Kinmen County residents yesterday voted against legalizing gambling in the outlying county.
The referendum question, formulated by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Kinmen County Councilor Tsai Chun-sheng (蔡春生), asked Kinmen residents whether they supported establishing an “international holiday resort complex” with 5 percent of its space designated for gambling.
Results released by the Kinmen County Election Commission at about 6pm yesterday showed that turnout was 24.17 percent among 114,426 eligible voters, with 24,368, or 90.01 percent, voting “No,” and 2,705, or 9.99 percent, voting “Yes.”
Photo: Wu Cheng-ting, Taipei Times
The polls were open from 8am until 4pm.
An additional 589 null votes were also cast, the commission said.
Kinmen County Commissioner Chen Fu-hai (陳福海) and KMT Legislator Yang Chen-wu (楊鎮浯), whose constituency is in Kinmen, both cast a “No” vote.
Speaking to reporters after casting his ballot, Chen said that the question of whether to build casinos in Kinmen showed that the county’s growth had reached a bottleneck.
He called on governments on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to place more emphasis on Kinmen’s development.
“Gambling is not the only option for Kinmen,” he said, adding that the county, as the nation’s outpost, has an abundance of relics dating back to the Chinese Civil War and traditional Minnan-style buildings and rustic attractions.
Yang said he was “glad” about the outcome, which demonstrated the residents’ “collective wisdom.”
“It showed that Kinmen folks were thinking about development in the long term, instead of being shortsighted and allowing themselves to be lured by profits close at hand,” Yang said.
Alliance Against the Legalization of Gambling executive director Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) said that there were three contributing factors to the outcome.
First, civic awareness in Kinmen has grown in recent years and many residents that are not members of groups opposed to gambling have been campaigning against casinos by making and distributing promotional tools, Ho said.
Second, Kinmen’s demography is mostly comprised of civil servants, giving it a more conservative social setting that is unfavorable to gambling, he said.
China, which has been unequivocal in opposing gambling, also played a role in the outcome, he said.
The Xiamen Daily on the eve of the referendum published an opinion piece by the Chinese government criticizing gambling, which could have had an effect on voters, he said.
In addition, many young Kinmen residents are worried about casinos driving up house prices, Ho said.
The referendum outcome indicates that neither the pan-green nor the pan-blue camp welcomes gambling, Ho said, calling on the Democratic Progressive Party administration to abolish Article 10-2 of the Offshore Islands Development Act (離島建設條例), which governs the establishment of casinos, to free outlying islands from the “threat” of such referendums.
Additional reporting by Sean Lin
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS