Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Acting Chairperson Huang Min-hui (黃敏惠), who is hoping to be elected chairperson, yesterday said that there is no need to change the party name to reverse its fortunes.
Huang, who announced her bid on Wednesday, when former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) declared he would stay out of the race, yesterday reiterated that her decision to run was prompted by public expectations of party reform and has nothing to do with rumors that plans were afoot to block outgoing Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) from the position.
When asked whether the KMT should remove “China” from its name, Huang said: “A name change would not alter its fate,” referring to the practice of changing characters in a name to reverse fortunes.
Photo: CNA
“The name has a history. It is a nation-founding political party, establishing the Republic of China. The party was founded by Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) and revolutionary martyrs to achieve democracy, freedom and equality,” she said. “The spirit is long-standing, universal and should be maintained by all of us.”
“All I have to say is, the Chinese Nationalist Party is the Republic of China Nationalist Party,” she said.
Separately yesterday, Chen Ming-yih (陳明義), a former New Taipei City councilor who announced his chairperson bid on Thursday, dropped out of the race, attributing his withdrawal to the party’s “obscure” and “illusory” intra-party election procedures.
After hearing many calls from friends and comrades for party reform and for him to act, “I picked up the [registration] form and paid the [NT$1.6 million, US$47,958] fee after persuading my wife and without my mom knowing,” Chen wrote on Facebook yesterday.
“Huang joining the race unexpectedly, Hau’s decision not to run, the obscure party member name list and the illusory signature-collecting regulations all smacked of risk and fickleness,” he said.
“Within only 24 hours, political allies who had been enthusiastic have descended into silence and those who had promised to endure the party’s misery have revealed that they are in a bind,” he said. “The focus of the election has become local versus non-local and pro-Hung versus anti-Hung.”
Chen said he decided not to run “to avoid putting [his] allies in a dilemma and to keep his family from worry.”
On Thursday, he said that after he paid the fee, he received a disk containing information about party members and a pad of forms to collect signatures, but the disk had only dozens of telephone numbers without the members’ names.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday called for greater cooperation between Taiwan, Lithuania and the EU to counter threats to information security, including attacks on undersea cables and other critical infrastructure. In a speech at Vilnius University in the Lithuanian capital, Tsai highlighted recent incidents in which vital undersea cables — essential for cross-border data transmission — were severed in the Taiwan Strait and the Baltic Sea over the past year. Taiwanese authorities suspect Chinese sabotage in the incidents near Taiwan’s waters, while EU leaders have said Russia is the likely culprit behind similar breaches in the Baltic. “Taiwan and our European
The Taipei District Court sentenced babysitters Liu Tsai-hsuan (劉彩萱) and Liu Jou-lin (劉若琳) to life and 18 years in prison respectively today for causing the death of a one-year-old boy in December 2023. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that Liu Tsai-hsuan was entrusted with the care of a one-year-old boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), in August 2023 by the Child Welfare League Foundation. From Sept. 1 to Dec. 23 that year, she and her sister Liu Jou-lin allegedly committed acts of abuse against the boy, who was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries on Dec. 24, 2023, but did not
RSS