’s ruling on Friday rejecting Chen Shui-bian’s appeal of his conviction on corruption, forgery and money laundering charges. However, sentences and fines were reduced in the second trial for Chen Shui-bian, his wife Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) and six other defendants including Chen Chih-chung.
At a press conference in Kaohsiung City yesterday, Chen Chih-chung said it had not been part of his life plan to run for the position, but he decided to enter the race after his father encouraged him to take on the responsibility.
PHOTO: CNA
Chen Chih-chung said the reason he chose to run in Greater Kaohsiung was to honor his father’s campaign promise that he would move to Kaohsiung after he left office.
The junior Chen said he decided to drop out of the DPP because he thought it would be better for party harmony and expand the DPP’s political clout. If elected, he said he would caucus with the DPP and team up with party lawmakers on legislation, adding he would also fully support Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) in her re-election campaign.
He said he was well aware that his opponents would make his wife and relatives the target of political attacks once he starts campaigning. Citing his wife’s car as an example, Chen Chih-chung said it was an eight-year-old second-hand car, but some media reports had portrayed it as a million-dollar vehicle.
Chiang Chih-ming (江志銘), secretary of Chen Shui-bian’s office, attended the press conference and said the former president gave his full support to his son’s election bid.
Chiang said the former president had a “quiet heart” regarding the prospect of his release on bail, and would leave the matter to God.
A hearing originally slated for Friday to deliberate on whether Chen Shui-bian would be granted bail was postponed after the High Court was unable to reach a conclusion. The court said it would decide before June 23 whether to detain him for another two months.
Chiang said the former president was not surprised at the court’s ruling on his alleged corruption cases and thought God seemed to think it was not time for his release. When the time is ripe, he would get out, Chiang quoted Chen Shui-bian as saying.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
Also See: Taiwan group in US pans verdict
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
RSS