President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has failed to deliver almost all of his Hakka-related campaign pledges over his three-and-a-half years in office, representatives from various Hakka groups told a press conference yesterday.
Ma, who is seeking re-election in January, has said at his presidential campaign stops that he has carried out all of the pledges he made to Hakka people in his 2008 presidential campaign.
The representatives said otherwise, with Taiwan Hakka Society chairman Chang Yeh-shen (張葉森) saying Ma has not delivered any of his nine pledges and has cheated the Hakka community, making him unqualified for a second term.
According to Yiong Cong-ziin (楊長鎮), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) legislative candidate in Miaoli County, Ma has not done anything to deliver on his campaign promises: He has not established a national Hakka-language radio station or Hakka culture development areas; he has not recognized the Hakka language as a public language; he has not promoted Taiwan as a global leader of Hakka culture; and he has not enacted laws required for such policies.
“His integrity as a national leader is therefore questionable. He should apologize to the Hakka people,” Yiong said.
Ma also failed to double the budget for Hakka affairs in four years — as he had promised to do, former Hsinchu County commissioner Lin Kwang-hua (林光華), a Hakka, said, adding that this year’s budget was listed at NT$3.2 billion (US$10.5 million) — a 33 percent increase from the 2008 budget of NT$2.4 billion allocated under the previous DPP administration.
The Ma administration spent most of its Hakka budget on media promotion, festivals and activities that were “basically ineffective in promoting Hakka culture,” Taipei Hakka Association of Public Affairs chairman Chen Shih-shan (陳石山) said.
Wen Ming-chung (溫明忠), a professor at National Taiwan Normal University, said the Executive Yuan had scrapped Article 13 of the Hakka Basic Act (客家基本法), which stipulated the establishment of the developmental fund for sectors with Hakka characteristics.
In other words, Wen said, the Ma administration eliminated a regulation that would have helped fulfill Ma’s campaign promise.
The press conference was the second time this month the Hakka community slammed the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for what it called failed Hakka policies.
On Nov. 16, leaders from local Hakka groups slammed former KMT chairman Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄) for calling DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) a “pseudo-Hakka” for her lack of Hakka language proficiency and demanded that the KMT apologize for what they said was its past policy of “linguistic genocide.”
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck Chiayi County at 4:37pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 36.3km southeast of Chiayi County Hall at a depth of 10.4km, CWA data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Chiayi County, Tainan and Kaohsiung on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Pingtung, Taitung, Hualien, Changhua, Nantou and Penghu counties, the data
The Supreme Court today rejected an appeal filed by former Air Force officer Shih Chun-cheng (史濬程), convicted of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) espionage, finalizing his sentence at two years and two months for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法). His other ruling, a ten-month sentence for an additional contravention, was meanwhile overturned and sent to the Taichung branch of the High Court for retrial, the Supreme Court said today. Prosecutors have been notified as Shih is considered a flight risk. Shih was recruited by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence officials after his retirement in 2008 and appointed as a supervisor
RSS