A national policy adviser to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said on Friday that a Su-Tsai ticket, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and Vice Premier Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), to represent the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the 2008 presidential election is already taking shape.
Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), the editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly Magazine, made the remarks while giving a briefing on Taiwan's political situation to Taiwanese expatriates in the greater Washington area after attending the annual Congressional National Prayer Breakfast the previous day.
Chin said that both Chen's New Year and Lunar New Year speech were aimed at paving the way for the Su-Tsai ticket to win the election. Both messages have raised widespread concern in the US.
Chin said that as far as he knows, the president did not make the remarks "on a whim," but instead contemplated them for quite some time. Examination Yuan President Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文) called on the president before his Lunar New Year speech, conveying to the president a resolution to scrap the National Unification Council and unification guidelines passed in a meeting of the World Taiwanese Congress, an organization formed by pro-Taiwan independence groups in the US, in December 2000.
Chin said that the president's two speeches "were a response to his core supporters."
He said that the DPP suffered a major setback in last December's elections because it lost many of its "core supporters" by trying to court middle-of-the-road voters.
"The core supporters ended up not voting because they thought Chen was not being loyal to them and they wanted to teach the party a lesson," Chin claimed.
The lesson the DPP learned from its drubbing in the elections is that it has to solidify support among its core supporters and then expand to the middle-of-the-road voters. If it continues to ignore its core supporters while tilting toward the middle-of-the-road voters, it risks losing both sets, Chin said.
He added that in Taiwan, where the pan-green camp and the opposition pan-blue camp are so clearly divided, the middle-of-the-road voters could be the most apathetic toward politics and therefore the least likely to cast their votes.
Such voters tend to vote for candidates that have the better chance of winning, and they usually vote for specific candidates rather than particular parties.
"Even if you have done your best to woo them, the effect could be minimal," Chin continued.
With two years remaining in Chen's second and final term, Chin said that Chen's paramount task will be to ensure that the DPP continues to rule the nation, which he called "an extremely tough challenge" for the president.
For this reason, when Chen was thinking about the possible candidates to head the new Cabinet, he had to choose whether the new premier would be an executive director to him or his successor in 2008, and he chose the latter, Chin claimed.
Chen's New Year message and Lunar New Year speech were in fact a response to core supporters, Chin said. "He wanted to ensure the core supporters would remain loyal before releasing power to give Su's Cabinet room to shine and use Su's political performance to expand the party's support base," Chin observed.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as
RSS