Eight more James Soong (
Those on the expulsion list included former Legislative Yuan Speaker Liu Sung-fan (
Former deputy director of the Government Information Office Yen Jung-chang (顏榮昌) was also on the list, as he is now a spokesman for the independent candidate.
The others are all leading strategists or supporters of Soong, who was stripped of party membership in November after insisting on running without the KMT's nomination.
"Committee members unanimously agreed to revoke their memberships," said Chien Wei-chang (
In response, Liu said the Soong camp is very likely to win the election.
Former justice minister Liao Cheng-hao (
A total of 36 people have been expelled from the KMT so far for openly supporting the popular former Taiwan governor.
Soong has taken the lead in some recent public opinion polls -- showing signs of recovering from a financial scandal which had dragged his support rating to below 30 percent and threatened to derail his campaign.
In a survey conducted by a local paper on Friday, 23 percent of the 1,359 people polled said they would vote for Soong and his running mate, cardiologist Chang Chao-hsiung (
Rivals Chen Shui-bian (
The KMT's presidential candidate, Vice President Lien Chan (連戰), and his running mate Premier Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) received only a 19 percent support rating.
However, 36 percent of respondents said they were still undecided, according to the poll.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
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