President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday traveled around the nation to celebrate Christmas Eve with the public at various events, adding holiday atmosphere to his re-election campaign.
Wearing a white hooded sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, Ma spent the afternoon with a group of young supporters at his campaign headquarters in Taipei City, giving out red talismans, one of his campaign souvenirs, and singing Christmas carols with children who suffer from rare diseases.
Amid cheers from his young supporters, Ma took the occasion to promote the establishment of the nation’s Constitution, as today is also Constitution Day in Taiwan, and promised to continue the democratic development of Taiwan, turning the nation into what former US president George W. Bush called a “beacon of democracy in Asia and the world.”
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
“Taiwan’s full-fledged democracy is a model for many of our Asian neighbors. Recent presidential debates and policy platform presentations, for example, were broadcast in many countries even though many people don’t recognize the candidates. Why? Because they don’t have [democratic debates] in their countries,” he said.
He then played trivia games with the supporters, asking them questions ranging from the year the Constitution was established to the day of the presidential election, before joining children with rare illnesses to sing Christmas carols.
Ma later attended a Christmas party organized by the Presbyterian Church in New Taipei City (新北市). Accompanied by New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), Ma gave his blessings to the nation and handed out gifts to the crowd at New Taipei City Hall.
He then headed to Greater Kaohsiung to attend a Midnight Mass service to be conducted by Cardinal Paul Shan Kuo-hsi (單國璽).
Ma will focus his election campaign in northern Taiwan today, canvassing the streets in Taoyuan and visiting local temples in the afternoon, and campaigning for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative candidates in Hsinchu in the evening.
Ma’s re-election campaign office said he would make home-stay trips again from Tuesday to Thursday, spending nights at residents’ homes in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli to consolidate support in traditional pan-blue strongholds.
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