Saying “I am who I am” in response to queries on how he is trying to emerge from the shadow of his father, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) also brushed aside his main rival’s idea of forming an opposition coalition as purely a political move.
Largely seen by the more traditional supporters of the pan-blue camp as the leading figure in the KMT’s second generation, Lien told the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) in an interview on July 17 that he is seeking to change his family’s image among the public and, more importantly, to walk his own path as much as possible.
Using the campaign slogan “alternation of generations” gave him a great advantage over his rivals in the KMT primaries, but outside of the party, his family background is not seen as such a plus and has come in for some closer scrutiny.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Sean Lien, 43, is a son of former vice president and former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰). His family assets are estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars, even though both his father and grandfather were long-term public servants.
In a nod to the “princeling” label that is sometimes applied to him, Sean Lien said: “I am who I am today.”
He said that he could not change who his father is just because he is participating in an election. He said he is proud of what his ancestors, as well as his father and other elder members of the family have done for Taiwan.
“What I am about to become is not a ‘second-generation government official’ (官二代), but ‘the next generation of statesman’ (第二代政治家), a ‘statesman 2.0 (政治家2.0),’ so to speak,” he said.
When asked about comments that the average age of his campaign team is on the high side, he said he has learned that running in an election is very similar to leading an army in battle.
“One has to pay attention to all kinds of details and accept ideas from both older members and younger,” he said.
“You cannot tailor an election [campaign] to one specific age group,” he said. “You need to integrate all of them.”
“I have to be like a sponge, taking in all the ideas as much as possible, using them if they are right, changing them if the suggestions need fine tuning,” he added.
Regarding a proposition made by his main rival, independent candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) about forming an opposition coalition, Sean Lien said that while Ko is running as an independent, he has admitted to holding deep-green ideological views.
“Yet because he is now running for office, he is pushing for the formation of an opposition coalition. To tell the truth, politics must have ideals and cannot simply be based on calculation of winning and losing,” Sean Lien said.
Lien said he has many friends in the pan-green camp, but that does not mean he can be partners with them politically.
“If you differ from someone completely in terms of ideology, but insist on forming a coalition for the sake of elections, it would be a disaster for the public if that team won,” he said.
As an example, what if “such a coalition won the election and the city council proposed a policy that was opposed by both the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP], what would the city do?” he said.
Turning to his plans for Taipei, Sean Lien said the city lacks ambition.
When you travel to Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai or Singapore, you are strongly reminded of their ambition to become the “first in Asia,” but such ambitions, or even voices of it, were scarce to non-existent in Taipei, he said.
Taipei lacked sufficient funds, even though it already receives the majority of government funding in Taiwan, he said.
“The city lacks the funding to improve its social welfare programs,” he said.
He also feels the he city lacks a sense of modernization and buildings that symbolize the future.
There are many old houses that could become attractive tourist attractions if they were renovated and refurbished, he said.
However, he said he does not yet know how to obtain buildings that would guide future trends.
The city needs to develop more sources of wealth, but more importantly, it needs to reduce spending and judiciously use what resources it has, he said.
He said he hopes to introduce the key performance indicators (KPI) system that corporations use to gauge efficacy as a way of boosting bureaucratic efficiency.
The former Taipei EasyCard Corp chairman said that efficiency was not measured by money, but rather its effects, adding that while investing in effort to make Taipei more world famous, boosting tourism and the city’s economy and ensuring the city is up to par on international trends are good, the main question remains how to best manage the bureaucracy carrying out the investment.
Additional reporting Kuo An-chia and Lu Heng-chien
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,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400