Taipei Times: Many supporters of independent presidential candidate James Soong (
Wu: We fought this battle by ourselves. President Lee did devote every effort to help Lien. Chen is not a member of Lee's party. I think Lien lost the presidential campaign because he did not try diligently enough during the campaign, but Chen did. What I can say is that Lee may feel sorry that Chen is not a KMT member.
TT: What do you think the results of the next election will be? Who do you think will be Chen's greatest rival in the next four years?
Wu: PFP chairman James Soong will definitely run in the presidential election again. But KMT acting chairman Lien Chan (
Soong still enjoys strong support from voters, and he will only be 64-years old when the next campaign takes place.
Lien will be 69 years old if he runs in the next campaign, which is too old.
Moreover, Lien will not necessarily win the coming KMT chairmanship election at the KMT's Extraordinary National Congress in June.
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
TT: And how do you compare Chen with Ma?
Wu: Ma is a politician without guts (
When we lost the mayoral incumbency, Chen did feel frustrated. But he was determined to make a comeback and immediately braced up to fight again.
Chen always accepts challenges and is a bold person who's willing to "gamble," when he has to choose a direction or make a decision. He can give up everything to fight for a larger goal and then never shifts his mind when facing stiff opposition.
Ma, on the other hand, tries to keep away from "dirty things" (
TT: Will you still be President Chen's close adviser or will you run in any campaigns as a candidate yourself?
Wu: No, I will not run for official office myself. I am not interested in being a public representative.
In the past decades, I gave Chen some important suggestions, which helped him to make decisions. I encouraged him to be the defense counsel in the Kaohsiung Incident (美麗島事件) in 1979, to run for the Taipei City Mayor election instead of the Taiwan Provincial Governor in 1994 and to run for the DPP chairmanship election in 1998 and give up the mayoral election [to run in the 2000 presidential campaign].
I know Chen was not satisfied with being mayor because he wanted something bigger.
We are confident he can remain as president for eight years. After all, to run in a presidential campaign is not like a mayoral election, it is impossible to suddenly become a presidential candidate.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘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
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
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