Little more than a month after taking the fall for the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) worst ever poll defeat, Su Tseng-chang's (蘇貞昌) appointment as the new premier is testament to the popularity of a man tipped to run for president in 2008.
Eloquent, vibrant and aggressive, the 59-year-old is a former human-rights lawyer and popular co-founder of the DPP.
Nicknamed "light bulb" because of his small stature and lack of hair, Su graduated from National Taiwan University and worked as a lawyer for 10 years.
Like President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and outgoing premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), who resigned on Tuesday to take responsibility for the party's crushing defeat in last month's local elections, his move into politics was a reaction to a violent pro-democracy rally in 1979.
In the "Kaohsiung Incident," thousands took to the streets of Kaohsiung to demand greater political freedoms in the first public expression of dissent against the then Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
Hundreds of people, including 140 policemen, were injured in clashes between police and protesters and scores of opposition leaders, including Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), were rounded up and jailed.
Motivated by the injustices, Su began defending dissidents charged with treason before deciding to throw himself into politics. In 1981 he was elected to the now defunct Taiwan Provincial Council and re-elected four years later.
Su helped found the DPP in 1986 in defiance of a ban on new parties imposed by the KMT, which ended its half-century rule in Taiwan after the DPP won the presidency in 2000.
Su, a father of three, was elected as commissioner of Pingtung County in 1989, but failed to get re-elected in controversial polls four years later. He won a seat in the legislature in 1995 and became commissioner of Taipei County, the largest district in Taiwan, in 1997. He was re-elected in 2001.
Su was chosen to be Presidential Office's general-secretary in 2004 and was elected party chairman the following year. He resigned last month.
Su's popularity within the party has not wavered, as many felt he should not have taken the blame for the election defeat.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
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‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
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