The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) needs to be changed “from the root,” former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and former Taipei County commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) agreed yesterday.
In a 40-minute live-stream hosted on Chou’s Facebook page ahead of the party’s chairperson election on Saturday, the two men, who were interviewed while working in a garden, were asked whether weeding was “like reform.”
“Yes,” Chou said. “Change must start from the root.”
“When you are weeding, you must remove the roots,” said Hau, who has served as KMT vice chairman three times and is up against KMT Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) in the election.
“The same goes for reform. You have to solve the fundamental problem,” he said.
The KMT’s “fundamental problem” is its culture, and while some parts of it should be kept, others need to be changed, he said.
In the past, there was only “one voice” in the KMT — that of the chairperson, but the chairperson “is not a saint,” he said. “The party chairperson also makes mistakes.”
With a collective leadership that considers multiple opinions, there would be “few chances of making mistakes,” he added.
In an online interview on Saturday, Hau proposed the KMT post a representative to China.
Asked about former KMT Central Committee member Vincent Hsu (徐正文), whose party membership was suspended over suspicions that he altered the passenger list for the first charter flight of Taiwanese evacuated from Wuhan, China, last month, Hau on Saturday said that “all KMT members must safeguard the party’s image.”
“Those who act without authority and damage the party’s image should be disciplined,” he said.
Although the KMT is an opposition party, it would do its part to help Taiwanese living or working in China, so it “should have a party representative there,” he said.
The KMT also needed to tackle its public image of being “old and pro-China,” and should prohibit members from benefitting personally when handling cross-strait affairs, he said.
On the question of the KMT’s position on unification and independence, Hau said that “defending the Republic of China, opposing Taiwanese independence and rejecting the ‘one country, two systems’” framework proposed by China are the party’s core ideals.
The KMT lags far behind the Democratic Progressive Party in its social media presence, which could seriously limit its development unless something is done, he said.
Only by embracing social media could the party better connect with the public, particularly younger people, Hau said.
Saturday’s by-election is to select a successor to former chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), who resigned following the KMT’s defeats in the elections on Jan. 11.
AGGRESSION: China’s latest intrusions set a new benchmark for its ‘gray zone’ tactics and possibly a new pattern that it would attempt to normalize, a researcher said China’s latest military exercises represent a new challenge to Taiwan’s legal authority to demarcate its borders in the Taiwan Strait, a defense expert said, adding that the fleets in the latest exercises were likely the most powerful the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ever assembled. The PLA conducted military exercises from Sunday last week to 6am on Friday, which encompassed large swathes of the western Pacific, including the Taiwan Strait and waters off the Philippines and Guam, National Policy Foundation associate research fellow Chieh Chung (揭仲) said on Friday. The Ministry of National Defense said that it detected 70 warship and 162 aircraft
DOMESTIC MARKET: To protect the livelihoods of local egg farmers, the government adopted a new method for releasing imported eggs, the agriculture minister said More than 54 million imported eggs will be disposed, as their expiration date has passed, Minister of Agriculture Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said yesterday. Chen made the remarks at a news conference in Taipei, explaining the flow of imported eggs following recent controversies regarding the products. The ministry introduced a special egg import program to address a nationwide egg shortage earlier this year. However, controversies have risen in recent weeks. These included an accusation that the government helped some egg importing companies over others, eggs imported from Brazil that had an incorrect expiration date, and egg shipments from Brazil that were found
PACIFIC OCEAN: Defense experts have warned that the ‘Shandong,’ China’s second largest aircraft carrier, poses a serious threat to eastern Taiwan’s defenses The drills conducted by the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in the Western Pacific last week were more aimed at showcasing China’s military capabilities to the US rather than toward Taiwan, a Taiwanese defense expert said yesterday. Lin Yin-yu (林穎佑), an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, said the drills which involved dozens of warplanes sought to test China’s anti-access and area denial capabilities should the US and its allies attempt to interfere in a cross-strait conflict. Lin said that the latest Chinese drills coincided with a joint maritime exercise conducted by the US, South Korea
Thousands of bottles of Sriracha have been returned or destroyed after the discovery of excessive sulfur dioxide, a bleaching agent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday. About 12,600 bottles totaling 9,991.8kg of the hot sauce imported from the US by Emporium Corp (河洛企業) were flagged at the border for containing illegal levels of sulfur dioxide, the FDA said in its regular border inspection announcement. Inspectors discovered 0.5g per kilogram of the common bleaching agent and preservative, higher than the 0.03g permitted, it said. As it is the first time within six months the product has been flagged, Sriracha products from
RSS