A day after his election as a Greater Kaohsiung City councilor, former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) son spoke about his jailed father and an alliance of municipal council members who insist that Taiwan and China are separate countries.
Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), 31, won 32,947 votes, more than any other candidate running in the Greater Kaohsiung City Council election on Saturday.
As a member of the new “one side, one country” alliance, a political group dedicated to promoting Taiwan’s independence, Chen Chih-chung claimed that victory for him and other like-minded candidates signified an endorsement by voters.
More than 30 members of the alliance won council seats in the election, with nearly one-third becoming councilors in Greater Tainan, a municipality merging Tainan City and Tainan County.
Most members of the alliance are also members of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Chen Chih-chung attributed his big win to voters’ support for his father and said he would fight “for his father’s innocence.”
Earlier this month, the former president and his wife were each sentenced by the Supreme Court to a total of 19 years in jail on a series of corruption charges.
The younger Chen has his own share of legal problems. In a money-laundering case, he was sentenced by a higher court in June to 14 months in prison and fined NT$30 million (US$937,500). His appeal is pending in the Supreme Court. In July a tabloid magazine linked Chen Chih-chung to a prostitute. Although Chen filed libel lawsuits against the magazine and a rival politician, a district court ruled against him in both cases.
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Chinese wife of a Taiwanese, surnamed Liu (劉), who openly advocated for China’s use of force against Taiwan, would be forcibly deported according to the law if she has not left Taiwan by Friday, National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials said yesterday. Liu, an influencer better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), obtained permanent residency via marriage to a Taiwanese. She has been reported for allegedly repeatedly espousing pro-unification comments on her YouTube and TikTok channels, including comments supporting China’s unification with Taiwan by force and the Chinese government’s stance that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.” Liu
MINOR DISRUPTION: The outage affected check-in and security screening, while passport control was done manually and runway operations continued unaffected The main departure hall and other parts of Terminal 2 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport lost power on Tuesday, causing confusion among passengers before electricity was fully restored more than an hour later. The outage, the cause of which is still being investigated, began at about midday and affected parts of Terminal 2, including the check-in gates, the security screening area and some duty-free shops. Parts of the terminal immediately activated backup power sources, while others remained dark until power was restored in some of the affected areas starting at 12:23pm. Power was fully restored at 1:13pm. Taoyuan International Airport Corp said in a