New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), both candidates in next year’s presidential election, yesterday made a rare appearance together at the premiere of a documentary in Taipei.
The arrival of Hou and Ko in quick succession to an already crowded screening room caused a commotion as reporters scrambled to take photographs of them sitting together and shaking hands.
Their appearance temporarily disrupted the event and overshadowed the premiere of Taiwanese, Forward (台灣人前進), a documentary about democracy pioneer Chiang Wei-shui (蔣渭水) and his resistance movement in the 1920s against Japanese rule of Taiwan.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Following the screening, Hou, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential nominee, said he was “touched” by Chiang’s efforts to pursue democracy in Taiwan.
“We are all born here in Taiwan and are nurtured by this land,” he said, adding that it was important for Taiwanese to set aside their differences and work together for a better future.
“It is my dream to unite Taiwan,” he said.
Ko — who has on more than one occasion expressed his admiration for Chiang and named his party after Chiang’s Taiwanese People’s Party, despite opposition from Chiang’s descendants — said he would “inherit” Chiang’s unfinished work.
“I was thinking about the goals Chiang Wei-shui was unable to achieve 100 years ago... We can now take on the challenge and strive to [fulfill them],” he said, without specifying what those goals were.
The 51-minute documentary chronicles the legacy of Chiang and the Taiwanese Cultural Association, an organization founded by Chiang and others calling for greater autonomy for Taiwanese living under Japanese rule.
Established in 1921, the association was dedicated to cultivating cultural and political thinking among Taiwanese through lectures, theater and movie screenings, at a time when only affluent families could afford higher education.
Chiang, who had trained as a doctor, devoted much of his life to politics and is widely remembered as one of the earliest democracy activists in Taiwan.
The premiere was held on the campus of the Blessed Imelda’s School in Taipei, where the cultural association was headquartered more than a century ago.
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