Taiwanese businesspeople from across the world — including many supporters of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — yesterday voiced their support for independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) at a rally, panning the KMT for nominating Sean Lien (連勝文) as its candidate.
“There are many Taiwanese businesspeople in Latin American who are faithful supporters of the KMT; I must be honest and say that many of us don’t think Ko is a good candidate,” said Yang Yu-lin (楊育林), a businessman from Ecuador. “However, the KMT has made the wrong decision to nominate Lien, so we’ve decided to throw our support behind a candidate who is not pretentious, going beyond party lines, speaking honestly and who would actually do something for the people.”
Yang said that he is a KMT member, but had lost contact with the party for a long time.
“The KMT is a party that only talks to you when it needs you, and when it doesn’t, you’re nobody — I am very disappointed at the party,” Yang said.
Thanking the businesspeople for their support, Ko said that the nation’s economy has developed due to the efforts of many starting their own businesses abroad.
“If elected, I’d like to take advice from overseas Taiwanese businesspeople to see what I may learn from them to help the city develop,” Ko said. “I understand that the government is not very helpful to them; if I am elected, I’d try to see what I can do as a government leader to help overseas Taiwanese businesspeople.”
Those taking part in the rally were from North and South America and Europe, but not China.
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