President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) began his campaign for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman election, in which he is the sole candidate, by giving seven presentations in southern Taiwan yesterday.
Ma proposed dealing with party assets, enhancing cooperation between the party and the government, using the Central Standing Committee as the communication platform between the party and the government, reforming the party, offering candidates with integrity and cultivating younger talent.
“I am not running in the KMT chairman election to expand my power, but to fulfill my responsibilities ... The KMT should continue its reform efforts and fight corruption,” Ma said in Pingtung County.
He promised that the KMT would not own any businesses if he was elected and that it would play an assistant’s role in helping implement government policies.
When asked to comment on the Ministry of National Defense’s anti-corruption efforts, Ma said he had ordered the ministry to get to the bottom of the alleged corruption to restore public confidence.
The ministry released a report earlier this month that said 142 employees were suspected of graft or bribery and would be referred to military prosecutors for investigation.
Ma said he would review the progress of the investigations every three months.
“By doing so, I believe all the people will know our determination to fight corruption,” he said.
The ministry was studying the possibility of establishing government ethics agencies to prevent corruption, Ma said.
He also expressed his support for the Ministry of Justice to regulate the conduct of political critics in the media, but said solid proof should be presented if such individuals were to be investigated.
Ma visited Pingtung, Kaohsiung City, Kaohsiung County, Tainan City, Tainan County, Chiayi County and Chiayi City yesterday.
In Kaohsiung City, Ma promised to attend the opening ceremony of the World Games on Thursday.
He also reiterated his hope of communicating with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and extended an invitation to DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) for talks. He promised to seek cross-party cooperation with the DPP if elected.
Ma is scheduled to give eight more platform presentation meetings in central Taiwan on Saturday, and then visit Penghu, Matsu and Kinmen on Sunday.
The Presidential Office said Ma would only campaign on weekends and after working hours, and would pay for all his campaigning expenses to ensure no national resources are used.
It said no Presidential Office staffers would accompany him on campaign events.
The KMT election will be held on July 26.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS