Former Taipei EasyCard Corp chairman Sean Lien (連勝文) will not decide whether to join next year’s Taipei mayoral election based on polling results of his support rates, his aide said.
Lien, son of former vice president Lien Chan (連戰), last week said that he plans to announce his decision on whether to join the race next month.
Although declining to confirm his candidacy, Sean Lien has made more frequent visits to borough wardens, city councilors and grass-roots groups in Taipei, in addition to meeting recently with the press at private gatherings.
While his possible opponents in the pan-green camp — National Taiwan University Hospital physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and lawyer Wellington Koo (顧立雄) — have been stepping up campaigning for their Taipei bids, the 43-year-old Sean Lien will maintain his pace and polls will not affect his decision, his special assistant William Hsu (徐弘庭) said.
Recent opinion polls have suggested that Sean Lien is the favorite to win the Taipei mayoral race, while showing that support for Ko, an independent, is much higher than for other candidates in the pan-green camp.
For the younger Lien, his wealthy background and complicated political and financial connections are issues to be considered in his candidacy bid, in addition to personal safety concerns.
In an interview with FTV on Tuesday night, Lien Chan said he would support his son’s candidacy bid if he decides to run.
As to the KMT reportedly urging Sean Lien to move out of his residence in The Palace (帝寶), a luxury apartment complex in Taipei, Lien Chan said that he and his wife had purchased the apartment unit and asked Sean Lien to move in for security after he was shot in the cheek in 2010 during a campaign rally in New Taipei City (新北市).
In response to concerns that his wealth would have a negative impact on a campaign, Hsu said the apartment was registered under Lien Chan’s wife’s, Lien Fang-yu (連方瑀), name and that Sean Lien did not own the property.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS