While Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) is yet to make his final decision on whether to enter the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) primary for next year’s presidential election, Taiwan Brain Trust chairman Wu Rong-i (吳榮義) said that Lai has less support within the party than DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
When the DPP’s Central Standing Committee decided last week that it would bring the nomination process for next year’s presidential election forward, former presidential adviser Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏) criticized Tsai, saying she had made the decision so that other competitors would not have sufficient time to prepare.
Koo went on to declare his support for Lai in the presidential race, and said that the Taiwan Brain Trust would make public a poll on support for Lai at a press conference on Wednesday.
However, while results for several aspects of domestic and cross-strait politics were released, there was nothing on Lai’s support rate.
Asked about it during a separate press conference yesterday, Wu promised that the think tank would eventually publicize the poll results for Lai.
“Lai is making his final decision now, so we decided to release the poll result later, to avoid affecting his decisionmaking,” Wu told the media.
However, when further asked if the think tank decided not to publicize the poll result because Lai’s support was falling behind Tsai’s, Wu said: “It’s not possible to have a poll result with Lai winning over Tsai.”
“Tsai has long been preparing for the presidential race, but the news that Lai may also run in the election has just surfaced,” he said.
While both Koo and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) have expressed their support for Lai in the presidential race, Lai declined to comment yesterday, saying that it was not an appropriate time to discuss the issue as the nation mourns over the plane crash.
However, earlier, Lai said that he would announce his final decision on Monday during a book launch.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
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