Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said she would protect the nation’s sovereignty and the dignity of all Taiwanese with the perseverance of the Hakka people.
The party’s presidential candidate made the remark at the launch of her Hakka campaign support group in Taipei yesterday.
Hakka are the second-largest communal group in Taiwan behind speakers of Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese). The DPP estimates that Hakka and their descendents could represent as many as a quarter of the nation’s population of about 23 million.
The DPP has often struggled to gain Hakka support during elections. A recent DPP survey shows that it trails the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) by about 10 percent among Hakka voters in that region.
Former Hakka Affairs Commission minister Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭), former DPP Hsinchu County commissioner Lin Guang-hua (林光華) and Hakka author Lee Chiao (李喬) were among the Hakka heavyweights who appeared at the event yesterday to show their support for Tsai.
“I am a Hakka woman. I am proud of being of Hakka descent,” Tsai said at the beggining of her speech.
“Over the past three years, many people have expressed concern over the erosion of Taiwan’s sovereignty. As a leader, one should uphold national sovereignty and people’s dignity, those are things a president should do for the people,” Tsai said.
Saying that the Hakka community has made important contributions in a variety of fields, such as literature and music, thereby helping to sustain the development of a diverse range of culture throughout the nation, Tsai added that “developing local economics based on the Hakka characteristics of persistence and toughness is what we should do for the next generation.”
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