Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that he is unpredictable and therefore difficult to deal with, when responding to speculation about whether he would run for president next year.
Ko made the remark while attending the groundbreaking ceremony for the Chenggong traditional market (成功市場) reconstruction project in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) yesterday morning.
He had been asked to comment on a news report which quoted a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) campaign official as saying that the chance of Ko running is diminishing, so the party should not provoke him and rather focus on strategies to beat the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜).
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
“The most difficult part when dealing with Ko Wen-je is that he is too difficult to predict,” the Taipei mayor said. “Never try to predict Ko Wen-je.”
Ko asked who the DPP official quoted in the report was.
Upon hearing that the report did not reveal the official’s identity, he said he often reads news reports quoting people such as “someone close to Ko,” “Ko’s personal aide” or “a city government official,” so he does not take them very seriously.
Asked about poll results suggesting that his approval rating is lower than Han’s, but higher than President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文), and that if he did join the race, one-third of Tsai’s supporters might vote for him, Ko said people should not take poll results too seriously.
Ko said he does not really understand what Han meant at the KMT’s National Congress on Sunday when he said: “The next presidential election will be a battle to decide the life or death of the Republic of China.”
He does not like Han’s suggestion that overseas Taiwanese should write complaint letters to their local government officials about Tsai’s administration, because one should provide clear evidence when trying to accuse others, Ko said.
Asked to comment on the protests in Hong Kong, Ko said: “Mainland China should seriously face the issues in Hong Kong, as it is similar to the situation in Taiwan from 2013 to 2014,” apparently referring to the Sunflower movement.
“I’ve been thinking that only a strong Taiwan can provide resources and protection to Hong Kong, so if Taiwan is too weak, mainland China will not have to succumb when dealing with issues in Hong Kong,” he said.
“The process of democratization in Taiwan over the past 30 years could become an inspiration for China,” he said, adding that when a country’s economic development has reached a certain level, it is hard to maintain a divide between economic development and political development.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
STRIKE: Some travel agencies in Taiwan said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group tours to the country were proceeding as planned A planned strike by airport personnel in South Korea has not affected group tours to the country from Taiwan, travel agencies said yesterday. They added that they were closely monitoring the situation. Personnel at 15 airports, including Seoul’s Incheon and Gimpo airports, are to go on strike. They announced at a news conference on Tuesday that the strike would begin on Friday next week and continue until the Mid-Autumn Festival next month. Some travel agencies in Taiwan, including Cola Tour, Lion Travel, SET Tour and ezTravel, said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
RSS