Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) plans to publish a new book next month, recounting her journeys, physically and mentally, since the last election.
In Ing’s Clique: The Last Mile to Light Up Taiwan (英派 — 點亮台灣的一哩路, tentative translation), Tsai writes that she has been traveling across the nation since she lost the 2012 presidential election, trying to find out what the public needs and what she can do for them as a politician.
“I have fallen, and tried to get up,” she said. “In the past few years, I have traveled around, trying to observe and understand the problems that people are facing. A politician must think from the public’s perspective, to find whether a policy would bring convenience or burden to the public when it is implemented in the lives of the ordinary.”
The book records changes in the society, as well as what Tsai has seen in the past three years from seven perspectives, which she calls “the seven Ings.”
“If the seven Ings could attract a group of people belonging to the ‘Ing’s clique’ to change the nation, then what I have done in the past three years is worth it,” Tsai wrote.
She said the term “Ing’s clique,” which has the same pronunciation as “hawk faction” in Mandarin, does not mean it is a small political faction loyal to her personally. She said the term came to her when she was speaking at a rally in Keelung earlier in the year, and was touched by the passion of the crowd.
“I felt I needed to give a powerful name for ‘us,’ the group of people who want to change the destiny of the nation, and therefore ‘we are all Ing’s clique’ popped out from my mouth,” Tsai wrote. “I expect ‘Ing’s clique’ to be a large crowd, and I expect ‘Ing’s clique’ to be a group of people to be remembered in Taiwan’s history, and to be remembered as a group of reformers.”
The book is Tsai’s third. Her first, an autobiography titled From Scrambled Eggs with Onions to Little Ing Lunchboxes — The Life Experiences of Tsai Ing-wen (洋蔥炒蛋到小英便當: 蔡英文的人生滋味) was published during the 2012 presidential campaign, while a collection of photographs from the campaign trail titled Together and Forever: Our Journeys with Tsai Ing-wen (一直同在 Together & Forever: 我們和小英一起走過的旅程) was published later that year.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas