The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday reversed its decision to skip the primary process for the year-end Hualien County commissioner election amid pressure from would-be candidates upset at the party’s plan to nominate Department of Health (DOH) Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川).
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Secretary-General Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said last night that the party would hold a primary for the nomination to determine the candidate in a fair manner.
Yeh will make a decision within the next few days on whether he will stay at the DOH, Wu said, adding that more details about the primary would be announced soon and the nomination finalized by Sept. 12.
Wu made the remarks after meeting Yang Po-ren (楊博仁) of the party’s Hualien County branch and KMT Organization and Development Committee director Huang Chao-yuan (黃昭元) at party headquarters.
If Yeh, who earlier refused to participate in a primary, seeks the nomination, he would be willing to vie with the five contenders who registered for the primary before it was scrapped in May, Wu said.
Yeh’s rivals for the post had protested the decision to skip the primary and continued to campaign, raising concerns of a possible split in the vote.
The KMT is also trying to prevent splits in its support base in Taoyuan County, Hsinchu County and Taitung County.
In Taoyuan County, negotiations for the commissioner election failed, with KMT Legislator John Wu (吳志揚), son of Wu Poh-hsiung, and Taoyuan County Council Speaker Tseng Chong-yi (曾忠義) both saying they would run for the post.
The KMT will hold a primary today for the post.
In Taitung County, the KMT nominated Legislator Justin Huang (黃健庭) in a primary in May, but Taitung County Commissioner Kuang Li-cheng (鄺麗貞) said she would not be discouraged from running for re-election.
In Hsinchu County, Council Speaker Chang Bi-ching (張碧琴) has announced plans to run for the commissionership although the party has nominated KMT Legislator Chiu Ching-chun (邱鏡淳).
Wu Den-yih said the party was having difficulties in these counties, but would continue negotiating between party members to prevent a split in the vote.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods