Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday urged party members to give her four more years to reform the party as she officially announced her bid for re-election as party chairperson.
Addressing a news conference in Taipei’s Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Hung said the KMT was able to build the nation and lead it to overcome predicaments thanks to party members like former premier Sun Yun-shuan (孫運璿), who dedicated his life to the development of the nation until his death.
“If the KMT fails to walk on the right path, it would be dismissed by voters, feel the despair of youth and be abandoned by younger generations in the 2018 and 2020 elections,” Hung said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Hung said what really matters for the KMT’s next leader is their character, the level of trust the public bestows upon them and their willingness to lead the way for younger generations, rather than their personnel network and political experience.
Success is still a long way away and the road ahead is too tumultuous for any leader to clear all obstacles within a year, Hung said.
“The next four years will determine whether the KMT can get back on its feet again. Therefore, I hereby ask my fellow party members to give me four more years to carry out my reform projects for the party,” she said.
Hung was elected party chairwoman on March 26 last year to serve the remaining term of the sixth KMT chairman, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who was re-elected on July 20, 2013, before stepping down on Dec. 3, 2014, to take responsibility for the KMT’s defeat in the nine-in-one elections that year.
Former president Ma was succeeded by New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) on Jan. 19, 2015, who resigned on Jan. 16 last year after losing the presidential race to the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Hung also proposed several plans for the KMT, including democratizing the party, creating a mobile application for party members to voice their opinions and responding to public demands that the KMT remove its stigma as a “dinosaur party.”
Hung is one of six party members that have announced their intention to run for KMT leadership.
Nominees are required to collect signatures form at least 3 percent of all party members before Saturday to make their candidacy official. The election is scheduled for May 20.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
RSS