Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said he would not run for president in 2020 as he reaffirmed President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) performance and ability to re-elected.
In a radio interview, Lai, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party, said he would not join the next presidential election, denying Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) description of him as a likely candidate.
Ko’s comments were straightforward, but unfounded and there has been no discussion between us about the next presidential election, Lai said.
Lai said he would not join the Cabinet without seeing two major construction projects in his city finished: The reconstruction of the Weiguan Jinlong Complex, which collapsed in February last year during a major earthquake, and an underground railway project.
Although the first seven months of Tsai’s presidency have been “stumbling,” Lai said the public should be reassured over her performance.
He said that public faith in Tsai could be restored if the government could carry out pension reform successfully.
In terms of domestic policy, the controversies associated with labor law amendments and the government’s handling of a China Airlines staff strike suggested that the Cabinet was still in a “fine-tuning process,” but it is expected to be “a different one” after the Lunar New Year holiday, he said.
Lai said that he would call China by that name, not “the mainland” if he were president.
Lai said the term “mainland” represents a misconception about cross-strait relations and “it is absolutely wrong that people in China have adopted the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] terminology in their understanding of Taiwan.”
Taiwanese understand that the so-called “1992 consensus” is a deception and there is no “one China, different interpretations,” because what China espouses is “one China, no interpretation,” he said.
“The ‘different interpretations’ of ‘one China, different interpretations’ framework advocated by former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and former vice president Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) is a lie to Taiwanese,” he said.
“Taiwan is 100 percent a nation,” Lai said.
The “1992 consensus” — a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted to making up in 2000 — refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what that means.
Asked if he supports Tsai’s cross-strait policy on maintaining the “status quo,” Lai said the nation has to keep it without compromising.
Taiwan cannot expect any friendly feedback from China by making concessions, as former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) made a U-turn in his attitude toward China without seeing any softening in Beijing’s stance, while Ma was unable to keep his campaign promises to revitalize the economy, also because of China’s uncompromising attitude.
It is not up to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to change Beijing’s attitude, because Chinese society has not reached a point where its leadership is allowed to compromise, Lai said.
It is imperative to let Chinese understand that it is Taiwan that has contributed most to China’s economic growth over the past 20 years and an advanced Taiwan can still play an important role in China’s development, he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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