Both Sinbei City mayoral hopefuls yesterday suggested that a near meet-up between their entourages was unsurprising, given that they have both ramped up their election events as part of campaign frenzy four days before Saturday’s elections.
Accompanied by firecrackers and watched by scores of spectators, their motorcades and dozens of supporters came within several city blocks of one another in tightly fought Yonghe (永和), part of Taipei County, which will be renamed Sinbei after its upgrade to a special municipality next month.
Smiling and waving to supporters, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) both stood in open-top jeeps leading motorcades stretching for dozens of meters.
PHOTO: CNA
Rain or shine, they said, they would make a last minute appeal to voters throughout the municipality, the country’s most populous.
Concerns over a clash were avoided after the two campaigns apparently agreed on a roadmap that avoided overlap, an issue that will grow more important as the two candidates are expected to meet again in Banciao (板橋) the day before the elections.
“It was a coincidence and it’s also another coincidence that we will meet again in Banciao. After all, we plan these events one or two weeks in advance,” said Chu, speaking of yesterday’s near miss.
Tsai agreed, adding that both camps likely chose Banciao as the site of their final election rallies on Friday because it is the seat of the county government.
“It’s the political and economic center of Taipei County and it will remain [so] for Sinbei City in the future,” she said.
The near meet-up took place just hours after Chu launched a new volley of criticism against Tsai’s campaign, attacking it for “masterminding an underhanded” letter campaign to sway voters through what he says are false accusations.
His campaign alleged that over the last two weeks, some residents have received documents alleging that Chu halted an old-age subsidy during his eight-year tenure as Taoyuan County commissioner and that he allowed factories to dump polluted water in Taoyuan rivers.
Speaking of the letters, signed by officials at Tsai’s campaign and a number of DPP city councilor candidates, Chu said he hoped Tsai, a former legal professor, “could maintain a scholar’s conscience and refrain from such actions.”
“[Unfortunately], the DPP has a history of using negative [attacks] in the last few days of any election ... I’m sure that it will happen again” before the election, he said, suggesting that Tsai could not prove her campaign’s allegations.
Officials at Tsai’s campaign have said that Chu’s campaign, which has filed a lawsuit over the documents, should respond truthfully to their assertions because their material is clearly sourced and signed. On the charges that Chu halted the old-age subsidy, the document is also signed by two DPP legislators, Kuo Jung-tsung (郭榮宗) and Huang Jen-shu (黃仁杼).
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan