Former Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corp president Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) yesterday announced that he is running for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairmanship.
Han made the announcement at a news conference a day after he tendered his resignation from his company post.
Shortly after making the announcement, Han turned and hugged a stack of cabbages behind him, saying that it was a symbolic gesture representing his embrace of public opinion.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The former politician, known for his combative style, said that over the past few years he never ignored public opinion from the grassroots level and that if the KMT does not take public opinion seriously, it will lose support.
Earlier that day, Han said in a statement that he was willing to run for mayor in Tainan or Kaohsiung in next year’s local elections if no suitable KMT candidates step forward.
“Give me a place to stand and I shall move the Earth,” Han said, partially quoting Greek scientist Archimedes.
He added that he will reform the entire KMT and give Taiwan a “healthy political party.”
The former three-term lawmaker also proposed that the KMT put all of its assets into a trust, and deal with related issues through legal processes.
He said that if he is elected KMT chairman, he will make party assets transparent.
Han also called for party reform, suggesting that the party’s structure be streamlined into four departments: a chairperson’s office; an organizational department; a public opinion, policymaking and public relations department; and an overseas liaison department.
Han, 59, is the fourth hopeful to enter the race after former vice president Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱).
When he was a member of the Legislative Yuan in the 1990s, he once physically attacked fellow lawmaker Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who became president of Taiwan in May 2000.
At the time, Han said he became aggressive to counter the violent behavior of Chen’s colleagues in the then-opposition Democratic Progressive Party.
The KMT election is slated for May 20.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TAIWAN ADVOCATES: The resolution, which called for the recognition of Taiwan as a country and normalized relations, was supported by 22 Republican representatives Two US representatives on Thursday reintroduced a resolution calling for the US to end its “one China” policy, resume formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan and negotiate a bilateral Taiwan-US free trade agreement. Republican US representatives Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s 10th District were backed by 22 Republican members of the US House of Representatives. The two congressmen first introduced the resolution together in 2021. The resolution called on US President Donald Trump to “abandon the antiquated ‘one China’ policy in favor of a policy that recognizes the objective reality that Taiwan is an independent country, not
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)