Promising that all of its nominees will vote in accordance with the party's line, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) registered its 160 National Assembly candidates yesterday. The KMT emphasized the inclusion of young party members on the list.
"This year's National Assembly election is very important to the development of democracy in Taiwan," said Liao Feng-te (
"Our nominees and the KMT promise to uphold the Constitution of the Republic of China ... not a single vote will deviate from what we have promised," Liao said.
He made the remarks yesterday at a press conference held prior to his trip the Central Election Commission in Taipei to register the party's nominees.
He was accompanied by over 10 young nominees from the KMT's list and the party's candidate for National Assembly Speaker, Chen Chin-jang (
During the press conference, Liao outlined the party's goals for the National Assembly session.
The KMT will uphold the constitutional reforms agreed upon through cross-party negotiations last year, Liao said.
These reforms, he said, include halving the number of seats in the legislature, changing the length of legislators' terms from three years to four, abolishing the National Assembly and instituting a single-member district and two-vote system for future legislative elections.
Liao emphasized that 20 of the KMT's 160 nominees are under the age of 40.
The younger nominees, Lai emphasized, will help infuse new life into the KMT.
Responding to criticism from the pan-green camp about KMT Vice Chairman Chiang Pin-kun's (
In contrast, Liao said, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has harmed cross-strait relations and therefore does not look favorably on others' accomplishments in this area.
Chiang and a delegation of 34 other KMT party members left on Monday for a five-day trip to China.
The visit, which is the first official KMT trip to China since 1949, is being made to promote economic relations between Taiwan and China and allow Chiang to represent the party in paying its respects to party founder and Republic of China founding father Sun Yat-sen (
Given the passage of China's "Anti-Secession" Law earlier this month, the KMT has faced domestic criticism about the timing and purpose of its trip.
According to a report by the television news channel ET Today, after arriving in Guangzhou on Monday afternoon, Chiang and the KMT delegation met briefly with Guangdong's provincial governor Huang Hua-hua (
The delegation then visited the Mausoleum of the 72 Martyrs in Huanghuagang in Guangzhou yesterday to pay respects to those who died in a Sun-led uprising in 1911. Delegation members met with representatives of the local Taiwanese business community in the area and with regional leaders such as Chu Cheng-chung (
According to the KMT, Chiang's delegation will head to Nanjing later today.
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
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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