Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is working hard and looking forward to the first of three crucial TV presidential debates, which will be held on Saturday.
With recent public opinion polls showing Tsai has overtaken President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is seeking re-election, in public support, Tsai will seek to solidify her lead in the presidential race with strong performances in the debates.
Candidates representing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the DPP and the People First Party (PFP) will take part in the debates, which will take place on Saturday, Dec. 10 and Dec. 17, and will be hosted by the Central News Agency and five other media outlets — Public Television Service (PTS), the China Times, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper), the United Daily News and the Apple Daily.
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
The first debate will be held from 2pm to 4:30pm on Saturday and will be moderated by the organizing media outlets. The second will be moderated by representatives from NGOs.
The DPP is using Tsai’s speech at the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei last week to prepare for the debates, as Tsai spoke immediately after Ma on that occasion.
The party said it was pleased with the results.
The debates will be more than just an opportunity to extend Tsai’s lead in the polls, but also an occasion for her to take “revenge” for the first debate between her and Ma last year, in which Ma was widely considered to have bested his opponent.
That debate took place in April last year, and centered on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA).
While Tsai has long been known for her logic and recognized as an articulate speaker and a “thinker,” most analysts said after the debate that Ma was more successful in appealing to the audience, despite dodging most of Tsai’s questions.
Ma will not be Tsai’s only opponent this time, with PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) also entering the debates as the third presidential candidate.
While Soong is expected to focus most of his attacks on Ma, he is unlikely to give Tsai much breathing room.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
RSS