Although most DPP heavyweights have suggested the party's presidential candidate, Chen Shui-bian (
DPP leaders said yesterday that party polls show that a Chen-Lu ticket would garner more votes than any other possible combination. At the same time, Chen has yet to succeed in wooing potential candidates from outside the party whom he has indicated he would prefer.
"Tainan City mayor Mark Chen (陳唐山), and former Chiayi County commissioner Chang Po-ya (
Chen went on to point out that Lu has greatly contributed to promoting Taiwan's position in the international community, which could help Chen to mitigate criticism from those who say he lacks international savvy.
"As an eloquent speaker and a prominent woman politician, Lu is a better choice than any other party member," Chen Chi-mai stressed.
However, other party faction leaders disagreed yesterday, saying Chen should not limit his choice to just a select few within the party.
"If Chen really goes back to finding a running mate inside the DPP, it reveals that Chen is facing trouble in making a breakthrough. As far as I know, Chen has yet to make a final decision," said Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁), a National Assembly deputy and a member of the DPP central standing committee.
Wu and Chiou I-jen (
DPP lawmaker Chien Hsi-chieh emphasized that Chen is still consulting with DPP leaders about his running mate, and has still not given up on the idea of finding someone from business or academic circles.
"We can only say that Lu has more chance of being chosen right now," Chien said.
Although a number of senior party members appear to be balking at the idea, Chen looks very much as if he is heading in a fixed direction.
"Chen does have a designated choice. And some party heavyweights are insisting that Chen publicize his choice as soon as possible, if he has decided to select a party member," said DPP spokesman Lo Wei-chia (
Others in the DPP have suggested that Lu is not easy to negotiate with, as she is very opinionated and tends to dominate her dealings with others.
Lu herself, meanwhile, said yesterday that she was glad to contribute her ability in helping the DPP win the presidential election, and she appealed to the party to allow Chen to make his decision without rushing.
"We should give Chen more space to consider things," Lu said.
One member of Chen's campaign office added yesterday that Chen Shui-bian planned to announce his running mate before mid-October.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
MANAGING DIFFERENCES: In a meeting days after the US president signed a massive foreign aid bill, Antony Blinken raised concerns with the Chinese president about Taiwan US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and senior Chinese officials, stressing the importance of “responsibly managing” the differences between the US and China as the two sides butt heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues, including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Talks between the two sides have increased over the past few months, even as differences have grown. Blinken said he raised concerns with Xi about Taiwan and the South China Sea, along with China’s support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, as well as other issues
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B