Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) on Thursday embarked on a trip to the US and Canada to shore up support from Taiwanese communities in North America for Jan. 11’s presidential and legislative elections.
Lin is representing the DPP and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who is seeking re-election, while former premier William Lai (賴清德) is to headline the latter part of the trip at rallies.
“The outlook right now is favorable for Tsai to win the presidential election, but we need to have a majority of seats in the legislature for us to defend Taiwan and defend against threats from China,” Lin said before he boarded a late-night flight to the US on Thursday.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“We hope large contingents of overseas Taiwanese will return to Taiwan and vote in next year’s election,” Lin said. “Many of them would like to see the Tsai-Lai pairing for the presidential ticket, but no matter what the result, we hope to have more people out to support the DPP’s candidates for legislative seats.”
Lin and DPP New Taipei City Councilor Ho Po-wen (何博文) are to be the keynote speakers in Houston, Texas, today at a gathering organized by the Friends of Tsai Overseas’ chapter for the southern US.
They are to travel to Los Angeles for a rally tomorrow at the San Gabriel Hilton Hotel and then head to Toronto for a rally for Tsai on Tuesday, the DPP said.
DPP officials said the party has attracted young people throughout its history, and Lin’s membership has symbolic value and legitimate representation, as he was a leader in the Sunflower movement.
The officials added that he has helped broaden the party’s horizons and boosted political participation with the younger generation.
Lai is to travel to San Francisco on Monday, and he would headline an event for Taiwanese communities in northern California on Tuesday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Foster City, officials said.
After that, Lai would go to Chicago on Friday and Washington on Sunday next week and wrap up the trip with a rally in New York City on Oct. 20.
In other news, DPP Chairman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) at a campaign stop in New Taipei City yesterday responded to a remark by Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) the previous day. The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate said that the “1992 consensus” acknowledges there is only “one China,” with each side of the Strait free to interpret what “one China” means.
The so-called “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that both sides of the Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
“I would like to see Han talk about this at China’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong,” Cho said.
“When he meets China’s top government officials, please let us hear Han speak about this issue, only then can we believe him,” Cho said, adding that otherwise “Han is only talking big for Taiwan’s consumption, but he dare not export it.”
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:
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