Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday challenged Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to a TV debate, and urged Tsai to respond to difficult issues — especially those related to cross-strait ties.
Hung made the comments during a visit to an urban renewal project in New Taipei City alongside New Taipei City Mayor and KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫).
In response to media queries over whether she would feel confident about taking on Tsai in a public debate, Hung said that every candidate should take the opportunity to discuss their ideas.
“Things can be sorted out by debate, and people can then make their decisions accordingly,” she said.
It is said that Sanlih Television has secured the consent of Hung and People First Party presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) to appear in a televised debate, but is still waiting for the agreement of Tsai.
Hung said she has not just consented to appearing in a debate with Tsai, but would welcome the opportunity, adding that she cannot understand “why Tsai has been dodging it.”
Tsai has been reluctant to appear in a debate because she “does not have a policy direction, which makes it difficult for her to hold her own in a debate,” Hung claimed.
Hung said the most pressing issue on any debate between the two would be cross-strait ties.
“While there are many issues on public welfare that could be discussed, the presidential candidates basically have similar views on public welfare,” Hung said. “But the cross-strait policy is about the nation’s future direction, which is extremely important.”
Asked whether the KMT planned to hold major campaign rallies — as the DPP has been doing for Tsai, with the upper echelons of the KMT in attendance, Chu said what matters the most is visiting local residents.
“Going to different places in a day, and … visiting constituencies personally is actually better than holding big campaign events,” he said.
Separately yesterday, Tsai rebutted criticism from Hung that she had declined to appear on a televised debate.
“Debate is an important part of a presidential campaign, and I have been preparing for it, but the timing is more appropriate after all the candidates have registered — that is how it has always been in the past,” Tsai said.
Additional reporting by Loa Iok-sin
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’: A man watching Taiwanese military drills said that there would be nothing anyone could do if the situation escalates in the Taiwan Strait Many people in Taiwan look upon China’s military exercises over the past week with calm resignation, doubting that war is imminent and if anything, feeling pride in their nation’s determination to defend itself. After a visit to Taiwan last week by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China has sent ships and aircraft across an unofficial buffer between Taiwan and China’s coast and missiles over Taipei and into waters surrounding the nation since Thursday last week. However, Rosa Chang, proudly watching her son take part in Taiwanese military exercises that included dozens of howitzers firing shells into the Taiwan Strait off
RSS