Should loyalties to hometown voters supercede party policy? That is the question Taitung County Commissioner Hsu Ching-yuan (
In another instance of conflict caused by cross-party interests in the run-up to the legislative elections, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday confirmed that Hsu, a People First Party (PFP) member, was considering giving his support to the DPP's candidate in Taitung County.
The news has led the PFP to accuse the DPP of using its administrative advantage to exert pressure on Hsu by promising him resources for two major county construction projects. It has also fueled media speculation that a break between Hsu and the PFP is imminent.
Hsu said on Monday that any support he gives the DPP will be because he believes the DPP administration will give him the funds and assistance to expand Taitung's Fu-gang Harbor and widen the Southern Cross-Island Highway, projects Hsu had promised Taitung residents would be undertaken during his tenure.
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (
While the DPP has no plans to extend party membership to the Taitung County commissioner, he will appear onstage with President Chen Shui-bian (
PFP Chairman James Soong (
"This is not about a difference in party affiliation. It is about a difference in position," Soong said at a rally for the PFP's sole legislative candidate in Yunlin Country, Legislator Chen Chien-sung (陳劍松).
Soong said that, while he can understand Hsu Ching-yuan's determination to fulfill his promises to local voters, the PFP has promised the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that it would support its two candidates in Taitung County.
Hsu Ching-yuan has said he realizes the awkwardness of the situation and has told the party that he would rather drop out of the PFP voluntarily than create difficulties for the party, Soong said.
When asked whether he would be joining Chen on the campaign trail for Hsu Jui-kui, Hsu Ching-yuan said that he was still considering how to best balance integrity with party loyalties.
Representatives in Hsu Ching-yuan's office told the Taipei Times that Hsu Ching-yuan would be making a final decision about whether to help Hsu Jui-kui in his election campaign and about his status with the PFP in the next few days.
According to PFP spokesperson Hwang Yih-jiau (
"I believe that there is a tacit understanding that if Hsu supports the DPP's candidate, he will receive assistance. It is immoral for the DPP to force Hsu into doing this," Hwang said.
DPP caucus whip Tsai Huang-liang (
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching