President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday paid a visit to Ma Village (馬家庄) in Miaoli County, where he expressed his gratitude for support for his re-election bid by the Hakka constituency and promised to continue efforts to promote Hakka culture and local development.
Accompanied by Commission of Hakka Affairs Director Huang Yu-cheng (黃玉振) and Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hong (劉政鴻), Ma worshiped ancestors in the village before distributing hongbao (red envelopes) as a New Year’s gift.
Speaking in Hakka, Ma stressed his Hakka origins and detailed the government’s efforts to promote Hakka affairs and preserve Hakka culture.
Photo: CNA
“I am a Hakka, not a visitor … Taiwan has the best-preserved Hakka culture of any Chinese society and, as a country of ethnic varieties, we hope all the ethnic groups can learn to appreciate and respect each other,” he said.
More than 1,000 residents lined up in front of the village to receive red envelopes from the president, and they burst into cheers when he arrived.
Ma’s visit to Ma village marked his 14th trip there, part of an effort to build relations with the Hakka community. However, while most of the village’s residents are surnamed Ma, none of the Hong Kong-born president’s relatives have ever lived there.
There are large populations of Hakka people in Miaoli, Hsinchu and Taoyuan counties and those areas are traditionally considered pan-blue strongholds where the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enjoys solid support. Ma won more than 63 percent of votes in Miaoli County in the Jan. 14 presidential election.
Ma used yesterday’s visit to say thank you for the continuous support he has received from Hakka communities and pledged to spend the next four years reviving the economy, building a clean government and promoting cross-strait development while maintaining the cross-strait “status quo.”
“The result of this presidential election provides reassurance that my administration is leading the country on the right track and more than half of the people support our reform efforts … I will use the next four years to help Taiwan achieve greatness,” he said later yesterday during a visit to a temple in Maioli.
Meanwhile, Premier and vice president-elect Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) prayed for the country’s great fortune and distributed hongbao at Taipei’s Chihnan Temple.
However, he once again declined to comment on who his successor as premier might be or when the Cabinet might be reshuffled.
MAKING WAVES: China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday. Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about 1,900 as
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
RSS