President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will focus on a robust economy as his main campaign theme to secure enough votes for the presidential election just two months away, his campaign chief told foreign correspondents yesterday.
Faced with a narrow lead over his main challenger, Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Ma will seek to drive home the message that times have got better under his leadership, said King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), chief executive of Ma’s re-election campaign and who is widely regarded to be the president’s most trusted aide.
“In the less than two months to the vote, we’ll center our appeal on the economic issues,” King told the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents Club.
“We’ll let the voters understand that over the past more than three years the Ma administration has done more than the former government ever did. We’ll try to tell them how they’ll benefit if Ma gets re-elected,” he said.
Recent polls have shown that Ma’s lead over Tsai has narrowed considerably in recent weeks.
A survey released on Friday by the Taipei-based TVBS Poll Center found Ma leads with 39 percent to Tsai’s 38 percent, down from 38 percent compared with 35 percent a week earlier. The poll had a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points.
“All statistics indicate that Taiwan’s economy is moving in a positive direction. A pity, however, that this trend has been ignored by the media and the people,” King said.
Taiwan’s economy grew by 3.37 percent in the three months to September after expanding 10.88 percent last year following a substantial drop during the global economic recession.
King also said that Ma would not engage in unification or independence talks with China if he wins in January.
King reiterated Ma’s policy of “no unification, no independence and no use of force,” even as he seeks closer ties with China.
“If Tsai wins, there will be uncertainties in cross-straits relations,” King said. “The risk factor will rise and investors could withdraw.”
Better ties with China have helped Taiwan’s relations with other countries, King said.
Taiwan does not exclude the possibility of having formal diplomatic relations with countries that also have formal ties with China, regardless of Beijing’s stance, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Sunday. There was speculation in 2012 that Honduras was attempting to have simultaneous diplomatic relations with Taiwan and China, an idea that then-minister of foreign affairs David Lin (林永樂) rejected. Honduras severed formal ties with Taiwan on Sunday morning after establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing. President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has taken a more practical approach to relations with like-minded countries since assuming government in 2016. Previous administrations took the
WASHED ASHORE: Of the 16 bodies discovered along Taiwan’s west coast this month, two were Vietnamese and five were Taiwanese, coast guard officials said Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said that he has instructed prosecutors and maritime authorities to launch investigations after 16 bodies were found along Taiwan’s west coast this month, amid speculation that they were victims of smuggling or human trafficking rings. Coast Guard Administration (CGA) officials said the bodies, most of which had washed ashore, were found by coast guard personnel and local residents along the coastline from Keelung to Kaohsiung. Thirteen of the bodies are male and three are female, the CGA said, adding that items found on the bodies indicate that two of the men were Vietnamese, while three men
TASK FORCE DISPATCHED: MOFA said it would assist state employees with repatriation or relocation to other ally nations in the region after Tegucigalpa severed ties The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Monday ordered Honduras to vacate its embassy in Taiwan within 30 days of Sunday after Tegucigalpa made a similar demand of Taiwan. Taipei on Monday announced that it had cut ties with Honduras after the Central American nation earlier said in a statement that it had established ties with Beijing and ended its diplomatic relationship with Taiwan. Following the announcements, Honduran Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Garcia spoke on Honduran television saying that Taiwan would be required to vacate its embassy in the Honduran capital. In Taipei, MOFA later told a news conference that “according
CHINA TRIP: The former president said he hoped the two sides of the Taiwan Strait would work together to pursue peace, avoid war and strive to ‘revitalize China’ Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday began a 12-day tour of China with a visit to the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing. He paid tribute to Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), a founder of the Republic of China, giving a short speech and then bowing in front of the memorial. “The people of both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to the Chinese nation, are children of Yandi (炎帝) and Huangdi (黃帝),” he told reporters who had been allowed to follow him on the trip, referring to figures said to have founded of the Han ethnicity in ancient China. Ma has framed the trip as
RSS