Former New Party legislator Yao Li-ming (姚立明) has given his nod to independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) invitation to join his election campaign team, saying he hopes the move can help usher in change between the opposing pan-blue and pan-green camps.
Now a political commentator, Yao was once a key figure in the anti-corruption movement, or the so-called “red-shirt army,” in 2006 against then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Yao is also a member of the pan-blue, pro-unification New Party.
Photo: CNA
Ko’s recruitment of Yao is widely viewed as an effort to broaden his electoral base.
Yao said in a statement posted on Facebook early yesterday morning that before making the final decision, he had taken time to ponder and weigh different factors, “but the determining factor is my wish to prove with this move that the deep-seated blue-green opposition can be changed.”
“Ko came from a family that had suffered from the 228 Massacre, while my parents came from China. Ko is green-leaning and I was once a New Party member. He was Chen Shui-bian’s physician and medical adviser, while I was the deputy commander-in-chief of the red-shirt army,” Yao said.
Photo: Tu Chu-min, Taipei Times
Out of all these differences, “there is something that we have in common,” he said.
“Neither of us wants to sit idly while witnessing Taiwan get drained away by the endless vicious blue-green infighting,” he said.
Yao underscored the consensus he had reached with Ko to look beyond political colors and focus on “black and white, and right and wrong,” saying that he expected the year-end mayoral election to be “not only an election, but also a civic movement that stops Taiwanese politics from descending into depravity.”
Former Democratic Progressive Party chairperson Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) lauded Yao’s decision and said on Facebook that Yao’s joining the campaign has made the goal of “transcending blue and green” one step closer.
However, given Yao’s background and past comments, there will no doubt be plenty of noise about his teaming up with Ko, Hsieh said.
Taipei Veterans General Hospital physician Kuo Cheng-deng (郭正典), a supporter of the former president and a member of his all-volunteer medicall team, said that Ko’s move might put off Chen supporters.
Janice Chen (陳昭姿), also a member of the medical team, agreed, saying that it would be even stranger if no one protests against Yao joining Ko’s campaign team.
However, “for the time being, [I] believe that as Yao has accepted Ko’s offer, he is willing to understand and assist what Ko has done so far to rescue the former president, whom Ko believes has suffered from political persecution,” she said.
A report by the Chinese-language Apple Daily yesterday said that Yao supports medical parole or home-based medical care for Chen if that is what the hospital suggests.
However, if the hospital says he can be treated behind bars, Chen should remain in prison to serve his sentence, he was reported as saying.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS