Pingtung County Commissioner Su Jia-chyuan's (
Su's appointment was a swift decision, with approval from Premier Yu Shyi-kun immediately following the resignation of former Ministry of the Interior (MOI) head Yu Cheng-hsien (
Yu Cheng-hsien resigned to take responsibility for the assassination attempt on Chen and Vice President Annette Lu (
Su received the nod in recognition of his formidable performance in Pingtung County. Chen had assured Pingtung County residents on many occasions that a person as able as Su would not be neglected.
For many years, Su's approval rate topped those of local government chiefs. With this local support and forceful campaigning for Chen, Su helped make possible an impressive victory over the pan-blue alliance in Pingtung County, reversing the vote of the 2000 election.
A native of Pingtung, the 48-year-old Su holds a masters degree in Public Administration from the National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung.
County commissioner since 1997, Su transformed the relatively undeveloped county into a booming tourism hotspot with large-scale tourism promotions such as the highly acclaimed Pingtung Bluefin Tuna Cultural Festival and the Wind Bell Festival (
The tuna festival was so successful that Su has been compared to Ilan County Commissioner Liu Shou-cheng (劉守成) for his ability to create lucrative business opportunities out of relatively small injections of capital.
The tuna festival and Liu's Ilan Children's Folklore and Folk Games Festival have each generated nearly NT$1 billion in commercial opportunities out of an initial NT$20 million investment.
In addition to accelerating tourism, Su endeavored to rid his county of its mafia-base stigma and greatly reduced the crime rate.
He also started up national-level infrastructure projects, upgrading the county's export processing zone, developing large-scale biotechnology and agricultural science parks and establishing Hakka cultural-revival parks, thus creating lucrative businesses as well as employment opportunities for locals.
According to the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (
Su's abundant experience in local government has prepared him well for the interior ministry post, considering that the MOI's administration covers the departments of civil administration, social welfare administration, law enforcement and the construction and planning service.
Apart from administrative experience, Su is also a seasoned Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) member, and displayed strong political potential as early as 1985.
Su ran for the National Assembly in 1986 and fought with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) assembly members back when they were dismissively known as the "old thieves" -- representatives elected in China before the KMT government retreated to Taiwan. Su asked them to resign.
Su also served two terms as legislator between 1993 and 1997.
Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday morning announced Su's appointment, which will be effective April 9. He commended Su's comprehensive performance as an administrator.
"Until Su, over the past 20 years, not one Pingtung County commissioner has been re-elected. Su was the first commissioner to win a second mandate," he said yesterday. He added that Su's characteristics of "youth, calm and resolve" could bring about the reforms the country needs.
The first task Su faces is the investigation of the assassination attempt on Chen and a review of the resignation of Chang Si-liang (
Tackling police administration is not unfamiliar to the new MOI chief because Su comes from a police family himself.
Su's wife, Hung Heng-chu (
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS