Eric Chu (朱立倫) yesterday assumed the mayorship of New Taipei City (新北市, the proposed English name of the upgraded Taipei County) and proclaimed the end of Taipei County and the arrival of “the beginning of a new age.”
“Today marks the beginning of the new age in which New Taipei City will compete with the four other special municipalities in the country,” he said during the swearing-in ceremony.
“There will not be any holidays during my four-year term. Every day will be a workday as we strive for the development of New Taipei City,” he added.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) presided over the swearing-in ceremony and handed Chu the official seal.
Expounding on his administrative principles, Chu said the relationships between the city government and its residents, and the city government and the central government, will be relationships of partnership “in which [the city] will push for all kinds of development to create a win-win situation.”
Chu’s campaign platform included an aggressive plan to extend the MRT system, creating 10 new lines, including three circular networks. He has also promised New Taipei City residents that by 2020, construction would either have started or be completed on 80 new stations and 100km of new tracks.
During Chu’s inaugural ceremony, Amis Aborigines from the Sanying Aboriginal Community along Dahan River (大漢溪) were blocked by police as they attempted to petition the mayor.
Buses carrying the Aborigines were stopped blocks away from city hall, and they were not allowed to go near the event until after the mayor left.
Chu’s election as mayor has worried many Aboriginal communities along rivers in New Taipei City because he has a record of demolishing riverside Aboriginal communities since his tenure as Taoyuan County commissioner.
Meanwhile, the new special municipality has still not figured out what to call itself in English.
On Monday Chu announced that the city shall henceforth be known in English as “New Taipei City” because Sinbei means “new Taipei” in Chinese.
However, the move has been blocked by the Ministry of the Interior for the time being, as Deputy Minister of the Interior Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) said the ministry would discuss the proposal with Chu at a later date.
Additional reporting by Loa Iok-sin
Civil society groups yesterday protested outside the Legislative Yuan, decrying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) efforts to pass three major bills that they said would seriously harm Taiwan’s democracy, and called to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). It was the second night of the three-day “Bluebird wintertime action” protests in Taipei, with organizers announcing that 8,000 people attended. Organized by Taiwan Citizen Front, the Economic Democracy Union (EDU) and a coalition of civil groups, about 6,000 people began a demonstration in front of KMT party headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, organizers said. For the third day, the organizers asked people to assemble
POOR IMPLEMENTATION: Teachers welcomed the suspension, saying that the scheme disrupted school schedules, quality of learning and the milk market A policy to offer free milk to all school-age children nationwide is to be suspended next year due to multiple problems arising from implementation of the policy, the Executive Yuan announced yesterday. The policy was designed to increase the calcium intake of school-age children in Taiwan by drinking milk, as more than 80 percent drink less than 240ml per day. The recommended amount is 480ml. It was also implemented to help Taiwanese dairy farmers counter competition from fresh milk produced in New Zealand, which is to be imported to Taiwan tariff-free next year when the Agreement Between New Zealand and
A woman who allegedly spiked the food and drinks of an Australian man with rat poison, leaving him in intensive care, has been charged with attempted murder, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. The woman, identified by her surname Yang (楊), is accused of repeatedly poisoning Alex Shorey over the course of several months last year to prevent the Australian man from leaving Taiwan, prosecutors said in a statement. Shorey was evacuated back to Australia on May 3 last year after being admitted to intensive care in Taiwan. According to prosecutors, Yang put bromadiolone, a rodenticide that prevents blood from
China is likely to focus on its economy over the next four years and not set a timetable for attempting to annex Taiwan, a researcher at Beijing’s Tsinghua University wrote in an article published in Foreign Affairs magazine on Friday. In the article titled “Why China isn’t scared of Trump: US-Chinese tensions may rise, but his isolationism will help Beijing,” Chinese international studies researcher Yan Xuetong (閻學通) wrote that the US and China are unlikely to go to war over Taiwan in the next four years under US president-elect Donald Trump. While economic and military tensions between the US and China would
RSS