Women are “ready” and “prepared” to take the nation’s presidency and put to rest traditional concepts about them, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday.
“Our time has come and we are ready,” Tsai told a discussion on female empowerment at the Garden of Hope Foundation in Taipei. “Next year will be an important test as to whether Taiwanese society can overcome traditional ideas about women and accept a female leader. There are people who wonder whether it is possible ... but I believe that the end result will be a good one.”
The remarks drew applause as Tsai, the nation’s first female presidential candidate representing a major political party, seeks more support among female voters — a demographic evenly split between her and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), recent polls showed.
Photo: CNA
Responding to questions on whether women in politics faced greater difficulties, Tsai said that “surprisingly,” female candidates had been treated more favorably in the political arena, adding that more women should become involved.
“Many times we hear people say that as long as it is a female with a high level of education and good looks, she will be elected. In other words, society is starting to have a more favorable impression of female politicians,” she said.
Tsai has largely downplayed the gender issue before the upcoming campaign, which is expected to pick up in earnest in the next two months. Yesterday was one of the few occasions where she spoke on the subject.
Tsai also commented on a report by the Chinese-language Want Daily saying Beijing had been exerting pressure on the DPP and Tsai through the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) to accept the so-called “1992 consensus.”
The controversial consensus refers to a supposed understanding reached during a meeting in Hong Kong in 1992 between Taiwanese and Chinese representatives, under which both sides claim to have acknowledged that there was “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “one China” means.
The DPP insists that the “1992 consensus” does not exist.
In 2006, former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted he made up the term in 2000 before the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) handed power over to the DPP.
The Want Daily quoted unnamed sources as saying that the matter was discussed between a Chinese Taiwan Affairs Office official and AIT Chairman Raymond Burghardt in New York last week.
Saying she wasn’t clear on the issue, Tsai, however, countered that “China should spend some time understanding the substance of Taiwan’s democracy,” adding that changes in administrations and policies were a “common routine” in democratic politics.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the