The son of outgoing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) said on Tuesday that his father was "a tragic hero" whose distinctive features "can only be known when he is leaving."
Lien Sheng-wen (連勝文), a newly elected delegate to the upcoming KMT convention that will see his father hand over the leadership to Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), made the remarks while running for a spot on the party's Central Standing Committee.
Lien Sheng-wen claimed that his father was KMT chairman during its "most difficult time" of frustration and failure, and yet "fought to the last moment."
Lien Chan will step down on Aug. 19.
Lien Sheng-wen said that he believed the KMT would continue to dig into the "truth" behind the shooting of President Chen Shui-bian (
Lien Chan was defeated for the second time by Chen in last year's presidential election, a campaign that the opposition claims it had lost partly because of the shooting.
During an interview earlier in the week, Lien Chan said he was quite proud of two legacies: building what he described as a "cross-strait bridge for peace and security" and presiding over the first-ever direct election of KMT chairman.
Lien Chan advised his successor to "be broad-minded, make as many friends as possible, steadily reform the party and do whatever should be done."
As a result of his visit to China in April, the KMT chairman said, he had "built a bridge and a road toward cross-strait peace."
He said that whether or not that road would be taken was entirely up to Chen.
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:
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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