Who would have thought that the mayoral election for the nation’s capital would produce such inexperienced and unexpected candidates?
The two leading candidates are making grand promises: The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Sean Lien (連勝文) says he will build a Taipei with two centers by reviving the western part and upgrading the eastern part of the city, while independent candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) says he will relocate Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) and build 5,000 low-income apartments at the Air Force Command Headquarters’ old site on Renai Road.
These are interesting election promises, but they leave city residents in the cold.
The two candidates’ supporters are engaging in a war of words, continuing the old tradition of negative attacks and bringing nothing new to the table, which only serves to further alienate voters.
The contenders’ lack of experience may not be that important, but since they are candidates, they should ask city residents for advice on what they want and learn about their daily lives.
They should both get out of their air-conditioned offices and cars and learn how the general public goes about making a living in the scorching heat of everyday life.
They could ride a scooter down to Neihu Technology Park and take a look at how buses, cars, motorcycles and scooters vie for space in a dangerous dance on the narrow Ruiguang Road. This scene repeats itself every day, but it is not very often that a mayor shows concern for commuters’ problems, nor does anyone study how to solve the problem. This is the road we have, and we are stuck with it.
Summers in Taipei are unbearably hot. Perhaps the two candidates can afford to use air conditioners, but many Taipei residents do not because they want to save money. Why not be a bit more creative and promise to try to find ways of making Taipei summers a bit cooler?
There are more and more small parks in the city, and there are also more and more small piles of dog excrement, which often leads to quarrels between neighbors. How should all those pet owners who do not fulfill their responsibilities be controlled? These may be small issues, but these are the kinds of issues that people care about.
The Taipei mayoral election is a battle of quality of living, and there is no need to discuss national policy issues.
It is easy to make big promises, but difficult to follow through, so one suggestion to the two candidates would be that they should start looking at small, everyday trivialities and systematically propose solutions that concern everyone.
They should try to build on the foundation laid by the current mayor and aim to create an international healthy city — a WHO concept — where people can make a good life.
Based on Ko’s perspective as a doctor, he could emulate the European experience of promoting international healthy cities in finding ways to solve Taipei’s perennial quality of living problem.
Lien studied in New York, yet what Taipei residents need is not a financial wizard, but a strategy that will bring Taipei living standards to the next level. New York converted an old abandoned freight rail line into the High Line Park: Perhaps there are other such creative solutions — rather than dead-end office building-oriented urban renewal projects — that could help make Taipei a more beautiful place.
It is only by proposing substantial ideas that concern voters that they will become interested.
Ted Chiou is a professor in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at Yuan Ze University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Taiwan-India relations appear to have been put on the back burner this year, including on Taiwan’s side. Geopolitical pressures have compelled both countries to recalibrate their priorities, even as their core security challenges remain unchanged. However, what is striking is the visible decline in the attention India once received from Taiwan. The absence of the annual Diwali celebrations for the Indian community and the lack of a commemoration marking the 30-year anniversary of the representative offices, the India Taipei Association and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center, speak volumes and raise serious questions about whether Taiwan still has a coherent India
Recent media reports have again warned that traditional Chinese medicine pharmacies are disappearing and might vanish altogether within the next 15 years. Yet viewed through the broader lens of social and economic change, the rise and fall — or transformation — of industries is rarely the result of a single factor, nor is it inherently negative. Taiwan itself offers a clear parallel. Once renowned globally for manufacturing, it is now best known for its high-tech industries. Along the way, some businesses successfully transformed, while others disappeared. These shifts, painful as they might be for those directly affected, have not necessarily harmed society
Legislators of the opposition parties, consisting of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), on Friday moved to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德). They accused Lai of undermining the nation’s constitutional order and democracy. For anyone who has been paying attention to the actions of the KMT and the TPP in the legislature since they gained a combined majority in February last year, pushing through constitutionally dubious legislation, defunding the Control Yuan and ensuring that the Constitutional Court is unable to operate properly, such an accusation borders the absurd. That they are basing this
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) on Monday rebuked seven Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers for stalling a special defense budget and visiting China. The legislators — including Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲), Yeh Yuan-chih (葉元之) and Lin Szu-ming (林思銘) — attended an event in Xiamen, China, over the weekend hosted by the Xiamen Taiwan Businessmen Association, where they met officials from Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO). “Weng’s decision to stall the special defense budget defies majority public opinion,” Wu said, accusing KMT legislators of acting as proxies for Beijing. KMT Legislator Wu Tsung-hsien (吳宗憲), acting head of the party’s Culture and Communications
RSS