Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday made a surprise appearance at a public event also attended by KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), fueling the speculation that there is friction between the two over the party chairmanship election.
Hau, 64, the son of former premier and army general Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), on Saturday announced on Facebook that he will run in the chairmanship election on May 20.
Hau’s office yesterday announced that he would attend an event hosted by the Blue Creek Society the same day, while the KMT Cultural and Communications Committee said Hung had no scheduled public appearances for the day.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
However, Hung arrived ahead of the event while Hau was speaking with reporters.
It was the second time in less than a month that Hung showed up unannounced at a public event attended by Hau. Hau was hosting a news conference on Dec. 21 last year on the government’s plan to lift a ban on food imports from five Japanese prefectures, when Hung showed up unannounced.
The society is founded by veterans and has strong ties with the KMT’s Huang Fu-hsing (黃復興)comprised of veterans and their relatives.
Meanwhile, Hau yesterday said that if he is elected KMT chairman he will not run for president or any other position.
The party leader should lead the fight for “the KMT’s survival,” instead of having everyone fight for “their next position,” Hau wrote in a separate Facebook post yesterday.
“Only by promising not to use the chairmanship as a springboard to the next position can a leader be trusted to be selfless within the party,” he said.
In Saturday’s Facebook post, Hau said that the party, with “glorious days in the past century,” suffered a drubbing in the 2014 nine-in-one elections as well as last year’s presidential and legislative elections, which made him engage in soul-searching about the party’s fate.
He said that over the past two years, he has been hoping and waiting for a party leader to galvanize the disintegrating party, a leader who would make “selflessness” and “devotion” their mission and put the interests of the nation and the party above their own considerations.
Hau said he admired Hung for leading the party during its most difficult time, but added that he has also seen the party “on a downhill course.”
“I began to think, rather than wait, it is better to rise up and take action,” he said.
Former vice president Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) on Friday said that many party members have high expectations of him and have encouraged him “to take on responsibility at this difficult time for the KMT.”
If Wu decides to run, it will likely be a three-way election given that Hung has already announced that she will seek re-election.
SEND A MESSAGE: Sinking the amphibious assault ship, the lead warship of its class, is meant to show China the US Navy is capable of sinking their ships, an analyst said The US and allied navies plan to sink a 40,000-tonne ship at the latest Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise to simulate defeating a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan. This year’s RIMPAC — the 29th iteration of the world’s largest naval exercise — involves the US, 28 partners, more than 25,000 personnel, 40 warships, three submarines and more than 150 aircraft operating in and around Hawaii from yesterday to Aug. 1, the US Navy said in a press release. The major components of the event include multidomain warfare exercises in multiship surface engagements, anti-submarine warfare and multi-axis defense of a carrier strike
Passengers aboard Korean Airlines Flight KE189 arrived in Taichung safely yesterday after a scare the previous day encountering uncontrolled decompression, which injured 13 passengers. Flight KE189 departed from Incheon at 4:45pm on Saturday bound for Taichung with 125 passengers on board. The flight was above Jeju Island when a fault in the pressurization system occurred 50 minutes after takeoff. Online flight tracker Flightradar24’s data show that the plane dropped more than 8,000 meters within 15 minutes, before it returned and landed back at Incheon Airport at 19:38pm. Thirteen passengers on board had a headache or earache due to the incident and were hospitalized. A different
China might seek to isolate Taiwan and weaken its economy through a “quarantine,” which would make it difficult for the US to respond and force Taipei to negotiate on unification, CNN reported on Saturday. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “increasingly bellicose actions” toward Taiwan have heightened concerns that Beijing would use its military against Taiwan, it said, citing a report by think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). However, China might choose to initiate a quarantine, rather than a military invasion of Taiwan, to avoid US involvement, it said. “A quarantine [is] a law enforcement-led operation to control
A new message broadcast on the Taipei MRT’s Wenhu (Brown) Line urging passengers to yield their seats to those in need, not necessarily elderly people, would be extended to other MRT lines and public transportation in the capital, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday. Chiang was responding to reporters’ questions on the sidelines of a news conference at Taipei City Hall promoting healthy walking. Several disputes over priority seats on public transportation have recently been reported, sparking debate about who qualifies to sit in them, as most of the cases involved elderly people asking young people to give up their