Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
The DPP has asked its supporters to attend a campaign rally, dubbed "Million People High Five, Come-back Win" to wear their baseball caps backward, flash the thumbs-up sign and exchange high fives.
Participants will form a 1,000km line encircling much of Taiwan, and at 3:14 pm begin a 5km march in a counter-clockwise direction to symbolize "reversing the tide" against the KMT's dominance, which claimed 81 of the 113 legislative seats in the January elections.
PHOTO: LU CHUN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The time -- 3:14pm -- was chosen to mark China's enactment of the "Anti-Secession" Law on March 14, 2005.
The KMT is holding simultaneous marches throughout the country, in which participants will wear their caps backward and exchange high fives at 3:14pm.
"It's OK for them to copy [our ideas] as long as it's good for Taiwan," Hsieh at a news conference to promote its campaign rally. "But what's the point of voting for the KMT if it can only follow in the footsteps of the DPP? Why vote for a follower and an imitator?"
Hsieh's running mate, Su Tseng-chang (
Su said KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
For example, after the DPP initiated a referendum to be held alongside the election on joining the UN under the name Taiwan, the KMT "jumped on the bandwagon" and proposed a referendum on regaining UN membership under the name the "Republic of China" or any other "pragmatic" name, Su said.
The KMT yesterday brushed off the DPP's criticism, saying that wearing a hat backward symbolizes an athlete's determination to win by giving his or her last best shot.
"It is a gesture well known to sports lovers. It was not invented by the DPP," KMT communication and cultural committee head Huang Yu-cheng (
Additional reporting by Mo Yan-chih
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS