President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and former premier William Lai (賴清德) yesterday faced off in a televised platform presentation as part of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential primary, with Tsai again urging Lai to join her as her running mate and Lai calling on Tsai to “pass the baton.”
The presentation comprised of three sections in which the two elaborated on their primary bids, answered questions from three panelists and gave concluding remarks.
Lai was the first to speak, as determined by a draw conducted at a meeting on Monday.
Photo courtesy of the Democratic Progressive Party
The DPP is at its most difficult moment and the nation at its most precarious stage, so if the party lost the government, it could cost the nation its sovereignty, he said.
Therefore, he decided to participate in the primary driven by his passion for the nation and in the hope of ensuring a bright future for it, Lai said.
Taiwan is a democracy in which the transition of political power is decided by the people, so allegations that he had staged a “coup” or an “ambush” against Tsai were baseless, he said.
While he does not think that the DPP’s governance over the past three years has been a failure, its landslide defeats in last year’s local elections signaled that people are no longer willing to wait eight years before passing their judgement on a government’s performance, Lai said.
He urged the party to stand up to the test voters had put it to and show the wisdom of running a “relay race.”
If elected president, he would steadfastly reject the “one country, two systems” framework that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) seeks to impose on the nation, and develop the nation’s defense capabilities and conduct military exchanges with the US to ensure that Taiwan retains its advantageous position in the first island chain, Lai said.
He would establish a ministry of homeland security and push for an anti-infiltration law to address the issue of Chinese flags becoming “ubiquitous” on the streets of Taiwan, he added.
Lai said that he would seek to improve mutual understanding on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and extend the nation’s goodwill toward China on the premise that Taiwan is a sovereign and independent nation.
He would also push for judicial reform; give young people a future by making Taiwan a Chinese-English bilingual nation, thereby boosting their competitiveness at work; implement experimental education and cultivate teacher-student partnerships in vocational education; introduce a grace period in which student loans need not be repaid; and raise property taxes on people owning at least three homes, he said.
Tsai compared her governance to a construction project and said that not only does she have a blueprint, but she is already on the way to erecting the building.
Taiwan’s partnerships with other nations have become ever closer since she took office, Tsai said, citing the renaming of the Taiwan Council for US Affairs and the Taiwan-Japan Relations Association.
Taiwan is no longer a “troublemaker” in the international community, but a “good partner” and a positive force that helps to maintain regional peace, she said.
She has never willingly compromised the nation’s sovereignty under international pressure, Tsai said.
Domestically, she has withstood pressure when pushing policies to pursue transitional justice; implement pension reforms for civil servants, public-school teachers and military personnel; and abolish the 18 percent preferential interest rate for civil servants, she said.
She has launched a project to domestically build submarines — something her predecessors wanted to do, but could not, Tsai said.
Other reforms she had set in motion include energy transformation and the “five plus two” industrial transformation initiative, with the latter having propelled the value of the nation’s machinery and Internet of Things sectors past the NT$1 trillion (US$31.83 billion) mark, she said.
“Brother Ching-te [Lai’s Chinese name], please refrain from saying: ‘Only I can win 2020.’ The truth is one plus one will definitely be greater than two,” Tsai said in her closing remarks.
“Let us work together for the sake of uniting the DPP and winning the election, which is greater than the two of us,” she added.
Lai, in his concluding remarks, said it is important that who represents the first “one” in the equation Tsai cited.
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