China-based businessmen who support Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) launched a campaign group yesterday, vowing to mobilize at least 300,000 China-based Taiwanese to return to Taiwan and vote for Ma in the March election.
"The support of Taiwanese businessmen for Ma will be crucial in the election. The more China-based Taiwanese businessmen cast their votes for Ma, the more likely Ma is to win the presidential election," the group's director, KMT Legislator Huang Lian-hua (
When asked to explain how 300,000 people would return from China to cast their votes given the limited seats on flights and other transport, KMT Mainland Affairs Division Director Chang Jung-kung (
When asked the same question, Huang said that the newly formed group might create a travel schedule for voters and their families to return to Taiwan at different times, all in time for the election.
A businessman at the event who requested anonymity said that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had increased efforts to build contacts with groups of China-based businessmen.
He expressed skepticism about how many businessmen would come home to vote.
Addressing the event yesterday, Ma pledged to carry out his campaign policy of implementing cross-strait charter flights during weekends and expanding the scope of the small three links immediately after his inauguration on May 20 if elected.
He also promised to remove restrictions on financial investment in China and to sign economic cooperation and investment protection agreements with China to ensure the interests of Taiwanese operating businesses there.
"The Democratic Progressive Party has offered five noes: no convenience, no protection, no support, no opportunities and no dignity to China-based Taiwanese businessmen," Ma said. "My running mate Vincent Siew (
More than 400 China-based Taiwanese businessmen and KMT heavyweights, including Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
Meanwhile, DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday unveiled his campaign logo, showing seven people standing hand-in-hand on top of the word "Taiwan."
Campaign director Yeh Chu-lan (
"Simple is powerful. The logo, with a blue-green Taiwan and people in the colors of the rainbow, highlights Hsieh's goal of leading the country toward social reconciliation and reform," Yeh told reporters at a press conference yesterday.
Also see story:
MILITARY BOOST: The procurement was planned after Washington recommended that Taiwan increase its stock of air defense missiles, a defense official said yesterday Taiwan is planning to order an additional four PAC-3 MSE systems and up to 500 missiles in response to an increasing number of missile sites on China’s east coast, a defense official said yesterday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the proposed order would be placed using the defense procurement special budget, adding that about NT$1 trillion (US$32,88 billion) has been allocated for the budget. The proposed acquisition would include launchers, missiles, and a lower tier air and missile defense radar system, they said The procurement was planned after the US military recommended that Taiwan increase
POLITICAL AGENDA: Beijing’s cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival events are part of a ‘cultural united front’ aimed at promoting unification with Taiwan, academics said Local authorities in China have been inviting Taiwanese to participate in cross-strait Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations centered around ideals of “family and nation,” a move Taiwanese academics said politicizes the holiday to promote the idea of “one family” across the Taiwan Strait. Sources said that China’s Fujian Provincial Government is organizing about 20 cross-strait-themed events in cities including Quanzhou, Nanping, Sanming and Zhangzhou. In Zhangzhou, a festival scheduled for Wednesday is to showcase Minnan-language songs and budaixi (布袋戲) glove puppetry to highlight cultural similarities between Taiwan and the region. Elsewhere, Jiangsu Province is hosting more than 10 similar celebrations in Taizhou, Changzhou, Suzhou,
TWO HEAVYWEIGHTS: Trump and Xi respect each other, are in a unique position to do something great, and they want to do that together, the US envoy to China said The administration of US President Donald Trump has told Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) “we don’t want any coercion, but we want [the Taiwan dispute] resolved peacefully,” US ambassador to China David Perdue said in a TV interview on Thursday. Trump “has said very clearly, we are not changing the ‘one China’ policy, we are going to adhere to the Taiwan Relations Act, the three communiques and the ‘six assurances’ that were done under [former US president Ronald] Reagan,” Perdue told Joe Kernen, cohost of CNBC’s Squawk Box. The act, the Three Joint Communiques and the “six assurances” are guidelines for Washington
DEEPENING TIES: The two are boosting cooperation in response to China’s coercive actions and have signed MOUs on search-and-rescue and anti-smuggling efforts Taiwan and Japan are moving to normalize joint coast guard training and considering the inclusion of other allies, the Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday. Both nations’ coast guards in June sent vessels to the seas south of the Sakishima Islands to conduct joint training, the report said, adding that it was the second joint maritime training exercise since the nations severed formal diplomatic ties in September 1972. Japan dispatched the Nagoya Coast Guard’s Mizuho, a 134m, 6,000-tonne patrol vessel which can carry a helicopter, while the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sent the 126m, 4,000-tonne Yunlin, one of its largest vessels, the report