Former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) yesterday said it is not defeatist to ask fellow Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members to put more effort into the party and be more vigilant as the KMT is feeling more pressure than usual regarding the seven-in-one elections on Nov. 27.
Hau’s remarks were the second in as many days that he spoke on the topic, in an apparent defense of his son, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), who last week was accused of “defeatism” by KMT members for saying that “someone should be held accountable if the party loses the elections.”
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is also KMT chairman, warned against such comments, saying that people uttering words of no help to party solidarity should know their limits.
Photo: CNA
The 95-year-old former premier attempted to vindicate Hau Lung-bin’s comment in his speech at a Lunar New Year event held by the New Revolutionary Alliance (新同盟會) at the Armed Forces Officer’s Club in Taipei.
Ma and Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) also made an appearance at the event, but Hau Pei-tsun did not come face-to-face with Ma as he arrived after the president had left the venue.
Defeatism is capitulationism and the latter is characterized by Wang Jing-wei (汪精衛), better than by any Taiwanese figure, Hau Pei-tsun said.
Wang Jing-wei, a KMT member, formed a Japanese-supported collaborationist government in 1940 in China, when that country was at war with Japan, and is seen as a traitor by both the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party.
Hau Pei-tsun said that as the year-end elections approach, many harbor concerns over the KMT’s electoral outlook.
Someone who utters a warning about a looming electoral crisis is simply trying to caution party members and urge them to stay vigilant.
“How in the world is that a defeatist stance? Those who said that have no idea what defeatism means,” he said.
The senior Hau added that he has no problem with people criticizing his son, but claiming that the Taipei mayor is a defeatist is an outright mistake, an unjust accusation and “ignorant and childish.”
“Defeatism is a question of right and wrong, not of a family or an individual,” Hau Pei-tsun said.
He added that this year is a crucial year for the KMT and it must win in the coming elections.
He said that those who love Taiwan have to love the Republic of China (ROC) and only those who love the ROC truly love Taiwan.
ROC nationals are Chinese and those claiming that Taiwanese are not Chinese are the unworthy descendants of Zhonghua minzu (中華民族, Chinese ethnic group), he said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS