The race for the post of Kaohsiung mayor appears to be getting vicious months before the start of the official campaign -- at least within the KMT.
James Chen (
Suspicions have arisen within the KMT that Lien is willing to sacrifice the party's candidate to placate PFP Chairman James Soong (
Lien and Soong have agreed to jointly nominate a candidate for the Kaohsiung race. Given that PFP Vice Chairman Chang Chao-hsiung (
hsiung deputy mayor, would be a shoo-in. Huang was chosen by the KMT through consensus. The party wasn't even worried about angering Kaohsiung Council Speaker Huang Chi-chuan (
In late June, however, Chang Po-ya announced her candidacy, throwing a monkey wrench into the pan-blue camp's plans. The KMT headquarters kept telling Huang not to give up and he believed what he was hearing, unaware that Lien and Soong had secretly listed Chang as a candidate.
The PFP wants to participate in elections, but it lacks talent and resources. The PFP's strategy for both the Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral races has been to maintain pan-blue cooperation and use public opinion polls to resolve inter-camp disputes over who is the best candidate. It will support anyone who can block a DPP victory and has some chance of winning. But the PFP has never had confidence in Haung Jun-ying as a candidate. So it was happy to see former DPP chairman Shih Ming-te (
Now that it looks like Lien is dumping Huang in favor of Soong's choice, the KMT leader will have a hard time complaining about how former president Lee Teng-hui (
The KMT now appears willing to take a wait-and-see attitude over the rivalry between Huang and Chang. Such an irresolute attitude shows Lien's
policy-making style as well as the confusion of values within the KMT. To resolve the dispute, the KMT will have to prioritize its objectives -- does it want to win the race or save face, does it want to cultivate talent for the party or pave the way for the 2004 presidential elections? The KMT will have to come up with a clear objective if it wants to ensure party cohesiveness, enhance KMT-PFP cooperation and create the possibility of winning the election.
Shilly-shallying over candidates is hardly the kind of behavior that creates a winning campaign. What it does do is plant the seeds for a defeat.
In an article published in Newsweek on Monday last week, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged China to retake territories it lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. “If it is really for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t China take back Russia?” Lai asked, referring to territories lost in 1858 and 1860. The territories once made up the two flanks of northern Manchuria. Once ceded to Russia, they became part of the Russian far east. Claims since then have been made that China and Russia settled the disputes in the 1990s through the 2000s and that “China
China has successfully held its Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, with 53 of 55 countries from the African Union (AU) participating. The two countries that did not participate were Eswatini and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which have no diplomatic relations with China. Twenty-four leaders were reported to have participated. Despite African countries complaining about summit fatigue, with recent summits held with Russia, Italy, South Korea, the US and Indonesia, as well as Japan next month, they still turned up in large numbers in Beijing. China’s ability to attract most of the African leaders to a summit demonstrates that it is still being
Trips to the Kenting Peninsula in Pingtung County have dredged up a lot of public debate and furor, with many complaints about how expensive and unreasonable lodging is. Some people even call it a tourist “butchering ground.” Many local business owners stake claims to beach areas by setting up parasols and driving away people who do not rent them. The managing authority for the area — Kenting National Park — has long ignored the issue. Ultimately, this has affected the willingness of domestic travelers to go there, causing tourist numbers to plummet. In 2008, Taiwan opened the door to Chinese tourists and in
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) on Thursday was handcuffed and escorted by police to the Taipei Detention Center, after the Taipei District Court ordered that he be detained and held incommunicado for suspected corruption during his tenure as Taipei mayor. The ruling reversed an earlier decision by the same court on Monday last week that ordered Ko’s release without bail. That decision was appealed by prosecutors on Wednesday, leading the High Court to conclude that Ko had been “actively involved” in the alleged corruption and it ordered the district court to hold a second detention hearing. Video clips
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