Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday that she would take responsibility if the party’s candidates did badly in next month’s special municipality elections.
“I will take any responsibility that I need to take, but our target is to elect more posts” on Nov. 27, said Tsai, the DPP’s mayoral candidate for Sinbei City, the new name of Taipei County after it is upgraded in December.
Her remarks come one day after DPP Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) said that past DPP chairpersons routinely stepped down following election losses.
“This is the DPP tradition,” he said after being questioned about a worst-case scenario.
Currently, the DPP holds two of the five mayoralties up for grabs — the greater Tainan and Kaohsiung areas. It is hoping to make inroads in either Taipei City or Taipei County, where both candidates have a chance of defeating their Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) counterparts, according to some polls.
The DPP’s chief election strategist, Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), said in Taichung County yesterday that the DPP would likely win “three-and-a-half seats” if the election were held tomorrow.
Busy shoring up support for DPP mayoral candidate for what will become Greater Taichung, Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) — who until recently was still trailing Tai-chung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) by double digits in the polls — Hsieh explained that the “half a seat” he mentioned referred to Sinbei, where Tsai is facing a tough challenge from KMT candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫).
DPP candidates for Taipei City, Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung were as good as elected, Hsieh said.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
‘JOINT SWORD’: Whatever President Lai says in his Double Ten speech, China would use it as a pretext to launch ‘punishment’ drills for his ‘separatist’ views, an official said China is likely to launch military drills this week near Taiwan, using President William Lai’s (賴清德) upcoming national day speech as a pretext to pressure the nation to accept its sovereignty claims, Taiwanese officials said. China in May launched “punishment” drills around Taiwan shortly after Lai’s inauguration, in what Beijing said was a response to “separatist acts,” sending heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks as state media denounced newly inaugurated Lai. The May drills were dubbed “Joint Sword — 2024A” and drew concerns from capitals, including Washington. Lai is to deliver a key speech on Thursday in front of the Presidential Office
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Taiwan was listed in 14th place among the world's wealthiest country in terms of GDP per capita, in the latest rankings released on Monday by Forbes magazine. Taiwan's GDP per capita was US$76,860, which put it at No. 14 on the list of the World's 100 Richest Countries this year, one spot above Hong Kong with US$75,130. The magazine's list of the richest countries in the world is compiled based on GDP per capita data, as estimated by the IMF. However, for a more precise measure of a nation's wealth, the magazine also considers purchasing power parity, which is a metric used to
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