Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate and Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) yesterday accused President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration of causing “unspeakable suffering” to Taiwanese.
There must be peaceful exchanges across the Taiwan Strait to facilitate the flow of people and goods, which would make Taiwan richer, Han said.
He called on his supporters to vote the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) out of the Presidential Office and the Legislative Yuan in next year’s elections.
Photo: Liu Pin-chuan, Taipei Times
Han made the remarks in a meeting at the Nantou County Council.
While Taiwan’s exports are subjected to a 10 percent tariff, the nation’s main competitor, South Korea, enjoys preferential taxes on 70 percent of its exports via a free-trade arrangement it negotiated with the UK and other nations, Han said, without elaborating.
“Our products are sold at higher prices and we lost Chinese tourists not traveling in group tours,” he said. “Without people coming in or goods going out, the economy cannot grow.”
“The elite residents of Nantou must unite for their children’s sake and vote the DPP out of office to allow Taiwan to have a future,” he said.
In response to requests for comment on remarks by former KMT legislator Chen Hung-chang (陳宏昌) that Han spent his time as a lawmaker “boozing, partying and womanizing,” Han said he did smoke, drink and play mahjong at the legislature.
“However, that was Han Kuo-yu from 10 or 20 years ago, not the man I am now,” Han said. “Chen was remembering the old Han and if he wants to I can prove it to him that I have changed.”
Chen, a KMT member and head of New Taipei City’s Younglian Temple (湧蓮寺), made the comment during Tsai’s visit to his temple earlier yesterday.
KMT New Taipei City chapter head Lee Chien-lung (李乾龍) said that Chen’s remarks were inappropriate and a disciplinary meeting would convene today to discuss possible disciplinary action.
“While the party expects Chen to greet the guests to his temple, it was inappropriate for a member of the party’s Central Supervisory Committee to criticize Han and elevate Tsai,” Lee said.
Additional reporting by Chen Hsin-yu
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
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
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS