Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) are expected to meet today at an event in Taipei to mark the anniversary of the 823 Artillery Bombardment.
The meeting is being widely interpreted as a sign that the three could collaborate for January’s presidential election, given that Ko has said he hoped Gou would run for president after the tycoon came in second in the KMT presidential primary.
The three had originally discussed meeting on the sidelines of a Buddhist ceremony in Taoyuan on Sunday, but Gou and Wang said they would not go after Ko told a radio show on Friday last week the pair had both asked him if he would be their vice president.
Gou’s and Wang’s offices on Wednesday confirmed that they had accepted invitations from the Taipei City Government to attend the event to commemorate the 61st anniversary of the 1958 bombardment, when China fired more than 470,000 shells at Kinmen over a 44-day period, which is also known as the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis.
Gou hopes to pay tribute to the military personnel who countered the bombardment and their families, his office said, while Wang’s office said the former legislative speaker would do likewise.
“On this day of great historical significance, people ought to be reminded of the cruelty of war and the price of peace,” Wang’s office said, adding that all Taiwanese across party lines should stand in solidarity for peace.
Asked to comment on the trio’s meeting, Ho Ting-huan (何庭歡), the campaign office spokeswoman for Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the KMT’s presidential candidate, yesterday said that Han respects their decisions.
Han would continue to try to contact Gou to discuss how to make the Republic of China better, she told reporters in Kaohsiung.
Meanwhile, KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Cheng Mei-hua (程美華) said she wonders if Ko really cares about the significance of the 823 Artillery Bombardment, or is hosting the event for political reasons.
The KMT truly cares about military personnel, and KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) had instructed members to step up the scale of the party’s Armed Forces Day celebration next month, she said.
The party believes that Gou and Wang are loyal members and would not judge them for attending the same event as Ko, she added.
Additional reporting by Wang Jung-hsiang, CNA and staff writer
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