Former Taipei deputy mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) on Thursday said that she has joined the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), a sign that she plans to return to politics ahead of next year’s presidential and legislative elections.
Huang, 53, is a former People First Party Taipei city councilor who later served as deputy in the administration of former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the founder and chair of the TPP.
She ran as an independent in Taipei’s mayoral election in November last year, garnering about 25 percent of the vote and finishing third.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Huang wrote on Facebook that she has officially joined the TPP, saying that after 24 years, public service has become a habit.
Huang wrote that she felt a responsibility to the 340,000 people who supported her bid to become Taipei mayor, many of whom were looking for an alternative to “political divisions and bondage to ideology.”
In this regard, “I firmly believe that Ko Wen-je and the TPP are the right choice for their honesty and integrity,” she said.
She wrote that she worked with Ko for five years as a city councilor and almost three years as deputy mayor, and learned in that time what it would take to root out corruption and plutocracy in government.
While Ko is “not perfect,” his approach to governing brought “visible changes” to the city in fiscal discipline, the pursuit of social justice and, above all, personal integrity, Huang said.
Although she fell short in her mayoral run, she remains convinced that the “social movement to reform Taiwan’s governing culture is blossoming and bearing fruit,” Huang said.
“Across Taiwan, there is a considerable proportion of centrist voters who have awakened from blue-green oppositionism and chosen more correct values,” she said, referring to the colors of Taiwan’s two main political parties, the Democratic Progressive Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Huang’s post did not give any details of her political plans, although her announcement came with just over nine months until the elections on Jan. 13 next year.
Ko is widely expected to run as the TPP’s presidential candidate, not least because his participation could help the party win additional seats in the legislature.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS