Internet searches about a proposal by Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) to build a free economic zone in the city spiked after Han argued with New Power Party Kaohsiung City Councilor Huang Jie (黃捷) over the plan at a city council meeting on Friday.
Huang demanded clarification on the details of the proposed economic zone, asking: “Specifically what [economic] restrictions does the city government hope to ease?”
Han of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said that he would provide a detailed report within two days.
Photo: Hung Su-chin, Taipei Times
When pressed for more details, he said: “I am going to make Kaohsiung rich, okay?”
He repeated the same answer as Huang continued to grill him.
“The main goal is to make Kaohsiung rich,” Han said, adding: “I just hope to make Kaohsiung rich, that is my goal.”
Han’s inability to provide concrete details left Taiwanese to research the specifics of the proposed zone on their own, members of the Facebook group “No KMT is Good” (打馬悍將粉絲團) said.
The KMT had made similar proposals in the past, but Han has made the concept even more vague, they said.
“A free economic zone will simply be a place for the Chinese to run rampant,” an Internet user wrote.
“The Chinese will get rich and Taiwanese will be left eating dirt,” another wrote.
Some users said that the proposal is a rehash of a plan suggested by KMT lawmakers during the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), which failed to pass, despite the party having a legislative majority at the time.
“It is impossible to know everything, so if you do not know, it is okay to say: ‘I don’t know,’” Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said on Saturday when reached for comment on Han’s refusal to provide the plan’s specifics.
Internet fitness celebrity Holger Chen (陳之漢) said that Han was “all talk and no action.”
“It is as if someone asked me how to become stronger and all I told them was: ‘Go to the gym and you will naturally become stronger,’” he said.
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