Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) took office as Taipei mayor yesterday, pledging to deal with the long-drawn out Taipei Dome problem, traffic congestion in Neihu District (內湖) and urban renewal issues as soon as possible.
At an inauguration ceremony at Taipei City Hall in the morning, Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) stepped down after eight years as mayor and handed the mayor’s seal over to Chiang, the youngest Taipei mayor ever elected.
It was Taipei’s eighth inauguration ceremony to swear in a mayor.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
Ko said he advised Chiang’s administrative team that when facing tough choices, they should imagine themselves looking back to the present from 50 years in the future and the answer would be clear.
Ko said he hopes Chiang and his administrative team would uphold honesty and integrity in governance.
Most importantly, they should not sacrifice long-term interests for short-term ones, nor sacrifice the majority’s interests for those of a few people, or sacrifice national interests for party interests, he said.
The Taipei City Council in June passed self-governance regulations to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, which would be an important task for Chiang, he said.
In his inaugural address, Chiang said he has taken on the important task of guiding Taipei forward.
He understands that amid competition from international cities and facing an ever-changing global situation, a city that does not move forward would fall behind, so he would always strive to be better, Chiang said.
His team would pursue “four windows of opportunity”: making Taipei a prosperous city; making it a city where talented people would be willing to stay and could pursue creative endeavors; renewing Taipei to make it a modern city with more environmentally friendly buildings; and promoting Taipei’s local features and urban tourism to make it a charming city with cultural heritage, he said.
Chiang said he would meet with city departments to understand their needs and collect their opinions, and enable administrative operations to run smoothly.
He would speed up the handling of the Taipei Dome project, the Neihu traffic problem and urban renewal issues, he said.
Chiang reiterated his promise to finish the Taipei Dome construction project within a year of taking office, as well as resolve traffic congestion that has long been a serious concern for Neihu residents.
He has also pledged new urban renewal policies to Taipei residents, so he must get to work as soon as possible, Chiang said.
Newly elected and re-elected mayor and county commissioners nationwide were also sworn in yesterday.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS