Independent Taipei mayor-elect Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday announced that former New Taipei City Environmental Protection Department director Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基) is to serve as one of his deputy mayors when he is sworn in later this month.
“The first deputy mayor will be Teng, who was recommended by [Ko’s executive campaign director] Yao Li-ming (姚立明),” Ko said. “Teng has served as a [Taipei] city councilor, so he will be able to help me negotiate with councilors from the pan-blue camp. Teng is also an expert in environmental protection.”
The Taipei City Government has three deputy mayor posts.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Ko said that he never had any trouble sleeping during the campaign, but he could not fall asleep on Saturday night after his victory was confirmed.
“I could not fall asleep thinking about all the things I have to take care of now,” Ko said.
Teng confirmed later yesterday that he had accepted Ko’s invitation to serve as a deputy mayor.
He said that, having served as a Taipei city councilor affiliated with the New Party, he would work to be a bridge between the city council and the city government.
“I will discuss policies from the city government with councilors, and they can forward the needs of their respective constituencies to the city government through me,” Teng said.
“I think we will have good communication,” he added.
Separately, when speaking with the media yesterday, Yao said that besides Teng, Ko is “hunting” for people to take the other two deputy mayor posts.
“Ko is also seeking advice from Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on a candidate for deputy mayor from the pan-green camp who could help to facilitate communication between the city government and pan-green city councilors,” Yao said.
Yao said he believes the most difficult part of the job for Ko will be to communicate with the city council and the central government, “but I am confident he can do a very good job, since he was able to manage a campaign team with hundreds of people from different backgrounds so well.”
Yao also compared the campaign strategies used by Ko with those of his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei rival Sean Lien (連勝文), saying that Lien lost because he picked the wrong campaign direction.
“From the beginning, we wanted to have a campaign that was beyond the pan-blue, pan-green political divide, but Lien’s camp wanted a campaign based on that division,” Yao said.
“Lien’s camp tried to lure us into their battle, and we tried to stay out of one,” he added.
However, Yao admitted that Ko’s campaign got sucked into the conflict when the Lien camp accused Ko of money laundering through National Taiwan University Hospital account MG149.
“We put many resources into vindicating Ko, but then I realized it was a trap and decided to pull out,” Yao said. “That is why we later downplayed it and continued with our parades and carnivals, especially when our poll results from mid-October onward showed we were steadily extending our lead.”
As for the issue of leaking information, Yao said that Ko tried to ascertain the source of the leak in his office by handing five different documents to different groups of people suspected of being informants.
“We then knew which group of people leaked the information,” Yao said.
From that point on, Ko’s campaign avoided handing classified information to the suspected leakers — unless they meant to pass on false information to the rival camp, he said.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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