One day after a heated candidates' debate, the three major contenders in the Hualien County commissioner by-election worked feverishly yesterday to solicit support.
The DPP's flag bearer in the race, You Ying-lung (
Chen, also a deputy superintendent of the institute, said Hualien's diverse ethnic groups, including Min-nan, Hakka and several Aboriginal tribes, provide abundant human resources for developments in cultural creativity, software engineering and agricultural bio-technology.
PHOTO: YANG YI-CHUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
You has made developing these sectors a major campaign promise.
Students from the institute's national policing class, female public administration class and Aboriginal affairs class -- representing elites from all walks of life -- yesterday gathered in Hualien to campaign for You, who made the power of intellect one of his campaign appeals.
While promising to improve education and the overall investment environment in Hualien, You said he will invite Chen to use her expertise in marketing to boost Hualien' s development.
Chen's trip to Hualien marked her debut at a campaign event.
She gave You advice on how to attract investment to Hualien, which has been seen as a backwater compared with other parts of the country.
Another heavyweight campaigner Lee Ming-liang (
Lee expressed his wish for a campaign free of vote-buying and encouraged You to continue to his push for clean campaigns.
The pan-blue candidate, Hsieh Shen-shan (謝深山), received support yesterday from PFP Vice Chairman Chang Chao-hsiung (張昭雄), who sought to reinforce Hsieh's image as the orthodox representative of the alliance and to dent support for Wu Wu Kuo-tung (吳國棟), a KMT splinter candidate.
Chang accused You of being arrogant and boastful about his high-level of education.
In a televised debate on Saturday, You said Hualien residents were "people with low democratic spirit."
According to Chang, "That's why so many people in Taiwan are dissatisfied with our education reform, because some people think themselves more capable simply because they have a better education."
Independent candidate Wu, a KMT renegade, said he wants to finish a project he began when he was a commissioner in the early 1990s -- to make Hualien an academic center through the establishment of more universities and to improve the county's bio-technology sector.
He also dismissed an accusation from Hsieh that he neglected the welfare of landowners during a land-acquisition case in the late 1980s when he was county commissioner.
"I procured the land with tremendous efficiency in five months and ensured that landowners got compensation three times higher than the market price," Wu said yesterday.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS