Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who is also the chairman of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), yesterday in Prague, Czech Republic, said that TPP legislator-at-large-elect Tsai Pi-ju’s (蔡璧如) remark that the party would form an alliance of opposition party caucuses in the Legislative Yuan is inaccurate, as it intends to form a “people’s alliance.”
The TPP won 11.2 percent of party votes in Saturday’s legislative elections, passing the 5 percent threshold and securing five legislator-at-large seats.
Tsai on Monday said that the party plans to form an alliance with other opposition parties — the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the New Power Party (NPP) — in the Legislative Yuan to closely monitor the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Photo courtesy of the Taipei City Government
KMT caucus whip William Tseng (曾銘宗) on Tuesday said that the KMT is open to the idea, but cooperation with the TPP would depend on whether the two parties agree on certain issues, adding that they could start from economic issues.
“Chickens and rabbits cannot share the same cage,” NPP Chairman Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said on Tuesday, adding that cooperation should be based on sharing similar ideals and values, but the NPP and the KMT do not share the same fundamental values, and the NPP does not know the TPP’s direction yet, so it is too soon to speak about the possibility of forming an alliance.
Independent Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) said the TPP was formed last year and is about to enter the Legislative Yuan, but it does not have a clear stance regarding its main ideals as well as many issues, such as national security and foreign relations, adding that forming an alliance without shared ideals would amount to political manipulation.
Ko, speaking with Taiwanese reporters in Prague, said that the term “an alliance of opposition parties” is inaccurate, because the TPP wants to avoid conflict between ideologies and focus on solving people’s livelihood issues, so it should rather be called a “people’s alliance.”
Asked about speculation that the TPP is apparently a member of the pan-blue camp, Ko said the party does not want to be categorized by the blue-green divide, and that it would discuss issues that are beneficial to the public, adding that it can cooperate with the KMT, the DPP or any other party as long as the proposals are reasonable.
Tsai and TPP legislators would bring the experience they gained in the Taipei City Government, as well as their credo that the government should be open and transparent, to the Legislative Yuan, Ko said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
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