Newspapers polls over the last few days have shown Lien and Soong ahead of Chen by 17 to 25 percentage points.
China's concealment for months of the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), has hurt Beijing's image here, however, and the DPP is starting to exploit that.
"It has made many Taiwanese people think twice about doing business with an authoritarian government," said DPP Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), the director of the party's international affairs section.
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) issued a statement on Monday evening offering to let Chen choose a different running mate for his re-election campaign.
Her outspoken criticisms of China, sometimes going beyond those of Chen, had won her the admiration of many within her party but made her controversial with the broader public.
In an interview on Monday, Soong said he still believed that he had a chance at winning the presidency on his own.
He said that he chose an alliance with Lien instead because he thought the country needed a president who could win more than 50 percent of the vote.
The selection of Lien, 66, and Soong, 61, underlines the continued dominance of older politicians over the conservative wing of national politics, despite the ties that these two men bring to the country's authoritarian past.
The most popular politician by far in the country today, polls show, is Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
But while Ma, at 52, is seven months older than Chen, he is still viewed within the KMT as too young for national leadership.
The KMT has a strong Confucian history of respect for elders, said Shaw Yu-ming (
"Ma will have his day by behaving mildly, politely," Shaw said.
Soong said that he and Lien both had more experience than Ma and could rely on the wide networks of skilled aides that each had gathered over the years.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
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