Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Acting Chairperson Huang Min-hui (黃敏惠), who is hoping to be elected chairperson, yesterday said that there is no need to change the party name to reverse its fortunes.
Huang, who announced her bid on Wednesday, when former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) declared he would stay out of the race, yesterday reiterated that her decision to run was prompted by public expectations of party reform and has nothing to do with rumors that plans were afoot to block outgoing Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) from the position.
When asked whether the KMT should remove “China” from its name, Huang said: “A name change would not alter its fate,” referring to the practice of changing characters in a name to reverse fortunes.
Photo: CNA
“The name has a history. It is a nation-founding political party, establishing the Republic of China. The party was founded by Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) and revolutionary martyrs to achieve democracy, freedom and equality,” she said. “The spirit is long-standing, universal and should be maintained by all of us.”
“All I have to say is, the Chinese Nationalist Party is the Republic of China Nationalist Party,” she said.
Separately yesterday, Chen Ming-yih (陳明義), a former New Taipei City councilor who announced his chairperson bid on Thursday, dropped out of the race, attributing his withdrawal to the party’s “obscure” and “illusory” intra-party election procedures.
After hearing many calls from friends and comrades for party reform and for him to act, “I picked up the [registration] form and paid the [NT$1.6 million, US$47,958] fee after persuading my wife and without my mom knowing,” Chen wrote on Facebook yesterday.
“Huang joining the race unexpectedly, Hau’s decision not to run, the obscure party member name list and the illusory signature-collecting regulations all smacked of risk and fickleness,” he said.
“Within only 24 hours, political allies who had been enthusiastic have descended into silence and those who had promised to endure the party’s misery have revealed that they are in a bind,” he said. “The focus of the election has become local versus non-local and pro-Hung versus anti-Hung.”
Chen said he decided not to run “to avoid putting [his] allies in a dilemma and to keep his family from worry.”
On Thursday, he said that after he paid the fee, he received a disk containing information about party members and a pad of forms to collect signatures, but the disk had only dozens of telephone numbers without the members’ names.
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
RSS