Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
Lien graduated from National Taiwan University, the school that has the motto "Improve your character, study with diligence, love your country, and love the people." Lien has failed in three out of the four items in this motto.
His protests for the past seven months degrade his character and do not care about the people in Taiwan. If the president is nothing, why is Lien so eager to become one? Lien should love, not kill, the president elected by the people. Lien apparently does not love Taiwan either, because he is strongly against the purchase of new weapons to protect the country.
Although Lien holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago, he needs to take a refresher course in Democracy 101. As a matter of personal courtesy and national unity, Lien should have conceded his loss and congratulated Chen for his success in getting re-elected. Two bullets cannot decide the outcome of a presidential election; only voters can. It is a bad example for Lien to keep on fighting after being defeated.
Lien should be aware of the fact that the US presidential election is generally accompanied by federal, state and local issues for voters to decide. Why was Lien opposed to the two referendum issues in the last presidential election? These two issues were defeated anyway. If they were passed, they would be good for the security of Taiwan.
It is perfectly acceptable to activate the national security mechanism when both the president and the vice-president are in danger of being assassinated. I think this mechanism should have been activated again when Lien, as a chairman of a major opposition party, encouraged everyone to "kill President Chen."
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
President William Lai (賴清德) attended a dinner held by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) when representatives from the group visited Taiwan in October. In a speech at the event, Lai highlighted similarities in the geopolitical challenges faced by Israel and Taiwan, saying that the two countries “stand on the front line against authoritarianism.” Lai noted how Taiwan had “immediately condemned” the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas and had provided humanitarian aid. Lai was heavily criticized from some quarters for standing with AIPAC and Israel. On Nov. 4, the Taipei Times published an opinion article (“Speak out on the
Most Hong Kongers ignored the elections for its Legislative Council (LegCo) in 2021 and did so once again on Sunday. Unlike in 2021, moderate democrats who pledged their allegiance to Beijing were absent from the ballots this year. The electoral system overhaul is apparent revenge by Beijing for the democracy movement. On Sunday, the Hong Kong “patriots-only” election of the LegCo had a record-low turnout in the five geographical constituencies, with only 1.3 million people casting their ballots on the only seats that most Hong Kongers are eligible to vote for. Blank and invalid votes were up 50 percent from the previous
More than a week after Hondurans voted, the country still does not know who will be its next president. The Honduran National Electoral Council has not declared a winner, and the transmission of results has experienced repeated malfunctions that interrupted updates for almost 24 hours at times. The delay has become the second-longest post-electoral silence since the election of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez of the National Party in 2017, which was tainted by accusations of fraud. Once again, this has raised concerns among observers, civil society groups and the international community. The preliminary results remain close, but both
Beijing’s diplomatic tightening with Jakarta is not an isolated episode; it is a piece of a long-term strategy that realigns the prices of choices across the Indo-Pacific. The principle is simple. There is no need to impose an alliance if one can make a given trajectory convenient and the alternative costly. By tying Indonesia’s modernization to capital, technology and logistics corridors, and by obtaining in public the reaffirmation of the “one China” principle, Beijing builds a constraint that can be activated tomorrow on sensitive issues. The most sensitive is Taiwan. If we look at systemic constraints, the question is not whether